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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
3b2f13ff 4*** Changes since GDB 7.9
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5=======
6
7* GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
8 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
9 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
10 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
11 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
12 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
13 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
3b2f13ff 14
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15* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
16 cpu information :
17 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
18
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19* GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
20 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
21 remote serial I/O.
22
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23* The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
24 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
25 and may include things like its command line arguments.
26
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27* Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
28 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
29 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
30 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
31 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
32 backward compatibility.
33
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34* The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
35 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
36 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
37 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
38
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39* Python Scripting
40
41 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
42 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
43 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
d11916aa 44 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
3a8b707a 45
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46* New commands
47
48maint print symbol-cache
49 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
50
51maint print symbol-cache-statistics
52 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
53
54maint flush-symbol-cache
55 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
56
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57record btrace bts
58record bts
59 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
60
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61* New options
62
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63set max-completions
64show max-completions
65 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
66 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
67 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
68 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
69
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70maint set symbol-cache-size
71maint show symbol-cache-size
72 Control the size of the symbol cache.
73
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74set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
75 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
76 BTS format.
77 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
78 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
79
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80* The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
81 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
82
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83* Python/Guile scripting
84
85 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
86 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
87
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88* New remote packets
89
90qXfer:btrace-conf:read
91 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
92
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93Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
94 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
95
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96swbreak stop reason
97 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
98 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
99 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
100 mode operation.
101
102hwbreak stop reason
103 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
104 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
105
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106vFile:fstat:
107 Return information about files on the remote system.
108
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109* The info record command now shows the recording format and the
110 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
111 the btrace record target.
112 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
113
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114* GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
115 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
116
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117* GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
118 targets.
119
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120* Removed command line options
121
122-xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
123
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124* Removed targets and native configurations
125
126HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
127Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
128
3b2f13ff 129*** Changes in GDB 7.9
919b9a93 130
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131* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
132
5f3b99cf 133* Python Scripting
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134
135 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
136 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
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137 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
138 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
a0be3e44 139 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
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140 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
141 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
86e4ed39 142 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
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143 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
144 selecting a new file to debug.
02be9a71 145 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
6dddd6a5 146 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
5f3b99cf 147
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148 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
149 inferior.
150
151 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
152 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
153 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
154 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
155
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156* New Python-based convenience functions:
157
158 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
159 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
160 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
161 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
162
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163* GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
164 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
165 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
166 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
167 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
168 interface with this new feature are:
169
170 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
171 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
172
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173* New commands
174
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175demangle [-l language] [--] name
176 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
177 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
178 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
179 as "maint demangler-warning".
180
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181queue-signal signal-name-or-number
182 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
183
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184add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
185 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
186 scripts.
187
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188maint print user-registers
189 List all currently available "user" registers.
190
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191compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
192 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
193 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
194
195compile file [-r|-raw] filename
196 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
197 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
198 provided.
199
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200* On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
201 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
202 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
203 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
204 at resume time.
205
206* Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
207 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
208 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
209 switched threads meanwhile.
210
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211* "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
212
213 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
214 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
215 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
216 is now the default mode.
217
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218* New options
219
220set debug symbol-lookup
221show debug symbol-lookup
222 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
223
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224* MI changes
225
226 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
227 inferiors that have exited.
228
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229* New targets
230
231MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
232
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233* Removed targets
234
235Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
236
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237Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
238SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
239SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
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240VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
241VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
3831839c 242
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243* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
244 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
245 its alias "share", instead.
246
919b9a93 247*** Changes in GDB 7.8
e9475ead 248
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249* New command line options
250
251-D data-directory
252 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
253
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254* GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
255 as specified in ISO C99.
256
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257* The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
258 with or without disassembly.
b7bba001 259
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260* Guile scripting
261
262 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
263 available is determined at configure time.
264 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
265 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
266
267* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
268
269guile [code]
270gu [code]
271 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
272
273guile-repl
274gr
275 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
276
277info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
278 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
279
280* The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
281 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
282
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283* New options
284
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285set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
286show print symbol-loading
287 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
288 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
289 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
290 becomes less useful.
291
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292set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
293show guile print-stack
294 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
295
296set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
297show auto-load guile-scripts
298 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
299
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300maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
301maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
302 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
303 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
304 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
305 usage of this option.
306
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307set auto-connect-native-target
308
309 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
310 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
311 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
312
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313set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
314show record btrace replay-memory-access
315 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
316
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317maint set target-async (on|off)
318maint show target-async
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319 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
320 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
329ea579 321 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
5784b3ca 322 occurring only in synchronous mode.
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323
324set mi-async (on|off)
325show mi-async
326 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
327 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
328
329* "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
330 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
331
332* Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
333 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
334 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
335 "set target-async on" command.
336
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337* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
338
339 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
340 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
341 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
342 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
343 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
344
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345* The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
346 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
347 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
348
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349* The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
350 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
351 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
352 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
353 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
354 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
355 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
356
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357* The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
358 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
359
066ce621 360* The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
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361 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
362 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
066ce621 363
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364* The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
365 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
366 memory or registers.
367
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368* The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
369
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370* The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
371 remote. It now works with all targets.
372
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373* All native targets are now consistently called "native".
374 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
375 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
376 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
377 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
378 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
379 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
380 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
381 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
382 target-stack".
383
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384* The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
385 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
386 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
387
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388* GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
389
390* Support for Intel(R) AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
391 Support displaying and modifying Intel(R) AVX-512 registers
392 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
393
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394* New remote packets
395
396qXfer:btrace:read's annex
397 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
398 branch trace incrementally.
399
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400* Python Scripting
401
402 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
403 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
404 available.
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405 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
406 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
407 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
408 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
409 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
f7bd0f78 410
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411* New targets
412PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
413
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414* The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
415 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
416 its alias "share", instead.
417
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418* The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
419 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
420 instead.
421
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422* MI changes
423
424 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
425 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
426 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
427 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
428 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
429 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
430 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
431 commands and CLI execution commands.
432
b7bba001 433*** Changes in GDB 7.7
2d450646 434
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435* Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
436 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
437 recording has been added.
438
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439* GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
440
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441* GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
442 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
443
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444* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
445 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
446 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
447 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
448 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
449 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
450 "void".
451
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452* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
453
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454* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
455
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456* GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
457 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
458 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
459 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
460
461 (gdb) p $rax
462 $1 = <not saved>
463
464 (gdb) info registers rax
465 rax <not saved>
466
467 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
468 "*value not available*".
469
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470* New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
471 to binaries.
472
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473* Python scripting
474
475 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
f76c27b5 476 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
bc79de95 477 ** Line tables representation has been added.
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478 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
479 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
c0d48811 480 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
1e611234 481
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482* New targets
483
484Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
485Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
42059f0e 486Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
a1217d97 487
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488* Removed native configurations
489
490Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
491been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
492
493arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
494i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
495i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
496i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
497m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
498sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
499vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
500
bd712aed 501* New commands:
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502catch rethrow
503 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
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504maint check-psymtabs
505 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
506maint check-symtabs
507 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
508maint expand-symtabs
509 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 510
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511show configuration
512 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
513
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514maint set|show per-command
515maint set|show per-command space
516maint set|show per-command time
517maint set|show per-command symtab
518 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
519
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520remove-symbol-file FILENAME
521remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
522 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
523 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
524 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
525
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526info exceptions
527info exceptions REGEXP
528 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
529 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
530 are listed.
