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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.1
5
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6* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
7 it understands register description.
8
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9* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
10
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11* X86 general purpose registers
12
13 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
14 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
15 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
16 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
17 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
18
95a42b64 19* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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20 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
21 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
22 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
23 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
24 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 25
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26* Python scripting
27
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28** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
29 tables, and frame's code blocks.
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30
31** New methods gdb.target_charset and gdb.target_wide_charset.
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33* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
34there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
35tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
36regular breakpoints.
37
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38* New targets
39
40ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
41
bfbf3774 42*** Changes in GDB 7.1
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44* C++ Improvements
45
46 ** Namespace Support
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47
48 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
49 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
50 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
51 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
52 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
53
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54 ** Bug Fixes
55
56 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
57 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
58 qualified name.
59
60 ** Cast Operators
61
62 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
63 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
64
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65* New targets
66
67Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 68Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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69
70* New Simulators
71
72Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 73Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 74
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75* Multi-program debugging.
76
77 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
78 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
79 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
80 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
81 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
82 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
83 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
84 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
85
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86* New tracing features
87
88 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
89
90 ** Trace state variables
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91
92 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
93 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
94 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
95 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
96 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
97 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
98 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
99 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
100 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
101 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 102
d5551862 103 ** Fast tracepoints
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104
105 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
106 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
107 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
108 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
109 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
110 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
111 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
112 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
113 the regular trace command.
114
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115 ** Disconnected tracing
116
117 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
118 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
119 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
120 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
121 connection is lost unexpectedly.
122
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123 ** Trace files
124
125 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
126 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
127 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
128 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
129 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
130 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
131 <name>".
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132
133 ** Circular trace buffer
134
135 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
136 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
137 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
138 not be available for all target agents.
139
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140* Changed commands
141
142disassemble
143 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
144 the arguments to be comma-separated.
145
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146info variables
147 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
148 which only declare a variable are not shown.
149
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150source
151 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
152 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
153 support.
154
155 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
156 "set script-extension" (see below).
157
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158* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
159
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160record save [<FILENAME>]
161 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
162 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
163
164record restore <FILENAME>
165 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
166 earlier time, for replay debugging.
167
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168add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
169 Add a new inferior.
170
171clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
172 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
173 inferior has loaded.
174
175remove-inferior ID
176 Remove an inferior.
177
178maint info program-spaces
179 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
180
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181set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
182show remote interrupt-sequence
183 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
184 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
185 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
186 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
187 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
188
189set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
190show remote interrupt-on-connect
191 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
192 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
193 Linux kernel.
194
195set remotebreak [on | off]
196show remotebreak
197Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
198
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199tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
200 Create or modify a trace state variable.
201
202info tvariables
203 List trace state variables and their values.
204
205delete tvariable $NAME ...
206 Delete one or more trace state variables.
207
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208teval EXPR, ...
209 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
210 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
211
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212ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
213 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
214
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215* New expression syntax
216
217 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
218 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
219
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220* New options
221
222set follow-exec-mode new|same
223show follow-exec-mode
224 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
225 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
226 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
227
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228set default-collect EXPR, ...
229show default-collect
230 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
231 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
232 such as registers or a critical global variable.
233
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234set disconnected-tracing
235show disconnected-tracing
236 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
237 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
238 upon disconnection.
239
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240set circular-trace-buffer
241show circular-trace-buffer
242 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
243 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
244 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
245 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
246
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247set script-extension off|soft|strict
248show script-extension
249 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
250 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
251 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
252 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
253 evaluation failed.
254 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
255
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256set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
257show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
258 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
259 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
260 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
261 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
262 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
263 is on.
264
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265* Python API Improvements
266
267 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
268 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
269 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
270
271 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
272 `is_base_class' attribute.
273
274 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
275
276 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
277 evaluate an expression.
278
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279* New remote packets
280
281QTDV
282 Define a trace state variable.
283
284qTV
285 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
286
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287QTDisconnected
288 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
289
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290QTBuffer:circular
291 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
292
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293qTfP, qTsP
294 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
295
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296* Bug fixes
297
298Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
299
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300Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
301much more reliable. In particular:
302 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
303 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
304 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
305 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
306 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
307 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
308 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
309 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
310 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
311 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
312 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
313 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
314 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
315 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
316 non-threaded programs.
317
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318PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
319This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
320libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
321executable program.
322
abc7453d 323*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 324
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325* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
326dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
327them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
328for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
329"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
330
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331* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
332breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
333or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
334the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
335for tracepoint actions.
336
e6158f16 337* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
7280022e 338in hex as well as in symbolic form.
e6158f16 339
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340* Process record and replay
341
342 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
343 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
344 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
345 execute commands.
346
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347* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
348step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
349set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
350reverse execution.
351
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352* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
353feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
3542.6.28 or later.
355
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356* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
357target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
358char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
359literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
360U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
361`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
362system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
363the installation instructions for more information.
364
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365* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
366remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
367with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
368the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
369
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370* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
371and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
372
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373* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
374now complete on file names.
375
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376* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
377completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
378For instance, consider:
379
380 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
381 # struct example variable;
382 (gdb) p variable.
383
384If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
385completions will be "f1" and "f2".
386
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387* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
388the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
389
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390* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
391operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
392macros.
393
47a3467a 394* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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395the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
396implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
397
398* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
399registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
400can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
401and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 402
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403* New remote packets
404
405qSearch:memory:
406 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
407
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408QStartNoAckMode
409 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
410 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
411 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
412
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413vKill
414 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
415 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
416
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417qXfer:osdata:read
418 Obtains additional operating system information
419
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420qXfer:siginfo:read
421qXfer:siginfo:write
422 Read or write additional signal information.
423
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424* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
425
426 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
427 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
428 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
429
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430* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
431source+assembly.
432
c055b101 433* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 434DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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435
436* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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437and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
438`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 439
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440* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
441with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
442
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443* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
444
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445* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
446
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447* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
448which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
449
1fddbabb 450* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 451list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 452
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453* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
454conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
455have also been fixed.
456
bfb8797a 457* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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458From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
459are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 460
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461* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
462example, given:
463
464 template<typename T> class C { };
465 C<char const *> c;
466
467GDB will now correctly handle all of:
468
469 ptype C<char const *>
470 ptype C<char const*>
471 ptype C<const char *>
472 ptype C<const char*>
473
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474* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
475
476 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
477 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
478
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479 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
480 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
481 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
482
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483 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
484 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
485
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486 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
487 gdbserver.
488
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489 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
490 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
491
492 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
493 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
494 as appropriate.
495
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496* Python scripting
497
498 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
499 available is determined at configure time.
500
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501 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
502
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503* Ada tasking support
504
505 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
506 been introduced:
507
508 info tasks
509 Print the list of Ada tasks.
510 info task N
511 Print detailed information about task number N.
512 task
513 Print the task number of the current task.
514 task N
515 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
516
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517* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
518add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
519
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520* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
521
522 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
523 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
524 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
525 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
526 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
527 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
528 below.
529
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530* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
531"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
532information.
533
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534* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
535to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
536architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
537See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
538more information.
539
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540* Multi-architecture debugging.
541
542 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
543 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
544 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
545 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
546 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
547
548* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
549use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
550Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
551powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
552--enable-targets configure option.
553
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554* Non-stop mode debugging.
555
556 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
557 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
558 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
559 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
560 section in the user manual for more information.
561
562 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
563 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
564 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
565 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
566 extensions on linux targets.
567
d7713ae0 568* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 569
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570catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
571 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
572 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
573 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
574 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
575 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
576 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
577 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
578 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
579
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580find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
581 val1 [, val2, ...]
582 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
583
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584maint set python print-stack
585maint show python print-stack
586 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
587
588python [CODE]
589 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
590
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591macro define
592macro list
593macro undef
594 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
595 interactively.
596
597info os processes
598 Show operating system information about processes.
599
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600info inferiors
601 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
602
603inferior NUM
604 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
605
606detach inferior NUM
607 Detach from inferior number NUM.
608
609kill inferior NUM
610 Kill inferior number NUM.
611
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612* New options
613
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614set spu stop-on-load
615show spu stop-on-load
616 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
617
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618set spu auto-flush-cache
619show spu auto-flush-cache
620 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
621 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
622
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623set sh calling-convention
624show sh calling-convention
625 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
626
e0a3ce09 627set debug timestamp
75feb17d 628show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
629 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
630
631set disassemble-next-line
632show disassemble-next-line
633 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
634 the debuggee stops.
635
636set remote noack-packet
637show remote noack-packet
638 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
639 under "New remote packets."
640
641set remote query-attached-packet
642show remote query-attached-packet
643 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
644
645set remote read-siginfo-object
646show remote read-siginfo-object
647 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
648 packet.
649
650set remote write-siginfo-object
651show remote write-siginfo-object
652 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
653 packet.
654
40ab02ce
MS
655set remote reverse-continue
656show remote reverse-continue
657 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
658
659set remote reverse-step
660show remote reverse-step
661 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
662
d7713ae0
EZ
663set displaced-stepping
664show displaced-stepping
665 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
666 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
667 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
668
669set debug displaced
670show debug displaced
671 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
672
673maint set internal-error
674maint show internal-error
675 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
676
677maint set internal-warning
678maint show internal-warning
679 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 680
ccd213ac
DJ
681set exec-wrapper
682show exec-wrapper
683unset exec-wrapper
684 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 685
aad4b048
JB
686set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
687show multiple-symbols
688 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
689 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
690 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
691
74960c60
VP
692set breakpoint always-inserted
693show breakpoint always-inserted
694 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
695 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
696 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
697
0428b8f5
DJ
698set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
699show arm fallback-mode
700set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
701show arm force-mode
702 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
703 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
704 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
705 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
706
10568435
JK
707set disable-randomization
708show disable-randomization
709 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
710 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
711 multiple debugging sessions.
712
d7713ae0
EZ
713set non-stop
714show non-stop
715 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
716 a breakpoint.
717
b3eb342c 718set target-async
d7713ae0 719show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
720 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
721 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
722 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
723 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
724
6c7a06a3
TT
725set target-wide-charset
726show target-wide-charset
727 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
728 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
729
84603566
SL
730set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
731show tcp auto-retry
732set tcp connect-timeout
733show tcp connect-timeout
734 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
735 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
736 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
737
17a37d48
PP
738set libthread-db-search-path
739show libthread-db-search-path
740 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
741 libthread_db.
742
d4db2f36
PA
743set schedule-multiple (on|off)
744show schedule-multiple
745 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
746 the current process.
747
4e5d721f
DE
748set stack-cache
749show stack-cache
750 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
751 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
752 affecting correctness.
753
910c5da8
JB
754set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
755show interactive-mode
756 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
757 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
758 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
759 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
760 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
761
2277426b
PA
762* Removed commands
763
764info forks
765 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
766 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
767 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
768 command.
769
770fork NUM
771 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
772 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
773 alias for the `fork' command.
774
775process PID
776 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
777 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
778 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
779
780delete fork NUM
781 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
782 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
783 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
784 fork' command.
785
786detach fork NUM
787 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
788 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
789 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
790 fork' command.
791
a80b95ba
TG
792* New native configurations
793
794x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
795
b8bfd3ed
JB
796x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
797
75a2d5e7
TT
798* New targets
799
c28c63d8 800Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 801x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 802x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 803S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 804
6de3146c
PA
805* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
806 (mingw32ce) debugging.
807
d5cbbe6e
JB
808* Removed commands
809
810catch load
811catch unload
812 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
813
75feb17d 814*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 815
af5ca30d
NH
816* New native configurations
817
818NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 819Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
820
821* New targets
822
823NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 824Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 825
7a404eba
PA
826* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
827
828 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
829 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
830 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
831 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
832
430ebac9
PA
833* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
834(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
835
fe6fbf8b 836* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 837is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
838
839* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
840including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
841and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 842
10665d76
JB
843* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
844accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
845more than one contiguous range of addresses.
846
7cc46491
DJ
847* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
848
d71340b8
DJ
849* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
850registers on PowerPC targets.
851
523c4513
DJ
852* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
853targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
854
a6b151f1
DJ
855* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
856commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
857
2d717e4f
DJ
858* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
859extended-remote mode.
860
24a836bd 861* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
862The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
863error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
864The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 865
d0c678e6
UW
866* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
867building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
868target architectures.
869
d64a946d
TJB
870* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
871Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
872now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
873stored in two consecutive float registers.
874
ee163bf5
VP
875* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
876breakpoints now.
877
b93b6ca7 878* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
879Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
880include:
b93b6ca7
JB
881 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
882 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
883 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
884 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
885 of an assignment
886 - Improved command completion in Ada
887 - Several bug fixes
888
d001be7a
DJ
889* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
890process.
891
a6b151f1
DJ
892* New commands
893
6d53d0af
JB
894set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
895show print frame-arguments
896 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
897 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
898
a6b151f1
DJ
899remote put
900remote get
901remote delete
902 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
903
904* New MI commands
905
906-target-file-put
907-target-file-get
908-target-file-delete
909 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
910
911* New remote packets
912
913vFile:open:
914vFile:close:
915vFile:pread:
916vFile:pwrite:
917vFile:unlink:
918 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 919
2d717e4f
DJ
920vAttach
921 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
922 mode.
923
924vRun
925 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
926
8d5f9c6f 927*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 928
19d378fc
MS
929* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
930bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
931Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
932
3a40aaa0
UW
933* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
934symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
935-Bsymbolic linker option.
936
a6ec25f2
BW
937* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
938recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
939is not supported.
940
6dd09645
JB
941* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
942frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
943
c9bb8148
DJ
944* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
94532-bit or 64-bit register values.