531
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532* New options
533
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534set debug symfile off|on
535show debug symfile
536 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
537 symbol tables within those files
538
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539set print raw frame-arguments
540show print raw frame-arguments
541 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
542 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
543
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544set remote trace-status-packet
545show remote trace-status-packet
546 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
547
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548set debug nios2
549show debug nios2
550 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
551
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552set range-stepping
553show range-stepping
554 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
555
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556set startup-with-shell
557show startup-with-shell
558 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
559 directly.
560
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561set code-cache
562show code-cache
563 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
564 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
565
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566* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
567 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
568 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
569 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
570 "set height 0".
571
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572* The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
573 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
574 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
575
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576* New command-line options
577--configuration
578 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
579
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580* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
581 buffer in Common Trace Format.
582
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583* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
584 GDB command gcore.
585
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586* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
587
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588* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
589 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
590
591* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
592 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
593
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594* The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
595 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
596 due to an uncaught signal.
597
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598* MI changes
599
403cb6b1 600 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
4e35e808
JB
601 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
602 command, which should contain "language-option".
403cb6b1 603
6b7cbff1
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604 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
605 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
606
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JB
607 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
608 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
609 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
610 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
611 "undefined-command-error-code".
612
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613 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
614 Trace Format now.
615
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HZ
616 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
617
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618 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
619 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
620 are displayed.
621
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622 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
623 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
624
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YQ
625 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
626 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
627 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
628
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JB
629 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
630 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
631 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
72bfa06c
JB
632 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
633 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
634 "exec-run-start-option".
5713b9b5 635
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JB
636 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
637 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
638
58d06528
JB
639 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
640 the new "info exceptions" command.
641
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JB
642* New system-wide configuration scripts
643 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
644 configuration scripts for the following systems:
645 ** ElinOS
646 ** Wind River Linux
647
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648* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
649 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
650 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
651 below.
652
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653* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
654 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
655
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UW
656* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
657 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
658 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
659
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660* New remote packets
661
662vCont;r
663
664 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
665 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
666 involvemement at each single-step.
667
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668qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
669 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
670 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
671 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
672 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
673 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
674 speedup.
675
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676* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
677
678 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
679 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
680
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YQ
681 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
682 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
683 trace state variables.
684
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YQ
685 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
686 target.
687
6fbe845e
AB
688* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
689 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
690
9058cc3a
TG
691* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
692
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JB
693* The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
694 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
695 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
696 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
697
2d450646 698*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 699
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MM
700* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
701 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
702 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
703 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
704
705set|show record full insn-number-max
706set|show record full stop-at-limit
707set|show record full memory-query
708
709* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
710 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
711 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
712 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
713 This new recording method can be enabled using:
714
715record btrace
716
717 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
718 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
719
720* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
721 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
722 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
723
724record instruction-history prints the execution history at
725 instruction granularity
726
727record function-call-history prints the execution history at
728 function granularity
729
543bf33d
AT
730* New native configurations
731
51d66578 732ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 733FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 734x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 735Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 736
249729c4
JB
737* New targets
738
51d66578
MS
739ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
740ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 741Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 742x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 743Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 744
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DE
745* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
746 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
747 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
748 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
749 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
750 --data-directory command-line option.
751
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DE
752* New command line options:
753
754-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
755 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
756
e93a8774
TT
757* Removed command line options
758
759-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
760 Emacs.
761
53342f27
TT
762* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
763 type formatting.
764
451b7c33
TT
765* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
766
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DE
767* Python scripting
768
769 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
770
d7de8e3c
TT
771 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
772
18a9fc12
TT
773 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
774
9a27f2c6
PK
775 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
776
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SCR
777 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
778 of architecture in the Python API.
779
780 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
781 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
782
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DE
783* New Python-based convenience functions:
784
785 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
786 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
787 ** $_strlen(str)
788 ** $_regex(str, regex)
789
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JK
790* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
791 given an argument.
792
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TT
793* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
794 default for GCC since November 2000.
795
504b36fd
YQ
796* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
797
f2a8bc8a
YQ
798* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
799 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
800
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JB
801* New configure options
802
803--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
804 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
805 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
806 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
807 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
808 options allow the user to override that default.
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809--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
810 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
811 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 812
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TT
813* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
814
ab04a2af
TT
815catch signal
816 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
817 conditions to be attached.
818
d6b28940
TT
819maint info bfds
820 List the BFDs known to GDB.
821
8315665e
YPK
822python-interactive [command]
823pi [command]
824 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
825 and print the result of expressions.
826
827py [command]
828 "py" is a new alias for "python".
829
18a9fc12
TT
830enable type-printer [name]...
831disable type-printer [name]...
832 Enable or disable type printers.
833
aa9259cc
TS
834* Removed commands
835
836 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
837 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
838 instead.
839
53342f27
TT
840* New options
841
842set print type methods (on|off)
843show print type methods
844 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
845 The default is to show them.
846
847set print type typedefs (on|off)
848show print type typedefs
849 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
850 The default is to show them.
851
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JK
852set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
853show filename-display
854 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
855 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
856
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PA
857set trace-buffer-size
858show trace-buffer-size
859 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
860
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PA
861set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
862show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
863 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
864
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PA
865set debug aarch64
866show debug aarch64
867 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
868 The default is off.
869
870set debug coff-pe-read
871show debug coff-pe-read
872 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
873 exported symbols.
874
875set debug mach-o
876show debug mach-o
877 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
878 processing.
879
880set debug notification
881show debug notification
882 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
883
5b9afe8a
YQ
884* MI changes
885
886 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
887 "=cmd-param-changed".
201b4506
YQ
888 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
889 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
134a2066
YQ
890 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
891 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
892 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
82a90ccf
YQ
893 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
894 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
8de0566d
YQ
895 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
896 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 897 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 898 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
62747a60
TT
899 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
900 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3fa7bf06
MG
901 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
902 library load/unload events.
f2a8bc8a
YQ
903 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
904 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
905 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
f5911ea1
HAQ
906 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
907 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
908 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
ec83d211
JK
909 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
910 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 911
608e2dbb
TT
912* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
913 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
914 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
915 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
916
f6f899bf
HAQ
917* New remote packets
918
919QTBuffer:size
920 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
921 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
922
10782d74
MM
923Qbtrace:bts
924 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
925 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
926 qSupported query.
927
928Qbtrace:off
929 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
930 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
931
932qXfer:btrace:read
933 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
934 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
935
80c8d323 936*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 937
1b3371b1
L
938* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
939 for more x32 ABI info.
940
d0e64392
MR
941* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
942
4cc0665f
MR
943* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
944
85d4a676
SS
945* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
946 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
947 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
948 "info os files" lists file descriptors
949 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
950 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
951 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
952 "info os msg" lists message queues
953 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
954
55aa24fb
SDJ
955* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
956 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
957 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
958 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
959 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
960 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
961
72508ac0
PO
962* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
963 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
964 record/replay support.
965
16899756
DE
966* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
967
4795f398
DE
968* Python scripting
969
7d74f244
DE
970 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
971 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
972
4795f398
DE
973 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
974
50897289
TT
975 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
976 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
977
64e7d9dd
TT
978 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
979
980 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
981 the source at which the symbol was defined.
982
f0823d2c
TT
983 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
984 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
985 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
986 symbol's value.