946
0d5de010
DJ
947* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
948
23181151
DJ
949* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
950target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
951a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
952
ea37ba09
DJ
953* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
954automatically displayed as character or string data.
955
956* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
957arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
958as strings.
e1f48ead 959
123dc839
DJ
960* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
961for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 962only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 963
05a4558a
DJ
964* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
965iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 966
7c963485
PA
967* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
968ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
969has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
970
b18be20d
DJ
971* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
972
0ca420ce
UW
973* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
974
31d99776
DJ
975* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
976layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
977segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
978
a4642986
MR
979* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
980immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
981
cfa9d6d9
DJ
982* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
983"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
984packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
985where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
986Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
987
988* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
989(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
990
991* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
992according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 993
c9bb8148
DJ
994* New commands
995
23776285
MR
996set remoteflow
997show remoteflow
998 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
999 when debugging using remote targets.
1000
c9bb8148
DJ
1001set mem inaccessible-by-default
1002show mem inaccessible-by-default
1003 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1004 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1005 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1006 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1007 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1008
1009set breakpoint auto-hw
1010show breakpoint auto-hw
1011 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1012 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1013 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1014 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1015 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1016 including "next" and "finish".
1017
0e420bd8
JB
1018catch exception
1019catch exception unhandled
1020 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1021
1022catch assert
1023 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1024
f822c95b
DJ
1025set sysroot
1026show sysroot
1027 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1028 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1029 an alias to "set sysroot".
1030
83cc5c53
UW
1031info spu
1032 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1033 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1034 architecture.
1035
bd372731
MK
1036* New native configurations
1037
1038OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1039
23181151
DJ
1040set tdesc filename
1041unset tdesc filename
1042show tdesc filename
1043 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1044 not query the target for its built-in description.
1045
c9bb8148
DJ
1046* New targets
1047
54fe9172 1048OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1049MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1050Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1051
6dd09645
JB
1052* New remote packets
1053
1054QPassSignals:
1055 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1056 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1057
23181151
DJ
1058qXfer:features:read:
1059 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1060 features.
6dd09645 1061
83cc5c53
UW
1062qXfer:spu:read:
1063qXfer:spu:write:
1064 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1065 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1066
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1067qXfer:libraries:read:
1068 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1069 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1070 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1071 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1072
483367ee
DJ
1073* Removed targets
1074
1075Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1076
d08950c4
UW
1077alpha*-*-osf1*
1078alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1079d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1080hppa*-*-hiux*
1081i[34567]86-ncr-*
1082i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1083i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1084i[34567]86-*-netware*
1085i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1086i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1087i[34567]86-*-sco*
1088i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1089i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1090i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1091i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1092i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1093i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1094i[34567]86-*-isc*
1095m68*-cisco*-*
1096m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1097mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1098rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1099sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1100
7ce59000
DJ
1101* Other removed features
1102
1103target abug
1104target cpu32bug
1105target est
1106target rom68k
1107
1108 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1109
ea35711c
DJ
1110target hms
1111target e7000
1112target sh3
1113target sh3e
1114
1115 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1116 H8/300.
1117
1118target ocd
1119
1120 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1121 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1122 interfaces.
1123
7ce59000
DJ
1124DWARF 1 support
1125
1126 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1127 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1128
54d61198
DJ
1129Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1130
1131 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1132 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1133 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1134 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1135
ea35711c
DJ
1136MIPS ".pdr" sections
1137
1138 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1139 in debugging information.
1140
1141Scheme support
1142
1143 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1144 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1145
1a69e1e4
DJ
1146set mips stack-arg-size
1147set mips saved-gpreg-size
1148
1149 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1150
6dd09645 1151*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1152
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1153* New targets
1154
1155Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1156Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1157
6aec2e11
DJ
1158* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1159(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1160running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1161
1162* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1163Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1164supported.
1165
17218d91
DJ
1166* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1167broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1168
9ebce043
DJ
1169* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1170stub provides the required support.
1171
7d3d3ece
DJ
1172* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1173longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1174
4f8253f3
JB
1175* New commands
1176
1177set substitute-path
1178unset substitute-path
1179show substitute-path
1180 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1181 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1182 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1183 between compilation and debugging.
1184
9fa66fd7
AS
1185set trace-commands
1186show trace-commands
1187 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1188 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1189 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1190
1f5befc1
DJ
1191* REMOVED features
1192
1193The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1194
2ec3381a
DJ
1195Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1196an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1197
3d00d119
DJ
1198The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1199
be2a5f71
DJ
1200* New remote packets
1201
1202qSupported:
1203 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1204 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1205 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1206 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1207 target.
1208
0876f84a
DJ
1209qXfer:auxv:read:
1210 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1211 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1212
9ebce043
DJ
1213qXfer:memory-map:read:
1214 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1215 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1216
1217vFlashErase:
1218vFlashWrite:
1219vFlashDone:
1220 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1221
0876f84a
DJ
1222* Removed remote packets
1223
1224qPart:auxv:read:
1225 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1226 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1227
e374b601 1228*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1229
96309189
MS
1230* New targets
1231
1232Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1233
1234Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1235
53e5f3cf
AS
1236* New commands
1237
1238init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1239 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1240
ac264b3b
MS
1241The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1242
1243checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1244
1245restart <n> Return the program state to a
1246 previously saved state.
1247
1248info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1249
1250delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1251
1252set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1253 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1254
1255info forks List forks of the user program that
1256 are available to be debugged.
1257
1258fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1259 forks of the user program that are
1260 available to be debugged.
1261
1262delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1263 that are available to be debugged (and
1264 kill the forked process).
1265
1266detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1267 that are available to be debugged (and
1268 allow the process to continue).
1269
3950dc3f
NS
1270* New architecture
1271
1272Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1273
0ea3f30e
DJ
1274* Improved Windows host support
1275
1276GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1277native console support, and remote communications using either
1278network sockets or serial ports.
1279
f79daebb
GM
1280* Improved Modula-2 language support
1281
1282GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1283basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1284pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1285printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1286written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1287GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1288
acab6ab2
MM
1289* REMOVED features
1290
1291The ARM rdi-share module.
1292
f4267320
DJ
1293The Netware NLM debug server.
1294
53e5f3cf 1295*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1296
e0ecbda1
MK
1297* New native configurations
1298
02a677ac 1299OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1300OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1301
d64a6579
KB
1302* New targets
1303
1304Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1305
b33a6190
AS
1306* New command line options
1307
1308--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1309--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1310 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1311--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1312 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1313 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1314 with the --command (-x) option.
1315
11dced61
AC
1316* Deprecated commands removed
1317
1318The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1319removed:
1320
1321 Command Replacement
1322 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1323 othernames set arm disassembler
1324 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1325 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1326 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1327 regs info registers
1328
6fe85783
MK
1329* New BSD user-level threads support
1330
1331It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1332library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1333configurations are:
1334
1335FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1336FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1337OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1338
1339Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1340are not yet supported.
1341
5260ca71
MS
1342* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1343(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1344
e84ecc99
AC
1345* REMOVED configurations and files
1346
1347VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1348Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1349National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1350
31e35378
JB
1351* New "set print array-indexes" command
1352
1353After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1354when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1355behavior.
1356
e85e5c83
MK
1357* VAX floating point support
1358
1359GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1360
d91e9901
AS
1361* User-defined command support
1362
1363In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1364to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1365section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1366
f2cb65ca
MC
1367*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1368
f47b1503
AS
1369* New command line option
1370
1371GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1372debugging.
1373
f2cb65ca
MC
1374* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1375
1376GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1377information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1378by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1379proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1380to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1381
d08c0230
AC
1382* Internationalization
1383
1384When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1385internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1386continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1387
117ea3cf
PH
1388* Ada
1389
1390Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1391implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1392into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1393
d08c0230
AC
1394* New native configurations
1395
1396GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1397
1398* Remote 'p' packet
1399
1400GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1401packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1402
1403* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1404
1405GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1406The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1407features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1408i386 application).
1409
1410GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1411compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1412continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1413configurations:
1414
1415hppa-*-hpux
1416ia64-*-aix
1417mips-*-irix*
1418*-*-lynx
1419mips-*-linux-gnu
1420sds protocol
1421xdr protocol
1422powerpc bdm protocol
1423
1424Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1425made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1426
1427* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1428
1429Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1430been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1431configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1432permanently REMOVED.
1433
1434h8300-*-*
1435mcore-*-*
1436mn10300-*-*
1437ns32k-*-*
1438sh64-*-*
1439v850-*-*
1440
ebb7c577
AC
1441*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1442
1443* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1444
1445When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1446heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1447been fixed.
1448
1449* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1450
1451When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1452fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1453IRIX long double values).
1454
1455* VAX and "next"
1456
1457A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1458command. This problem has been fixed.
1459
860660cb 1460*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1461
0dea2468
AC
1462* Fix for ``many threads''
1463
1464On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1465rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1466error message:
1467
1468 ptrace: No such process.
1469 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1470
1471This problem has been fixed.
1472
2c07db7a
AC
1473* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1474
1475Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1476GDB to dump core).
1477
c23968a2
JB
1478* New ``start'' command.
1479
1480This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1481
71009278
MK
1482* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1483
1484Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1485live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1486platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1487
1488FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1489FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1490NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1491NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1492NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1493OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1494OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1495OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1496OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1497
3c0b7db2
AC
1498* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1499
1500Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1501These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1502of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1503call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1504signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1505
73cc75f3
AC
1506Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1507features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1508include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1509
7243600a
BF
1510* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1511
6f606e1c
MK
1512* New native configurations
1513
97dc871c 1514GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1515OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1516OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1517OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1518OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1519NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1520OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1521
a1b461bf
AC
1522* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1523
1524GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1525The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1526including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1527migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1528compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1529work, was also included.
1530
1531GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1532module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1533
1534h8300-*-*
1535mcore-*-*
1536mn10300-*-*
1537ns32k-*-*
1538sh64-*-*
1539v850-*-*
1540xstormy16-*-*
1541
1542Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1543made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1544
3c7012f5
AC
1545* REMOVED configurations and files
1546
1547Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1548Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1549Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1550Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1551Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1552AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1553Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1554decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1555riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1556sonymips mips-sony-*
1557sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1558
e5fe55f7
AC
1559*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1560
1561* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1562
1563The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1564GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1565command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1566program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1567with GDB".
1568
1569* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1570
1571Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1572libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1573cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1574GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1575shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1576the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1577are created.
1578
1579Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1580
1581* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1582
1583The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1584non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1585compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1586
1587* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1588
1589Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1590wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1591
1592* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1593
1594The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1595permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1596systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1597
1598* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1599
1600Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1601has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1602
1603* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1604
1605GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1606its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1607panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1608
1609* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1610
1611When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1612by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1613not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1614
faae5abe 1615*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1616
9175c9a3
MC
1617* Removed --with-mmalloc
1618
1619Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1620conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1621
3cc87ec0
MK
1622* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1623
1624The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1625the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1626and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1627you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1628
f0424ef6
MK
1629* Revised SPARC target
1630
1631The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1632FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1633support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1634from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1635(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1636
59659be2
ILT
1637* New C++ demangler
1638
1639GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1640names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1641with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1642programs.
1643
9e08b29b
DJ
1644* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1645
1646GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1647arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1648encountered these.
1649
8dfe8985
DC
1650* C++ nested types and namespaces
1651
1652GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1653improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1654is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1655Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1656namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1657"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1658frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1659if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1660GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1661
cced5e27
MK
1662* New native configurations
1663
1664NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1665OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1666OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1667OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1668OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1669
b4b4b794
KI
1670* New debugging protocols
1671
1672M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1673
7989c619
AC
1674* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1675
1676The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1677and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1678tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1679
5994185b
AC
1680* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1681
1682Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1683been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1684configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1685permanently REMOVED.
1686
1687Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1688Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1689Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1690Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1691Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1692AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1693Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1694decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1695riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1696sonymips mips-sony-*
1697sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1698
0ddabb4c
AC
1699* REMOVED configurations and files
1700
1701SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1702SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1703Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1704Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1705H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1706HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1707HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1708HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1709PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1710386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1711Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1712 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1713 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1714SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1715SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1716Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1717Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1718
c7f1390e
DJ
1719*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1720
1fe43d45
AC
1721* Objective-C
1722
1723Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1724integrated into GDB.
1725
e6beb428
AC
1726* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1727
1728DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1729information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1730By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1731backtraces.
1732
1733The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1734have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1735DWARF 2 CFI support.
1736
1737* Hosted file I/O.
1738
1739GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1740file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1741remote protocol documentation for details.
1742
1743* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1744
1745All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1746architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1747to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1748ppc32 on ppc64).
1749
1750* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1751
1752GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1753per-thread variables.
1754
1755* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1756
1757GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1758GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1759
1760* Separate debug info.
1761
1762GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1763automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1764of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1765system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1766and optional debug files.
1767
1768* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1769
1770DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1771describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1772debugger.
1773
1774GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1775for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1776
1777* Java
1778
1779A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1780Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1781considered "useable".
1782
85f8f974
DJ
1783* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1784
1785The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1786commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1787kernel.
1788
0fac0b41
DJ
1789* GDB supports logging output to a file
1790
1791There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1792used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1793
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1794* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1795
1796The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1797disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1798command.
1799
e286caf2 1800* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1801
1802The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1803registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1804
d28f9cdf
DJ
1805* Profiling support
1806
1807A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1808be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1809session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1810"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1811data, for more informative profiling results.
1812
da0f9dcd
AC
1813* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1814
1815The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1816option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1817"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1818
1819Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1820removed.
1821
fb9b6b35
JJ
1822Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1823Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1824Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1825 in a subsequent -var-update.
1826
954a4db8
MK
1827* New native configurations.
1828
1829FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1830
6760f9e6
JB
1831* Multi-arched targets.