987
7b282c5a
SCR
988 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
989 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
990
a20ee7a4
SCR
991 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
992 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
993 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
994
7efc75aa
SCR
995 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
996 object associated with a PC value.
997
ee0bf529
SCR
998 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
999 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
1000
a766d390
DE
1001* Go language support.
1002 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
1003 language.
1004
e0f9f062
DE
1005* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
1006 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
1007
217bff3e
JK
1008* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
1009 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
1010
cafec441
TT
1011* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
1012 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
1013 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
1014 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
1015 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
1016 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
1017
4aac40c8
TT
1018* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
1019 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
1020 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
1021 build/libcpp/expr.c.
1022
d99bd577
UW
1023* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
1024 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
1025
53fe1783
GB
1026* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
1027 since December 2007.
1028
e41eec66
JB
1029* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
1030 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
1031 command does. For instance:
1032
1033 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
1034
1035 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
1036 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
1037 created, using the "condition" command.
1038
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YQ
1039* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
1040 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
1041
481860b3
GB
1042* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
1043
1044* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
1045 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
1046 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
e615022a
DE
1047 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
1048 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
1049 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
1050 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
1051 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 1052
156942c7
DE
1053 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
1054 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
1055 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
1056 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
1057 the .gdb_index section.
1058
927fbba6
JB
1059* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
1060
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YQ
1061* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
1062 target.
1063
f3e0e960
SS
1064* MI changes
1065
1066 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
1067
37ce89eb
SS
1068 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
1069
edcc5120
TT
1070* New commands
1071
e615022a
DE
1072 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1073 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
1074 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
1075
edcc5120
TT
1076 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
1077 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
1078
816338b5
SS
1079 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
1080 several hits.
1081
57651221 1082 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
c4aeac85
TT
1083 C++ and Java objects.
1084
06fc020f 1085 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
6ea71545 1086 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
06fc020f
SCR
1087 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
1088 configured with '--with-python'.
1089
bf88dd68
JK
1090 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
1091 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
1092 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
1093 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
1094 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
1095 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
1096 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
1097
1098 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
1099 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
1100 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
1101 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
1102
e7e0cddf
SS
1103 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
1104 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
1105 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
1106 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
1107
9cb709b6
TT
1108 ** "set print symbol"
1109 "show print symbol"
1110 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
1111 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
1112 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
1113
2d4c29c5
TS
1114* Deprecated commands
1115
1116 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
1117 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
1118
a58b110a
KB
1119* New targets
1120
1121Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 1122HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 1123
72895ff6
LM
1124* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
1125 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
1126 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
1127 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
1128 evaluates to true.
1129
1130* New options
1131
4cc0665f
MR
1132set mips compression
1133show mips compression
1134 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
1135 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
1136 mips16
1137 micromips
1138 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
1139
72895ff6
LM
1140set breakpoint condition-evaluation
1141show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 1142 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
5b43fab2
JK
1143 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
1144 available mode.
72895ff6
LM
1145 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
1146 target.
1147
bf88dd68
JK
1148set auto-load off
1149 Disable auto-loading globally.
1150
1151show auto-load
1152 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
1153
1154set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
1155show auto-load gdb-scripts
1156 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
1157
1158set auto-load python-scripts on|off
1159show auto-load python-scripts
1160 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
1161
1162set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
1163show auto-load local-gdbinit
1164 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
1165
1166set auto-load libthread-db on|off
1167show auto-load libthread-db
1168 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
1169
7349ff92 1170set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 1171show auto-load scripts-directory
7349ff92
JK
1172 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
1173 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
1174 of the directories listed by this option.
1175 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1176
bccbefd2
JK
1177set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
1178show auto-load safe-path
1179 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
1180 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
1181
4dc84fd1
JK
1182set debug auto-load on|off
1183show debug auto-load
1184 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
1185
d3ce09f5 1186set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 1187show dprintf-style
d3ce09f5
SS
1188 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
1189 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
1190 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
1191 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
e7e0cddf
SS
1192
1193set dprintf-function <expr>
1194show dprintf-function
1195set dprintf-channel <expr>
1196show dprintf-channel
1197 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
1198 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
1199
d3ce09f5
SS
1200set disconnected-dprintf on|off
1201show disconnected-dprintf
1202 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
1203 after GDB disconnects.
1204
6dea1fbd
JK
1205* New configure options
1206
7349ff92
JK
1207--with-auto-load-dir
1208 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1564a261
JK
1209 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
1210 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
1211 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
1212 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 1213
6dea1fbd
JK
1214--with-auto-load-safe-path
1215 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 1216 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
6dea1fbd
JK
1217
1218--without-auto-load-safe-path
1219 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
1220 security feature.
1221
72895ff6
LM
1222* New remote packets
1223
74c48cbb
PA
1224z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
1225
72895ff6
LM
1226 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
1227 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
1228 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
1229 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
1230
9b224c5e
PA
1231QProgramSignals:
1232
1233 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
1234 program without GDB involvement.
1235
8320cc4f
JK
1236* New command line options
1237
1238--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
1239 before loading inferior.
1240--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
1241 execute it before loading inferior.
1242
8837a20f
JB
1243*** Changes in GDB 7.4
1244
f8eba3c6
TT
1245* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
1246 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
1247 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
1248 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
1249 inferior changes.
1250
1bfeeb0f
JL
1251* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
1252 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
1253
480a3f21
PW
1254* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
1255 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
1256 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
1257 target hardware watchpoint.
1258
1259 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
1260 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
1261 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
1262 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
1263
3a7bf607
PM
1264* Python scripting
1265
32d1c362 1266 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 1267 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
1268 existing one.
1269
3a7bf607 1270 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
1271 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
1272 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
1273 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
1274 now "message", which just prints the error message without
1275 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 1276
baacfb07 1277 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 1278 Python API.
713389e0 1279
fa3a4f15
PM
1280 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
1281 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 1282 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
1283 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
1284 corresponding value.
1285
5e239b84
PM
1286 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
1287 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
1288 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
1289 on GDB start-up.
1290
9df2fbc4
PM
1291 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
1292 static_block will return the global and static blocks
1293 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
1294 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
1295
457e09f0
DE
1296 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
1297
6839b47f
KP
1298 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
1299 "gdb.breakpoints".
1300
cc72b2a2
KP
1301 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
1302 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
1303 available in the CLI.
1304
84ad80e6
PK
1305 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
1306 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
1307 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
1308 "some_type.items()".
1309
20c168b5
KP
1310 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
1311 new object file.
1312
03c3051a
PK
1313 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
1314 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
1315 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
1316 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
1317 any anonymous fields.
1318
7376e450
TT
1319* MI changes
1320
1321 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
1322 "solib-event".
1323
1324 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1325 "=breakpoint-modified".
1326
1327 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1328
98a5dd13
DE
1329* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1330 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1331 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1332 lives.
1333
1334 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1335 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1336 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1337 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1338 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1339
1340 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1341 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1342
478aac75
DE
1343* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1344 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1345 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1346 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1347 use this option to specify where to find it.
1348
9c06b0b4
TJB
1349* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1350 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1351 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1352 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1353 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1354 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1355 section in the user manual for more details.
1356
03f2bd59
JK
1357* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1358 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1359 become available after that.
1360
71eba9c2 1361* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 1362
2bda9cc5
JK
1363* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1364 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1365 gcc version 4.7.