1832
b4263afa 1833HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1834Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1835
1b831c93
AC
1836* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1837
1838Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1839been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1840configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1841permanently REMOVED.
1842
8b0e5691 1843Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1844Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1845H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1846HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1847HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1848HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1849PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1850Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1851 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1852 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1853Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1854Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1855
5835abe7
NC
1856* REMOVED configurations and files
1857
1858V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1859Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1860IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1861i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1862i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1863i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1864HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1865 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1866 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1867Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1868Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1869Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1870OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1871I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1872
a094c6fb
AC
1873* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1874
1875The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1876the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1877context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1878address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1879The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1880
299ffc64 1881*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1882
46248966
AC
1883* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1884
1885When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1886`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1887in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1888library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1889shared libs like mad''.
1890
b9d14705 1891* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1892
b9d14705
DJ
1893Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1894the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1895arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1896powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1897
e0e9281e
JB
1898* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1899
1900GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1901and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1902they expand.
1903
dd73b9bb
AC
1904The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1905invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1906
1907The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1908macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1909
e0e9281e
JB
1910Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1911information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1912your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1913information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1914
2250ee0c
CV
1915* Multi-arched targets.
1916
6e3ba3b8
JT
1917DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1918DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1919NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1920National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1921Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1922Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1923
cd9bfe15 1924* New targets.
e33ce519 1925
456f8b9d
DB
1926Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1927
e33ce519 1928
da8ca43d
JT
1929* New native configurations
1930
1931Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1932SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1933MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1934UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1935
cd9bfe15
AC
1936* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1937
1938Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1939been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1940configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1941permanently REMOVED.
1942
92eb23c5 1943Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1944OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1945IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1946Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1947Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1948Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1949i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1950i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1951i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1952HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1953 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1954 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1955I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1956
db034ac5
AC
1957* OBSOLETE languages
1958
1959CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1960
cd9bfe15
AC
1961* REMOVED configurations and files
1962
1963AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1964A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1965AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1966AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1967AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1968
1969testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1970
20f01a46
DH
1971* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1972
1973This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1974commands. The default is 1024.
1975
a5941fbf
MK
1976* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1977
1978Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1979
89743e04
MS
1980* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1981
1982These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1983to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1984from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1985
9fb14e79
JB
1986* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1987
1988The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1989including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1990of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1991
2037aebb
AC
1992*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1993
1994* New targets.
1995
1996Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1997
1998* Bug fixes
1999
2000gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2001mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2002Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2003
2004gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2005dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2006Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2007
2008Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2009Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2010By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2011
2012i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2013avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2014By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2015
37057839 2016*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2017
1a703748
MS
2018* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2019
2020This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2021really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2022In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2023target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2024This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2025(notably embedded) targets.
2026
cefd4ef5
MS
2027* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2028
55241689
AC
2029This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2030process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2031GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2032hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2033
352ed7b4
MS
2034* New command line option
2035
2036GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2037
2038* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2039
2040There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2041command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2042a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2043be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2044open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2045issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2046a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2047it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2048GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2049is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2050
fe419ffc
RE
2051* Changes in ARM configurations.
2052
2053Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2054configuration is fully multi-arch.
2055
eb7cedd9
MK
2056* New native configurations
2057
fe419ffc 2058ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2059x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2060AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2061Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2062
c9f63e6b
CV
2063* New targets
2064
2065Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2066
9b4ff276
AC
2067* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2068
2069Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2070been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2071configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2072permanently REMOVED.
2073
2074AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2075A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2076AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2077AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2078AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2079
b4ceaee6 2080testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2081
e2caac18
AC
2082* REMOVED configurations and files
2083
2084TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2085WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2086PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2087PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2088PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2089Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2090Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2091 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2092SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2093Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2094Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2095ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2096Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2097
c2a727fa
TT
2098* Changes to command line processing
2099
2100The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2101for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2102
467d8519
TT
2103* Changes to key bindings
2104
2105There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2106
7072a954
AC
2107*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2108
2109Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2110
2111Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2112corrupted.
2113
2114Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2115
2116Numerous documentation fixes.
2117
2118Numerous testsuite fixes.
2119
34f47bc4 2120*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2121
2122* New native configurations
2123
2124Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2125x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2126MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2127MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2128ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2129s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2130
bf64bfd6
AC
2131* New targets
2132
def90278 2133Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2134CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2135UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2136
17e78a56 2137* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2138
2139x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2140Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2141Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2142 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2143TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2144WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2145Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2146PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2147PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2148PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2149SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2150Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2151ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2152Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2153
17e78a56
AC
2154stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2155kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2156
7fcca85b
AC
2157Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2158been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2159configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2160permanently REMOVED.
2161
a196c81c 2162* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2163
2164Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2165Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2166Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2167ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2168Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2169ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2170
6d6b80e5 2171* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2172
6d6b80e5 2173GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2174sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2175present.
2176
bf64bfd6
AC
2177* Other news:
2178
e23194cb
EZ
2179* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2180
2181* The MI enabled by default.
2182
2183The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2184revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2185engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2186using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2187which is now deprecated.
2188
2189* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2190
2191GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2192main features are supported:
2193
2194 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2195
2196 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2197 extension;
2198
2199 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2200
2201 - a Pascal expression parser.
2202
2203However, some important features are not yet supported.
2204
2205 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2206
2207 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2208
2209 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2210 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2211
2212 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2213
2214 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2215
2216* Changes in completion.
2217
2218Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2219to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2220users expect at the shell prompt.
2221
2222Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2223`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2224program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2225files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2226be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2227considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2228name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2229
2230`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2231
2232* New platform-independent commands:
2233
2234It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2235hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2236documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2237
2238* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2239
d7275149
MK
2240Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2241revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2242many threads as your system allows you to have.
2243
e23194cb
EZ
2244Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2245
d7275149
MK
2246Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2247multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2248
2249* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2250
2251Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2252
e23194cb
EZ
2253GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2254debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2255supported.)
2256
2257* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2258
2259Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2260breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2261implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2262put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2263and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2264registers.
2265
2266The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2267debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2268watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2269
2270* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2271
2272New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2273the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2274
2275New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2276display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2277IDT.
2278
2279New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2280from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2281New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2282a given linear address.
2283
2284GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2285program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2286which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2287
2288DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2289
6c56c069
EZ
2290It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2291
e23194cb
EZ
2292* Changes in documentation.
2293
2294All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2295Documentation License.
2296
2297Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2298manual.
2299
2300TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2301
2302Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2303manual.
2304
2305The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2306documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2307hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2308
5d6640b1
AC
2309* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2310
2311The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2312``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2313contents of this file.
2314
1a1d8446
AC
2315* gdba.el deleted
2316
2317GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2318
9debab2f 2319*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2320
c63ce875
EZ
2321* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2322
2323Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2324programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2325displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2326greater level of detail.
2327
2328* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2329
2330It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2331bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2332on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2333written.
2334
2335* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2336
2337The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2338necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2339machines ``out of the box''.
2340
2341The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2342possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2343signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2344would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2345interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2346
2347It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2348standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2349even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2350and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2351terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2352
2353The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2354enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2355also works.
2356
2357DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2358GDB.
2359
2360It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2361directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2362times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2363breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2364
ed9a39eb
JM
2365* New native configurations
2366
2367ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2368PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2369
7a292a7a
SS
2370* New targets
2371
96baa820 2372Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2373x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2374PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2375TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2376
085dd6e6
JM
2377* OBSOLETE configurations
2378
2379Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2380Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2381Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2382ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2383Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2384
9debab2f
AC
2385Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2386but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2387these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2388be permanently REMOVED.
2389
5330533d
SS
2390* Gould support removed
2391
2392Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2393
bc9e5bbf
AC
2394* New features for SVR4
2395
2396On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2397without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2398load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2399
2400* Many C++ enhancements
2401
2402C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2403in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2404
adf40b2e
JM
2405* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2406
2407A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2408sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2409with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2410``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2411
2412 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2413 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2414
43e526b9
JM
2415* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2416
2417A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2418expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2419instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2420
2421The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2422added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2423
96baa820
JM
2424* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2425
2426The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2427``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2428include ``set remote P-packet''.
2429
11cf8741
JM
2430* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2431
2432The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2433accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2434``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2435
7876dd43
DB
2436* ``apropos'' command added.
2437
2438The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2439documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2440try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2441
bc9e5bbf
AC
2442* New MI interface
2443
2444A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2445interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2446process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2447"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2448enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2449
2450 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2451
c906108c
SS
2452*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2453
2454* New native configurations
2455
2456HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2457HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2458M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2459
2460* New targets
2461
2462Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2463Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2464Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2465
2466* OBSOLETE configurations
2467
2468Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2469
2470Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2471but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2472these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2473be permanently REMOVED.
2474
2475* ANSI/ISO C
2476
2477As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2478buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2479containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2480use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2481available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2482configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2483information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2484already.
2485
2486* Readline 2.2
2487
2488GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2489
2490* set extension-language
2491
2492You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2493languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2494you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2495 set extension-language .c c++
2496The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2497and their associated languages.
2498
2499* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2500
2501When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2502you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2503PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2504
2505 set processor NAME
2506
2507sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2508following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2509
2510 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2511 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2512 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2513 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2514 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2515 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2516 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2517 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2518 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2519 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2520 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2521
2522At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2523special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2524registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2525only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2526
2527* HP-UX support
2528
2529Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2530more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2531library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2532support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2533for xdb and dbx commands.
2534
2535* Catchpoints
2536
2537HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2538generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2539to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2540
2541This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2542argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2543output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2544
2545* Debugging across forks
2546
2547On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2548in the inferior.
2549
2550* TUI
2551
2552HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2553it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2554configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2555
2556* GDB remote protocol additions
2557
2558A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2559Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2560fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2561allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2562
2563For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2564full 64-bit address. The command
2565
2566 set remoteaddresssize 32
2567
2568can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2569the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2570will be discarded.
2571
2572In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2573command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2574
2575 maint packet heythere
2576
2577sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2578disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2579time.
2580
2581The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2582target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2583downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2584
2585* Tracing can collect general expressions
2586
2587You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2588further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2589doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2590
2591* mask-address variable for Mips
2592
2593For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2594a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2595of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2596
2597* Higher serial baud rates
2598
2599GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2600230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2601to achieve all of these rates.)
2602
2603* i960 simulator
2604
2605The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2606builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2607
2608
2609*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2610
2611* New native configurations
2612
2613Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2614Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2615Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2616PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2617PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2618Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2619Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2620
2621* New targets
2622
2623Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2624Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2625Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2626Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2627MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2628MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2629MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2630Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2631Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2632Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2633NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2634
2635* New debugging protocols
2636
2637ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2638M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2639DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2640PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2641PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2642Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2643
2644* DWARF 2
2645
2646All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2647format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2648information.
2649
2650* Java frontend
2651
2652GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2653only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2654
2655* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2656
2657For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2658loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2659locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2660
2661* Live range splitting
2662
2663GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2664range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2665more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2666
2667* Hurd support
2668
2669GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2670updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2671
2672* ARM Thumb support
2673
2674GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2675instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2676instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2677accordingly.
2678
2679* MIPS16 support
2680
2681GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2682instruction set.
2683
2684* Overlay support
2685
2686GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2687linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2688will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2689control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2690additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2691in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2692
2693* info symbol
2694
2695The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2696the symbol at the specified address.
2697
2698* Trace support
2699
2700The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2701asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2702extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2703includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2704file tracepoint.c for more details.
2705
2706* MIPS simulator
2707
2708Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2709by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2710of most MIPS variants.
2711
2712* Sparc simulator
2713
2714Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2715by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2716Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2717
2718* set architecture
2719
2720For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2721basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2722architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2723the possible architectures.
2724
2725*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2726
2727* New native configurations
2728
2729Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2730M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2731PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2732PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2733PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2734RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2735
2736* New targets
2737
2738ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2739I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2740MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2741MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2742PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2743Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2744Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2745
2746* PowerPC simulator
2747
2748The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2749contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2750PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2751basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2752performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2753
2754* Solaris 2.5
2755
2756GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2757
2758* Windows 95/NT native
2759
2760GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2761To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2762which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2763Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2764ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2765
2766* dont-repeat command
2767
2768If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2769command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2770useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2771extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2772
2773* Send break instead of ^C
2774
2775The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2776rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2777GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2778
2779* Remote protocol timeout
2780
2781The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2782that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2783to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2784
2785* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2786
2787By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2788loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2789stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2790when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2791in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2792
2793Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2794/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2795automatically on hpux10.
2796
2797* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2798
2799Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2800
2801* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2802
2803When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2804may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2805the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2806every character. The default value is 1050.
2807
2808* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2809
2810If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2811a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2812replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2813details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2814remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2815to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2816
2817* Speedups for remote debugging
2818
2819GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2820the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2821and more efficient S-record downloading.
2822
2823* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2824
2825GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2826Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2827
2828*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2829
2830* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2831
2832The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2833can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2834
2835* Remote targets use caching
2836
2837Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2838remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2839it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2840debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2841off' turns the the data cache off.
2842
2843* Remote targets may have threads
2844
2845The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2846in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2847gdb/remote.c for details.
2848
2849* NetROM support
2850
2851If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2852support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2853acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2854write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2855support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2856another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2857sequence is something like
2858
2859 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2860 load <prog>
2861 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2862
2863* Macintosh host
2864
2865GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2866may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2867it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2868available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2869device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2870directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2871scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2872mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2873
2874* Autoconf
2875
2876GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2877but does simplify configuration and building.
2878
2879* hpux10
2880
2881GDB now supports hpux10.