1366
ed59ded5
DE
1367* New commands
1368
1369!SHELL COMMAND
1370 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1371 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1372
9c06b0b4
TJB
1373* Changed commands
1374
1375watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1376 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1377 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1378
dbaefcf7
DE
1379info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1380 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1381 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1382
71eba9c2 1383info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1384 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1385 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1386 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1387 name starts with a hyphen.
1388
3065dfb6
SS
1389collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1390 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1391 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1392 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1393 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1394 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1395 number of bytes that will be collected.
1396
f196051f
SS
1397tstart [NOTES]
1398 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1399 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1400 setting the variable trace-notes.
1401
1402tstop [NOTES]
1403 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1404 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1405 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1406 trace-stop-notes.
1407
d248b706
KY
1408* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1409 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1410 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1411 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1412 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1413 is running.
1414
405f8e94
SS
1415* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1416 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1417 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1418
2bda9cc5
JK
1419* New options
1420
45cfd468
DE
1421set debug dwarf2-read
1422show debug dwarf2-read
1423 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1424 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1425
1426set debug symtab-create
1427show debug symtab-create
1428 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1429 creation. The default is off.
1430
baacfb07
PM
1431set extended-prompt
1432show extended-prompt
1433 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1434 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1435 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1436 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1437 prompt is displayed.
1438
2bda9cc5
JK
1439set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1440show print entry-values
1441 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1442 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1443 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1444
1445set debug entry-values
1446show debug entry-values
1447 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1448 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1449
c011a4f4
DE
1450set basenames-may-differ
1451show basenames-may-differ
1452 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1453 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1454 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1455 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1456 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1457 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1458 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1459 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1460
f196051f
SS
1461set trace-user
1462show trace-user
1463set trace-notes
1464show trace-notes
1465 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1466 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1467 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1468 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1469
1470set trace-stop-notes
1471show trace-stop-notes
1472 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1473 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1474 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1475 started by someone else.
1476
d248b706
KY
1477* New remote packets
1478
1479QTEnable
1480
1481 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1482
1483QTDisable
1484
1485 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1486
f196051f
SS
1487QTNotes
1488
1489 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1490
1491qTP
1492
1493 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1494
405f8e94
SS
1495qTMinFTPILen
1496
1497 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1498 be placed.
1499
1a532630
PP
1500* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1501 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1502
11315641
YQ
1503* New targets
1504
1505Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1506
87326c78
DD
1507* New Simulators
1508
1509Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1510
e8d56f18
JB
1511*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1512
1513* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1514
d6e00af6 1515*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 1516
60f98dde
MS
1517* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1518 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1519 matches the given regular expression.
1520
eee5b35e
DD
1521* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1522
b716877b
AB
1523* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1524 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1525
aae1c79a
DE
1526* New command line options
1527
1528-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1529 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1530
a86caf66
DE
1531* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1532 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1533
99e7ae30
DE
1534* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1535 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1536 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1537
4694da01
TT
1538* GDB now understands thread names.
1539
1540 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1541 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1542
1543 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1544 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1545
f4b8a18d
KW
1546* OpenCL C
1547 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1548 has been integrated into GDB.
1549
585d1eb8
PM
1550* Python scripting
1551
da5d4055
PM
1552 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1553 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1554 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1555
9a6f1302
PM
1556 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1557 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1558 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1559 and allows for more dynamic content.
1560
29703da4
PM
1561 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1562 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1563 have an is_valid method.
1564
350c6c65
PM
1565 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1566 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1567 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1568
6e6fbe60
DE
1569 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1570
585d1eb8
PM
1571 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1572 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1573 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1574 that function like so:
1575
1576 result = some_value (10,20)
1577
0e3509db
DE
1578 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1579 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1580 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1581
7b51bc51
DE
1582 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1583 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1584 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1585 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1586 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1587
1588 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1589 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1590
99e7ae30
DE
1591 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1592
d8e22779
TT
1593 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1594 selected thread.
1595
4694da01
TT
1596 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1597 holds the thread's name.
1598
505500db
SW
1599 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1600 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1601 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1602 The following events are currently supported:
1603 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1604 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1605 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1606
def98928
TT
1607* C++ Improvements:
1608
1609 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1610 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1611
1612 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1613
1614 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1615 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1616 was added to GCC 4.5.
1617
66cb8159
TT
1618 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1619 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1620 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1621 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1622 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1623 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1624
4aac0db7
UW
1625* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1626 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1627 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1628 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1629 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1630
283e6a52
TT
1631* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1632 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1633 execution to a label.
1634
1635* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1636 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1637 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1638 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1639
b56df873 1640* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1641 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1642 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1643 of scope.
1644
ae53ffa4
PA
1645* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1646
1647 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1648 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1649 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1650 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1651 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1652 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1653
1654 (gdb) info threads
1655 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1656
1657 While now you see this:
1658
1659 (gdb) info threads
1660 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1661
1662 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1663 dumps.
1664
1665 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1666 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1667 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1668 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1669
f1310107
TJB
1670* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1671 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1672 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1673 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1674 section in the user manual for more details.
1675
248c9dbc
JB
1676* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1677
1aee7009
JB
1678 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1679 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1680
eb826dc6
MF
1681 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1682
44603653
JB
1683* New native configurations
1684
1685ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1686
91021223
MF
1687* New targets:
1688
1689Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1690
6e1bb179
JB
1691* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1692 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1693 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1694 in the GDB user manual.
1695
50c97f38
TT
1696* Guile support was removed.
1697
448a92bf
MF
1698* New features in the GNU simulator
1699
1700 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1701
66ee2731
MF
1702 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1703
76b8507d 1704*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1705
ba25b921
PA
1706* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1707
1708 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1709 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1710 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1711 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1712 was always disabled for such configurations.
1713
4656f5c6
SW
1714* C++ Improvements:
1715
1716 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1717
1718 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1719 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1720 For example:
1721 namespace A
1722 {
1723 class B { };
1724 void foo (B) { }
1725 }
1726 ...
1727 A::B b
1728 foo(b)
1729 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1730 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1731 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1732
1733 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1734
1735 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1736 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1737 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1738 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1739 entry.
1740 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1741 mentioned flavors of operators.
1742
254e6b9e
DE
1743 ** static const class members
1744
1745 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1746 class definition has been fixed.
1747
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PM
1748* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1749
1750 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1751 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1752 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1753 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1754 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1755 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1756
0fb4aa4b
PA
1757* Static tracepoints
1758
1759 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1760 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1761 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1762 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1763 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1764 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1765 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1766 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1767 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1768 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1769 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1770 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1771 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1772 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1773 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1774 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1775 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1776 the "New remote packets" section below.
1777
ca11e899
SS
1778* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1779
1780 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1781 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1782 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1783 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1784
1785* Observer mode
1786
1787 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1788 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1789 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1790 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1791 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1792 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1793 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1794
1795* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1796 current thread.
1797
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PM
1798* New remote packets
1799
1800qGetTIBAddr
1801
1802 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1803
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PA
1804qRelocInsn
1805
1806 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1807 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1808 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1809 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1810 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1811 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1812
0fb4aa4b
PA
1813qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1814
1815 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1816
1817qTSTMat
1818
1819 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1820 program.
1821
1822qXfer:statictrace:read
1823
1824 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1825 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1826 to gdb's qSupported query.
1827
ca11e899
SS
1828QAllow
1829
1830 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1831
1832QTDPsrc
1833
1834 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1835 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1836
3f7b2faa
DE
1837* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1838 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1839 a directory.