2882
2883*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2884
2885* New native configurations
2886
2887x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2888x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2889NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2890Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2891
2892* New targets
2893
2894A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2895HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2896CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2897PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2898WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2899
2900* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2901
2902GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2903possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2904filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2905the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2906if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2907
2908* Arguments to user-defined commands
2909
2910User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2911Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2912trivial example:
2913define adder
2914 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2915
2916To execute the command use:
2917adder 1 2 3
2918
2919Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2920Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2921use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2922
2923* New `if' and `while' commands
2924
2925This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2926commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2927expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2928execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2929terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2930`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2931if the expression is zero.
2932
2933* Fortran source language mode
2934
2935GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2936Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2937variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2938with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2939Fortran compilers.
2940
2941* Better HPUX support
2942
2943Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2944running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2945processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2946for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2947that behavior do the following before running the program:
2948
2949 adb -w a.out
2950 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2951 control-d
2952
2953This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2954To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2955
2956 adb -w a.out
2957 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2958 control-d
2959
2960You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2961the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2962external linkage.
2963
2964GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2965HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2966
2967* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2968
2969You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2970commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2971current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2972"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2973associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2974configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2975
2976* New DOS host serial code
2977
2978This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2979no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2980a PC's serial port.
2981
2982*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2983
2984* New "complete" command
2985
2986This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2987were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2988
2989* Trailing space optional in prompt
2990
2991"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2992allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2993
2994* Breakpoint hit counts
2995
2996"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2997has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2998can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2999to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3000less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3001that breakpoint.
3002
3003* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3004
3005"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3006an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3007arrays actually contain only short strings.
3008
3009* Shared library breakpoints
3010
3011In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3012breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3013
3014* Hardware watchpoints
3015
3016There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3017targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3018
55241689 3019Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3020
3021* Annotations
3022
3023Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3024and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3025
3026* Improved Irix 5 support
3027
3028GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3029
3030* Improved HPPA support
3031
3032GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3033
3034* New native configurations
3035
3036Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3037HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3038Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3039RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3040
3041* New targets
3042
3043OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3044MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3045Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3046
3047* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3048
3049There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3050This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3051
3052* Fixes
3053
3054As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3055and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3056
3057*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3058
3059* Irix 5 is now supported
3060
3061* HPPA support
3062
3063GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3064to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3065GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3066of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3067can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3068
3069
3070*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3071
3072* User visible changes:
3073
3074* Remote Debugging
3075
3076The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3077target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3078debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3079integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3080debugging info for the mips target).
3081
3082* DEC Alpha native support
3083
3084GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3085debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3086work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3087Alpha-specific notes.
3088
3089* Preliminary thread implementation
3090
3091GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3092
3093* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3094
3095This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3096to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3097for details).
3098
3099* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3100
3101This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3102mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3103call methods, ...etc.
3104
3105*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3106
3107 * User visible changes:
3108
3109Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3110supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3111other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3112somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3113
3114Filename completion now works.
3115
3116When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3117arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3118addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3119
3120All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3121vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3122should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3123your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3124to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3125
3126 * DEC alpha support
3127
3128This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3129cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3130
3131
3132*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3133
3134 * Testsuite
3135
3136This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3137The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3138via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3139
3140 * C++ demangling
3141
3142'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3143emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3144Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3145disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3146use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3147
3148 * Simulators
3149
3150GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3151So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3152Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3153
3154 * New targets supported
3155
3156H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3157H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3158SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3159Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3160IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3161
3162Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3163version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3164GO32 memory extender.
3165
3166 * New remote protocols
3167
3168MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3169
3170 * New source languages supported
3171
3172This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3173used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3174into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3175
3176
3177*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3178
3179 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3180
3181GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3182version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3183University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3184compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3185format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3186(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3187
3188Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3189
3190 * Faster and better demangling
3191
3192We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3193demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3194character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3195only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3196This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3197increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3198symbol lookups.
3199
3200`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3201from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3202compiler does not actually implement.
3203
3204 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3205
3206In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3207inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3208recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3209very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3210The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3211circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3212fix.
3213
3214The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3215release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3216
3217 * Improved configure script
3218
3219The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3220you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3221host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3222done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3223
3224We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3225version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3226`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3227The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3228only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3229We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3230
3231 * Documentation improvements
3232
3233There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3234produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3235before submitting changes.
3236
3237The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3238M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3239`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3240you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3241a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3242
3243*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3244We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3245been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3246or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3247`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3248around this problem.
3249
3250 * New features
3251
3252GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3253the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3254`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3255the target program.
3256
3257The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3258how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3259
3260 * New native hosts supported
3261
3262HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3263386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3264
3265 * New targets supported
3266
3267AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3268
3269 * New file formats supported
3270
3271BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3272HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3273
3274 * Major bug fixes
3275
3276Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3277
3278We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3279printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3280
3281We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3282for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3283release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3284
3285You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3286will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3287
3288We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3289for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3290especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3291libraries.
3292
3293The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3294information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3295command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3296any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3297when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3298
3299 * Internal improvements
3300
3301GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3302debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3303
3304GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3305Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3306symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3307contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3308shared code that handles any of them.
3309
3310 * New command line options
3311
3312We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3313
3314 * Mmalloc licensing
3315
3316The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3317General Public License.
3318
3319*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3320
3321 * Host/native/target split
3322
3323GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3324hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3325target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3326local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3327ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3328
3329The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3330GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3331is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3332code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3333any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3334built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3335handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3336
3337GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3338It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3339plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3340
3341 * New hosts supported
3342
3343HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3344386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3345386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3346
3347 * New targets supported
3348
3349Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
335068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3351
3352 * New native hosts supported
3353
3354386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3355 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3356386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3357
3358 * New file formats supported
3359
3360BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3361supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3362format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3363
3364 * New commands
3365
3366`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3367`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3368These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3369
3370`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3371
3372You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3373scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3374prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3375executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3376
3377 * C++ improvements
3378
3379We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3380info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3381symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3382
3383Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3384
3385 * Major bug fixes
3386
3387The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3388fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3389by the compiler.
3390
3391We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3392support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3393
3394John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3395slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3396that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3397purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3398the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3399mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3400
3401Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3402about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3403completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3404we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3405
3406 * AMD 29k support
3407
3408A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3409specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3410calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3411usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3412in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3413
3414We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3415Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3416of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3417resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3418
3419 * Remote interfaces
3420
3421We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3422with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3423message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3424This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3425needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3426breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3427each instruction being stepped through.
3428
3429The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3430registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3431
3432There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3433find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3434Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3435processor with a serial port.
3436
3437 * Configuration
3438
3439Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3440`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3441supported, and what files each one uses.
3442
3443 * Library changes
3444
3445There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3446disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3447Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3448disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3449
3450The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3451Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3452can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3453grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3454
3455 * Documentation
3456
3457The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3458reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3459as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3460encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3461system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3462bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3463
3464And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3465
3466
3467*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3468
3469 * Better support for C++ function names
3470
3471GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3472names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3473(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3474single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3475Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3476
3477GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3478the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3479You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3480lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3481for the list of formats.
3482
3483 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3484
3485Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3486C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3487directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3488can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3489usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3490about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3491this problem.)
3492
3493 * New 'maintenance' command
3494
3495All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3496the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3497can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3498
3499 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3500 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3501 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3502 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3503 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3504 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3505
3506The following commands are new:
3507
3508 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3509 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3510 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3511
3512 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3513
3514We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3515(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3516be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3517read after argv processing.
3518
3519 * New hosts supported
3520
3521Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3522
55241689 3523GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3524
3525We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3526is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3527for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3528masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3529fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3530It costs extra.
3531
3532 * New targets supported
3533
3534Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3535
3536 * More smarts about finding #include files
3537
3538GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3539all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3540greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3541especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3542the one that contains your sources.
3543
3544We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3545breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3546try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3547
3548 * Interesting infernals change
3549
3550GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3551section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3552target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3553stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3554
3555 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3556
3557There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3558 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3559 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3560
3561See the ChangeLog for details.
3562
3563*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3564
3565 * New machines supported (host and target)
3566
3567IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3568
3569SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3570
3571 * New malloc package
3572
3573GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3574Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3575capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3576This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3577pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3578more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3579
3580 * info proc
3581
3582The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3583'help info proc' for details.
3584
3585 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3586
3587The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3588Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3589possible.
3590
3591 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3592
3593Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3594support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3595conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3596environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3597that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3598in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3599
3600 * Cross byte order fixes
3601
3602Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3603targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3604
3605 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3606
3607If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3608system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3609`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3610program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3611called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3612Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3613and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3614the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3615option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3616starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3617
3618You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3619the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3620information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3621slower, but makes future operations faster.
3622
3623The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3624build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3625A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3626use is:
3627
3628 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3629
3630The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3631It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3632shared across multiple host platforms.
3633
3634 * longjmp() handling
3635
3636GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3637siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3638all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3639platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3640
3641 * Solaris 2.0
3642
3643Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3644this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3645reading symbols.
3646
3647 * Bug fixes
3648
3649As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3650People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3651crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3652
3653*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3654
3655 * New machines supported (host and target)
3656
3657SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3658 (except core files)
3659BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3660Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3661
3662 * New machines supported (target)
3663
3664AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3665
3666 * C++ support
3667
3668GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3669The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3670per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3671
3672GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3673`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3674extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3675good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3676will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3677released.
3678
3679 * New features for SVR4
3680
3681GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3682shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3683only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3684
3685The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3686on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3687it prints the address mappings of the process.
3688
3689If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3690bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3691
3692 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3693
3694Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3695now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3696skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3697make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3698same code linked statically.
3699
3700 * New Getopt
3701
3702GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3703version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3704continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3705Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3706added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3707future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3708
3709 * Bugs fixed
3710
3711The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3712Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3713See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3714
3715
3716*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3717
3718 * New machines supported (host and target)
3719
3720Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3721NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3722Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3723
3724 * Almost SCO Unix support
3725
3726We had hoped to support:
3727SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3728(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3729that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3730about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3731
3732 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3733
3734GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3735debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3736is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3737send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3738reqired (if any).
3739
3740 * New Readline
3741
3742GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3743is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3744required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3745
3746 * Bugs fixed
3747
3748The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3749Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3750See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3751
3752 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3753
3754GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3755supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3756symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3757
3758Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3759mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3760debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3761mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3762version 2.
3763
3764Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3765really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3766line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3767variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3768situation somewhat.
3769
3770When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3771However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3772methods.
3773
3774We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3775DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3776encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3777
3778
3779*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3780
3781 * Improved configuration
3782
3783Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3784Porting BFD is simpler.
3785
3786 * Stepping improved
3787
3788The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3789of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3790in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3791function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3792
3793 * Bug fixing
3794
3795Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3796
3797 * New host supported (not target)
3798
3799Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3800
3801
3802*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3803
3804 * Multiple source language support
3805
3806GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3807It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3808and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3809language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3810You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3811`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3812
3813 * GDB and Modula-2
3814
3815GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3816currently under development at the State University of New York at
3817Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3818continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3819
3820Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3821debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3822symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3823
3824There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3825in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3826
3827 * set write on/off
3828
3829GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3830a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3831the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3832by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3833effect immediately.
3834
3835 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3836
3837When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3838shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3839The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3840examining core files.
3841
3842 * set listsize
3843
3844You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3845The default is 10.
3846
3847 * New machines supported (host and target)
3848
3849SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3850Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3851Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3852
3853 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3854
3855IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3856
3857 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3858
3859AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3860AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3861Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3862
3863 * New remote interfaces
3864
3865AMD 29000 Adapt
3866AMD 29000 Minimon
3867
3868
3869*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3870
3871 * New Facilities
3872
3873Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3874
3875Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3876target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3877is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3878remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3879remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3880also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3881using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3882stub on the target system.
3883
3884New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3885
3886GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3887library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3888object file types such as a.out and coff.
3889
3890There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3891refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3892
3893
3894 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3895
3896All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3897by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3898
3899For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3900``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3901Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3902
3903What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3904print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3905will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3906all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3907
3908confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3909 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3910 it is already running. Default is ON.
3911
3912editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3913 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3914 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3915 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3916 Default is ON.
3917
3918history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3919 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3920 or the value of the environment variable
3921 GDBHISTFILE.
3922
3923history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3924 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3925 HISTSIZE.
3926
3927history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3928 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3929 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3930
3931history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3932 history expansion will be performed on
3933 command line input. The default is OFF.
3934
3935radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3936 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3937 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3938
3939height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3940 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3941 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3942 variable TERM.
3943
3944width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3945 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3946 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3947 variable TERM.
3948
3949Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3950``set width'' instead.
3951
3952print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3953 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3954 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3955 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3956
3957print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3958 is OFF.
3959
3960print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3961 "raw" form if off.
3962
3963print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3964 like instructions.
3965
3966print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3967
3968
3969 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3970
3971The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3972new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3973are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3974window.
3975
3976
3977 * Support for Shared Libraries
3978
3979GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3980Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3981before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3982happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3983At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3984from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3985shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3986It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3987
3988sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3989 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3990 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3991
3992info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3993
3994
3995 * Watchpoints
3996
3997A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3998expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3999tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4000quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4001problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4002more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4003
4004watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4005
4006info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4007
4008delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4009disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4010enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4011
4012
4013 * C++ multiple inheritance
4014
4015When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4016for C++ programs.
4017
4018 * C++ exception handling
4019
4020Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4021ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4022the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4023handler's context).
4024
4025catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4026 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4027 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4028
4029info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4030 current stack frame.
4031
4032
4033 * Minor command changes
4034
4035The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4036command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4037is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4038
4039The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4040at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4041frames without printing.
4042
4043 * New directory command
4044
4045'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4046The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4047about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4048with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4049find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4050
4051 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4052
4053For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4054for more details.
4055
4056GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4057two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4058Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4059where the program that you are debugging will run.