1840
d337e9f0
PA
1841* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1842
0fb4aa4b
PA
1843 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1844 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1845 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1846 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1847
1848 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1849 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1850 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1851 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1852 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1853 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1854 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1855
1856 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1857 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1858
c24d0242
PM
1859 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1860
c8d5aac9
L
1861* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1862 it understands register description.
1863
7c953934
TT
1864* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1865
8685c86f
L
1866* X86 general purpose registers
1867
1868 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1869 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1870 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1871 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1872 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1873
95a42b64 1874* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1875 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1876 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1877 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1878 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1879 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1880
8bd10a10
CM
1881* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1882 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1883 in the specified file.
1884
ab38a727
PA
1885* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1886 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1887 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1888 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1889 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1890 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1891 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1892 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1893 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1894 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1895
6149aea9
PA
1896* New commands
1897
f1421989
HZ
1898eval template, expressions...
1899 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1900 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1901
ab38a727
PA
1902set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1903show target-file-system-kind
1904 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1905 names.
1906
6149aea9
PA
1907save breakpoints <filename>
1908 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1909 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1910 definitions, use the `source' command.
1911
1912`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1913is now deprecated.
1914
0fb4aa4b
PA
1915info static-tracepoint-markers
1916 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1917
1918strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1919 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1920 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1921
ca11e899
SS
1922set observer on|off
1923show observer
1924 Enable and disable observer mode.
1925
1926set may-write-registers on|off
1927set may-write-memory on|off
1928set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1929set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1930set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1931set may-interrupt on|off
1932 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1933 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1934 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1935 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1936 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1937 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1938 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1939
1940set record memory-query on|off
1941show record memory-query
1942 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1943 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1944
53a71c06
CR
1945* Changed commands
1946
1947disassemble
1948 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1949
f3e9a817
PM
1950* Python scripting
1951
9279c692
JB
1952** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1953 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1954 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1955 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1956 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1957
adc36818 1958** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1959 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1960 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1961 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1962
fa33c3cd 1963** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1964 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1965
1966** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1967
1968** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1969
967cf477
DE
1970** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1971
8a1ea21f
DE
1972** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1973 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1974 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1975
a7bdde9e
VP
1976* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1977there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1978tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1979regular breakpoints.
1980
05071a4d
PA
1981* New targets
1982
1983ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1984
6aecb9c2
JB
1985* D language support.
1986 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1987 language.
1988
431e49aa
TJB
1989* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1990 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1991 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1992 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1993 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1994
1995* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1996 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1997 conditions of the form:
1998
1999 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
2000
2001 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
2002 interface mentioned above.
2003
bfbf3774 2004*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 2005
4eef138c
TT
2006* C++ Improvements
2007
2008 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
2009
2010 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
2011 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
2012 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
2013 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
2014 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
2015
4eef138c
TT
2016 ** Bug Fixes
2017
2018 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
2019 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
2020 qualified name.
2021
2022 ** Cast Operators
2023
2024 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
2025 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
2026
2d1c1221
ME
2027* New targets
2028
2029Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 2030Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
2031
2032* New Simulators
2033
2034Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 2035Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 2036
6c95b8df
PA
2037* Multi-program debugging.
2038
2039 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
2040 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
2041 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
2042 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
2043 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
2044 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
2045 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
2046 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
2047
d5551862
SS
2048* New tracing features
2049
2050 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
2051
2052 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
2053
2054 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
2055 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
2056 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
2057 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
2058 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
2059 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
2060 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
2061 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
2062 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
2063 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 2064
d5551862 2065 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
2066
2067 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
2068 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
2069 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
2070 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
2071 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
2072 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
2073 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
2074 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
2075 the regular trace command.
2076
d5551862
SS
2077 ** Disconnected tracing
2078
2079 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
2080 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
2081 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
2082 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
2083 connection is lost unexpectedly.
2084
00bf0b85
SS
2085 ** Trace files
2086
2087 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
2088 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
2089 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
2090 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
2091 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
2092 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
2093 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
2094
2095 ** Circular trace buffer
2096
2097 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
2098 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
2099 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
2100 not be available for all target agents.
2101
21a0512e
PP
2102* Changed commands
2103
2104disassemble
2105 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
2106 the arguments to be comma-separated.
2107
0fe7935b
DJ
2108info variables
2109 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
2110 which only declare a variable are not shown.
2111
fb2e7cb4
JB
2112source
2113 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
2114 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
2115 support.
2116
2117 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
2118 "set script-extension" (see below).
2119
6c95b8df
PA
2120* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2121
399cd161
MS
2122record save [<FILENAME>]
2123 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
2124 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
2125
2126record restore <FILENAME>
2127 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
2128 earlier time, for replay debugging.
2129
6c95b8df
PA
2130add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
2131 Add a new inferior.
2132
2133clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
2134 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
2135 inferior has loaded.
2136
2137remove-inferior ID
2138 Remove an inferior.
2139
2140maint info program-spaces
2141 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
2142
9a7071a8
JB
2143set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
2144show remote interrupt-sequence
2145 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
2146 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
2147 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
2148 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
2149 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
2150
2151set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
2152show remote interrupt-on-connect
2153 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
2154 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
2155 Linux kernel.
2156
2157set remotebreak [on | off]
2158show remotebreak
2159Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
2160
f61e138d
SS
2161tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
2162 Create or modify a trace state variable.
2163
2164info tvariables
2165 List trace state variables and their values.
2166
2167delete tvariable $NAME ...
2168 Delete one or more trace state variables.
2169
6da95a67
SS
2170teval EXPR, ...
2171 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
2172 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
2173
7a697b8d
SS
2174ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
2175 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
2176
b0f02ee9
JK
2177* New expression syntax
2178
2179 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
2180 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
2181
6c95b8df
PA
2182* New options
2183
2184set follow-exec-mode new|same
2185show follow-exec-mode
2186 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
2187 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
2188 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
2189
236f1d4d
SS
2190set default-collect EXPR, ...
2191show default-collect
2192 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
2193 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
2194 such as registers or a critical global variable.
2195
d5551862
SS
2196set disconnected-tracing
2197show disconnected-tracing
2198 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
2199 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
2200 upon disconnection.
2201
4daf5ac0
SS
2202set circular-trace-buffer
2203show circular-trace-buffer
2204 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
2205 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
2206 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
2207 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
2208
fb2e7cb4
JB
2209set script-extension off|soft|strict
2210show script-extension
2211 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
2212 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
2213 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
2214 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
2215 evaluation failed.
2216 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
2217
2b71fc8e
JB
2218set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
2219show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
2220 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
2221 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
2222 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
2223 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
2224 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
2225 is on.
2226
de2e5182
TT
2227* Python API Improvements
2228
2229 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
2230 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
2231 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
2232
2233 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
2234 `is_base_class' attribute.
2235
2236 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
2237
2238 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
2239 evaluate an expression.
2240
f61e138d
SS
2241* New remote packets
2242
2243QTDV
2244 Define a trace state variable.
2245
2246qTV
2247 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
2248
d5551862
SS
2249QTDisconnected
2250 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
2251
4daf5ac0
SS
2252QTBuffer:circular
2253 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
2254
d5551862
SS
2255qTfP, qTsP
2256 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
2257
2d483d34
MS
2258* Bug fixes
2259
2260Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
2261
6e0e5977
JB
2262Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
2263much more reliable. In particular:
2264 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
2265 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
2266 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
2267 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
2268 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
2269 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
2270 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
2271 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
2272 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
2273 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
2274 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
2275 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
2276 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
2277 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
2278 non-threaded programs.
2279
93c26624
JK
2280PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
2281This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
2282libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
2283executable program.
2284
abc7453d 2285*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 2286
4efc6507
DE
2287* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
2288dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
2289them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
2290for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
2291"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
2292
782b2b07
SS
2293* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
2294breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
2295or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
2296the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
2297for tracepoint actions.
2298
53a71c06
CR
2299* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
2300raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
2301modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 2302
e7a8dbfb
HZ
2303* Process record and replay
2304
2305 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
2306 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
2307 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
2308 execute commands.
2309
64644d9b
MS
2310* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
2311step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
2312set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
2313reverse execution.
2314
b9412953
DD
2315* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
2316feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
23172.6.28 or later.
2318
6c7a06a3
TT
2319* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
2320target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
2321char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
2322literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
2323U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
2324`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2325system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2326the installation instructions for more information.
2327
f1838a98
UW
2328* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2329remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2330with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2331the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2332
55333a84
DE
2333* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2334and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2335
7f6a6314
PM
2336* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2337now complete on file names.
2338
65d12d83
TT
2339* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2340completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2341For instance, consider:
2342
2343 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2344 # struct example variable;
2345 (gdb) p variable.
2346
2347If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2348completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2349
edb3359d
DJ
2350* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2351the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2352
2fae03e8
TT
2353* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2354operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2355macros.
2356
47a3467a 2357* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
2358the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2359implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2360
2361* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2362registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2363can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2364and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 2365
08388c79
DE
2366* New remote packets
2367
2368qSearch:memory:
2369 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2370
a6f3e723
SL
2371QStartNoAckMode
2372 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2373 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2374 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2375
d7713ae0
EZ
2376vKill
2377 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2378 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2379
07e059b5
VP
2380qXfer:osdata:read
2381 Obtains additional operating system information
2382
47a3467a
PA
2383qXfer:siginfo:read
2384qXfer:siginfo:write
2385 Read or write additional signal information.
2386
060871df
PA
2387* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2388
2389 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2390 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2391 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2392
c055b101 2393* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 2394DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
2395
2396* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
2397and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2398`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 2399
31fffb02
CS
2400* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2401with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2402
88d8a8e0
JB
2403* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2404
7f99b190
JB
2405* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2406
ccd213ac
DJ
2407* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2408which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2409
1fddbabb 2410* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 2411list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 2412
a0ef4274
DJ
2413* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2414conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2415have also been fixed.
2416
bfb8797a 2417* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
2418From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2419are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 2420
71c25dea
TT
2421* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2422example, given:
2423
2424 template<typename T> class C { };
2425 C<char const *> c;
2426
2427GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2428
2429 ptype C<char const *>
2430 ptype C<char const*>
2431 ptype C<const char *>
2432 ptype C<const char*>
2433
ccd213ac
DJ
2434* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2435
2436 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2437 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2438
7ae0e2a2
UW
2439 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2440 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2441 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2442
a6f3e723
SL
2443 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2444 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2445
da8bd9a3
DJ
2446 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2447 gdbserver.
2448
d70e31dd
DE
2449 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2450 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2451
2452 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2453 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2454 as appropriate.
2455
d57a3c85
TJB
2456* Python scripting
2457
2458 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2459 available is determined at configure time.
2460
d8906c6f
TJB
2461 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2462
aadc346a
JB
2463* Ada tasking support
2464
2465 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2466 been introduced:
2467
2468 info tasks
2469 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2470 info task N
2471 Print detailed information about task number N.
2472 task
2473 Print the task number of the current task.
2474 task N
2475 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2476
adb483fe
DJ
2477* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2478add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2479
2277426b
PA
2480* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2481
2482 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2483 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2484 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2485 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2486 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2487 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2488 below.
2489
08d16641
PA
2490* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2491"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2492information.
2493
e35359c5
UW
2494* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2495to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2496architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2497See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2498more information.
2499
85e747d2
UW
2500* Multi-architecture debugging.
2501
2502 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2503 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2504 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2505 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2506 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2507
2508* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2509use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2510Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2511powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2512--enable-targets configure option.
2513
11ade57a
PA
2514* Non-stop mode debugging.
2515
2516 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2517 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2518 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2519 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2520 section in the user manual for more information.
2521
2522 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2523 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2524 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2525 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2526 extensions on linux targets.
2527
d7713ae0 2528* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 2529
a96d9b2e
SDJ
2530catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2531 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2532 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2533 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2534 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2535 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2536 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2537 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2538 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2539
08388c79
DE
2540find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2541 val1 [, val2, ...]
2542 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2543
d57a3c85
TJB
2544maint set python print-stack
2545maint show python print-stack
2546 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2547
2548python [CODE]
2549 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2550
d7713ae0
EZ
2551macro define
2552macro list
2553macro undef
2554 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2555 interactively.
2556
2557info os processes
2558 Show operating system information about processes.
2559
2277426b
PA
2560info inferiors
2561 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2562
2563inferior NUM
2564 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2565
2566detach inferior NUM
2567 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2568
2569kill inferior NUM
2570 Kill inferior number NUM.
2571
d7713ae0
EZ
2572* New options
2573
3285f3fe
UW
2574set spu stop-on-load
2575show spu stop-on-load
2576 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2577
ff1a52c6
UW
2578set spu auto-flush-cache
2579show spu auto-flush-cache
2580 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2581 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2582
d7713ae0
EZ
2583set sh calling-convention
2584show sh calling-convention
2585 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2586
e0a3ce09 2587set debug timestamp
75feb17d 2588show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
2589 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2590
2591set disassemble-next-line
2592show disassemble-next-line
2593 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2594 the debuggee stops.
2595
2596set remote noack-packet
2597show remote noack-packet
2598 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2599 under "New remote packets."
2600
2601set remote query-attached-packet
2602show remote query-attached-packet
2603 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2604
2605set remote read-siginfo-object
2606show remote read-siginfo-object
2607 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2608 packet.
2609
2610set remote write-siginfo-object
2611show remote write-siginfo-object
2612 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2613 packet.
2614
40ab02ce
MS
2615set remote reverse-continue
2616show remote reverse-continue
2617 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2618
2619set remote reverse-step
2620show remote reverse-step
2621 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2622
d7713ae0
EZ
2623set displaced-stepping
2624show displaced-stepping
2625 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2626 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2627 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2628
2629set debug displaced
2630show debug displaced
2631 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2632
2633maint set internal-error
2634maint show internal-error
2635 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2636
2637maint set internal-warning
2638maint show internal-warning
2639 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2640
ccd213ac
DJ
2641set exec-wrapper
2642show exec-wrapper
2643unset exec-wrapper
2644 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2645
aad4b048
JB
2646set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2647show multiple-symbols
2648 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2649 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2650 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2651
74960c60
VP
2652set breakpoint always-inserted
2653show breakpoint always-inserted
2654 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2655 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2656 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2657
0428b8f5
DJ
2658set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2659show arm fallback-mode
2660set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2661show arm force-mode
2662 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2663 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2664 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2665 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2666
10568435
JK
2667set disable-randomization
2668show disable-randomization
2669 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2670 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2671 multiple debugging sessions.
2672
d7713ae0
EZ
2673set non-stop
2674show non-stop
2675 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2676 a breakpoint.
2677
b3eb342c 2678set target-async
d7713ae0 2679show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2680 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2681 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2682 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2683 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2684
6c7a06a3
TT
2685set target-wide-charset
2686show target-wide-charset
2687 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2688 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2689
84603566
SL
2690set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2691show tcp auto-retry
2692set tcp connect-timeout
2693show tcp connect-timeout
2694 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2695 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2696 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2697
17a37d48
PP
2698set libthread-db-search-path
2699show libthread-db-search-path
2700 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2701 libthread_db.
2702
d4db2f36
PA
2703set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2704show schedule-multiple
2705 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2706 the current process.
2707
4e5d721f
DE
2708set stack-cache
2709show stack-cache
2710 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2711 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2712 affecting correctness.
2713
910c5da8
JB
2714set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2715show interactive-mode
2716 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2717 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2718 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2719 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2720 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2721
2277426b
PA
2722* Removed commands
2723
2724info forks
2725 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2726 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2727 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2728 command.
2729
2730fork NUM
2731 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2732 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2733 alias for the `fork' command.
2734
2735process PID
2736 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2737 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2738 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2739
2740delete fork NUM
2741 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2742 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2743 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2744 fork' command.
2745
2746detach fork NUM
2747 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2748 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2749 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2750 fork' command.
2751
a80b95ba
TG
2752* New native configurations
2753
2754x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2755
b8bfd3ed
JB
2756x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2757
75a2d5e7
TT
2758* New targets
2759
c28c63d8 2760Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2761x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2762x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2763S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2764
6de3146c
PA
2765* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2766 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2767
d5cbbe6e
JB
2768* Removed commands
2769
2770catch load
2771catch unload
2772 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2773
75feb17d 2774*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2775
af5ca30d
NH
2776* New native configurations
2777
2778NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2779Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2780
2781* New targets
2782
2783NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2784Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2785
7a404eba
PA
2786* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2787
2788 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2789 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2790 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2791 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2792
430ebac9
PA
2793* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2794(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2795
fe6fbf8b 2796* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2797is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2798
2799* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2800including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2801and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2802
10665d76
JB
2803* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2804accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2805more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2806
7cc46491
DJ
2807* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2808
d71340b8
DJ
2809* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2810registers on PowerPC targets.
2811
523c4513
DJ
2812* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2813targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2814
a6b151f1
DJ
2815* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2816commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2817
2d717e4f
DJ
2818* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2819extended-remote mode.
2820
24a836bd 2821* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2822The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2823error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2824The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2825
d0c678e6
UW
2826* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2827building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2828target architectures.
2829
d64a946d
TJB
2830* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2831Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2832now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2833stored in two consecutive float registers.
2834
ee163bf5
VP
2835* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2836breakpoints now.
2837
b93b6ca7 2838* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2839Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2840include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2841 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2842 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2843 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2844 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2845 of an assignment
2846 - Improved command completion in Ada
2847 - Several bug fixes
2848
d001be7a
DJ
2849* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2850process.
2851
a6b151f1
DJ
2852* New commands
2853
6d53d0af
JB
2854set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2855show print frame-arguments
2856 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2857 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2858
a6b151f1
DJ
2859remote put
2860remote get
2861remote delete
2862 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2863
2864* New MI commands
2865
2866-target-file-put
2867-target-file-get
2868-target-file-delete
2869 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2870
2871* New remote packets
2872
2873vFile:open:
2874vFile:close:
2875vFile:pread:
2876vFile:pwrite:
2877vFile:unlink:
2878 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2879
2d717e4f
DJ
2880vAttach
2881 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2882 mode.
2883
2884vRun
2885 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2886
8d5f9c6f 2887*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2888
19d378fc
MS
2889* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2890bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2891Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2892
3a40aaa0
UW
2893* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2894symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2895-Bsymbolic linker option.
2896
a6ec25f2
BW
2897* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2898recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2899is not supported.
2900
6dd09645
JB
2901* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2902frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2903
c9bb8148
DJ
2904* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
290532-bit or 64-bit register values.
2906
0d5de010
DJ
2907* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2908
23181151
DJ
2909* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2910target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2911a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2912
ea37ba09
DJ
2913* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2914automatically displayed as character or string data.
2915
2916* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2917arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2918as strings.
e1f48ead 2919
123dc839
DJ
2920* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2921for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2922only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2923
05a4558a
DJ
2924* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2925iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2926
7c963485
PA
2927* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2928ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2929has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2930
b18be20d
DJ
2931* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2932
0ca420ce
UW
2933* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2934
31d99776
DJ
2935* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2936layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2937segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2938
a4642986
MR
2939* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2940immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2941
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2942* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2943"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2944packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2945where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2946Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2947
2948* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2949(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2950
2951* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2952according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2953
c9bb8148
DJ
2954* New commands
2955
23776285
MR
2956set remoteflow
2957show remoteflow
2958 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2959 when debugging using remote targets.
2960
c9bb8148
DJ
2961set mem inaccessible-by-default
2962show mem inaccessible-by-default
2963 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2964 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2965 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2966 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2967 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2968
2969set breakpoint auto-hw
2970show breakpoint auto-hw
2971 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2972 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2973 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2974 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2975 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2976 including "next" and "finish".
2977
0e420bd8
JB
2978catch exception
2979catch exception unhandled
2980 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2981
2982catch assert
2983 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2984
f822c95b
DJ
2985set sysroot
2986show sysroot
2987 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2988 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2989 an alias to "set sysroot".
2990
83cc5c53
UW
2991info spu
2992 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2993 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2994 architecture.
2995
bd372731
MK
2996* New native configurations
2997
2998OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2999
23181151
DJ
3000set tdesc filename
3001unset tdesc filename
3002show tdesc filename
3003 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
3004 not query the target for its built-in description.
3005
c9bb8148
DJ
3006* New targets
3007
54fe9172 3008OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 3009MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 3010Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 3011
6dd09645
JB
3012* New remote packets
3013
3014QPassSignals:
3015 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
3016 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
3017
23181151
DJ
3018qXfer:features:read:
3019 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
3020 features.
6dd09645 3021
83cc5c53
UW
3022qXfer:spu:read:
3023qXfer:spu:write:
3024 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
3025 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
3026
cfa9d6d9
DJ
3027qXfer:libraries:read:
3028 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
3029 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
3030 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
3031 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
3032
483367ee
DJ
3033* Removed targets
3034
3035Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
3036
d08950c4
UW
3037alpha*-*-osf1*
3038alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 3039d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
3040hppa*-*-hiux*
3041i[34567]86-ncr-*
3042i[34567]86-*-dgux*
3043i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
3044i[34567]86-*-netware*
3045i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
3046i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
3047i[34567]86-*-sco*
3048i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
3049i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
3050i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
3051i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
3052i[34567]86-*-unixware*
3053i[34567]86-*-sysv*
3054i[34567]86-*-isc*
3055m68*-cisco*-*
3056m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 3057mips*-*-pe
483367ee 3058rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 3059sh*-*-pe
483367ee 3060
7ce59000
DJ
3061* Other removed features
3062
3063target abug
3064target cpu32bug
3065target est
3066target rom68k
3067
3068 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
3069
ea35711c
DJ
3070target hms
3071target e7000
3072target sh3
3073target sh3e
3074
3075 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
3076 H8/300.
3077
3078target ocd
3079
3080 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
3081 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
3082 interfaces.
3083
7ce59000
DJ
3084DWARF 1 support
3085
3086 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
3087 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
3088
54d61198
DJ
3089Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
3090
3091 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
3092 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
3093 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
3094 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
3095
ea35711c
DJ
3096MIPS ".pdr" sections
3097
3098 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
3099 in debugging information.
3100
3101Scheme support
3102
3103 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
3104 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
3105
1a69e1e4
DJ
3106set mips stack-arg-size
3107set mips saved-gpreg-size
3108
3109 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
3110
6dd09645 3111*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 3112
ca3bf3bd
DJ
3113* New targets
3114
3115Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 3116Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 3117
6aec2e11
DJ
3118* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
3119(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
3120running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
3121
3122* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
3123Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
3124supported.
3125
17218d91
DJ
3126* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
3127broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
3128
9ebce043
DJ
3129* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
3130stub provides the required support.
3131
7d3d3ece
DJ
3132* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
3133longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
3134
4f8253f3
JB
3135* New commands
3136
3137set substitute-path
3138unset substitute-path
3139show substitute-path
3140 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
3141 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
3142 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
3143 between compilation and debugging.
3144
9fa66fd7
AS
3145set trace-commands
3146show trace-commands
3147 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
3148 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
3149 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
3150
1f5befc1
DJ
3151* REMOVED features
3152
3153The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
3154
2ec3381a
DJ
3155Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
3156an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
3157
3d00d119
DJ
3158The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
3159
be2a5f71
DJ
3160* New remote packets
3161
3162qSupported:
3163 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
3164 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
3165 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
3166 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
3167 target.
3168
0876f84a
DJ
3169qXfer:auxv:read:
3170 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
3171 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
3172
9ebce043
DJ
3173qXfer:memory-map:read:
3174 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
3175 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
3176
3177vFlashErase:
3178vFlashWrite:
3179vFlashDone:
3180 Erase and program a flash memory device.
3181
0876f84a
DJ
3182* Removed remote packets
3183
3184qPart:auxv:read:
3185 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
3186 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
3187
e374b601 3188*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 3189
96309189
MS
3190* New targets
3191
3192Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
3193
3194Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3195
53e5f3cf
AS
3196* New commands
3197
3198init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
3199 only if it doesn't already have a value.
3200
ac264b3b
MS
3201The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
3202
3203checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
3204
3205restart <n> Return the program state to a
3206 previously saved state.
3207
3208info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
3209
3210delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
3211
3212set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
3213 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
3214
3215info forks List forks of the user program that
3216 are available to be debugged.
3217
3218fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
3219 forks of the user program that are
3220 available to be debugged.
3221
3222delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3223 that are available to be debugged (and
3224 kill the forked process).
3225
3226detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
3227 that are available to be debugged (and
3228 allow the process to continue).
3229
3950dc3f
NS
3230* New architecture
3231
3232Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
3233
0ea3f30e
DJ
3234* Improved Windows host support
3235
3236GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
3237native console support, and remote communications using either
3238network sockets or serial ports.
3239
f79daebb
GM
3240* Improved Modula-2 language support
3241
3242GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
3243basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
3244pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
3245printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
3246written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
3247GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
3248
acab6ab2
MM
3249* REMOVED features
3250
3251The ARM rdi-share module.
3252
f4267320
DJ
3253The Netware NLM debug server.
3254
53e5f3cf 3255*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 3256
e0ecbda1
MK
3257* New native configurations
3258
02a677ac 3259OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
3260OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
3261
d64a6579
KB
3262* New targets
3263
3264Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
3265
b33a6190
AS
3266* New command line options
3267
3268--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
3269--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
3270 the child (debugged) program exited with.
3271--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
3272 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
3273 specified multiple times and in conjunction
3274 with the --command (-x) option.
3275
11dced61
AC
3276* Deprecated commands removed
3277
3278The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
3279removed:
3280
3281 Command Replacement
3282 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
3283 othernames set arm disassembler
3284 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
3285 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
3286 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
3287 regs info registers
3288
6fe85783
MK
3289* New BSD user-level threads support
3290
3291It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
3292library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
3293configurations are:
3294
3295FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3296FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
3297OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
3298
3299Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
3300are not yet supported.
3301
5260ca71
MS
3302* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
3303(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
3304
e84ecc99
AC
3305* REMOVED configurations and files
3306
3307VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 3308Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 3309National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 3310
31e35378
JB
3311* New "set print array-indexes" command
3312
3313After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
3314when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
3315behavior.
3316
e85e5c83
MK
3317* VAX floating point support
3318
3319GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
3320
d91e9901
AS
3321* User-defined command support
3322
3323In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
3324to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3325section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3326
f2cb65ca
MC
3327*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3328
f47b1503
AS
3329* New command line option
3330
3331GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3332debugging.
3333
f2cb65ca
MC
3334* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3335
3336GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3337information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3338by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3339proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3340to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 3341
d08c0230
AC
3342* Internationalization
3343
3344When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3345internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3346continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3347
117ea3cf
PH
3348* Ada
3349
3350Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3351implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3352into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3353
d08c0230
AC
3354* New native configurations
3355
3356GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3357
3358* Remote 'p' packet
3359
3360GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3361packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3362
3363* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3364
3365GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3366The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3367features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3368i386 application).
3369
3370GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3371compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3372continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3373configurations:
3374
3375hppa-*-hpux
3376ia64-*-aix
3377mips-*-irix*
3378*-*-lynx
3379mips-*-linux-gnu
3380sds protocol
3381xdr protocol
3382powerpc bdm protocol
3383
3384Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3385made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3386
3387* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3388
3389Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3390been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3391configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3392permanently REMOVED.
3393
3394h8300-*-*
3395mcore-*-*
3396mn10300-*-*
3397ns32k-*-*
3398sh64-*-*
3399v850-*-*
3400
ebb7c577
AC
3401*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3402
3403* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3404
3405When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3406heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3407been fixed.
3408
3409* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3410
3411When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3412fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3413IRIX long double values).
3414
3415* VAX and "next"
3416
3417A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3418command. This problem has been fixed.
3419
860660cb 3420*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 3421
0dea2468
AC
3422* Fix for ``many threads''
3423
3424On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3425rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3426error message:
3427
3428 ptrace: No such process.
3429 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3430
3431This problem has been fixed.
3432
2c07db7a
AC
3433* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3434
3435Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3436GDB to dump core).
3437
c23968a2
JB
3438* New ``start'' command.
3439
3440This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3441
71009278
MK
3442* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3443
3444Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3445live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3446platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3447
3448FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3449FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3450NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3451NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3452NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3453OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3454OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3455OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3456OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3457
3c0b7db2
AC
3458* Signal trampoline code overhauled
3459
3460Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3461These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3462of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3463call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3464signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3465
73cc75f3
AC
3466Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3467features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3468include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 3469
7243600a
BF
3470* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3471
6f606e1c
MK
3472* New native configurations
3473
97dc871c 3474GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 3475OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
3476OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3477OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 3478OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3479NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 3480OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3481
a1b461bf
AC
3482* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3483
3484GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3485The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3486including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3487migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3488compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3489work, was also included.
3490
3491GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3492module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3493
3494h8300-*-*
3495mcore-*-*
3496mn10300-*-*
3497ns32k-*-*
3498sh64-*-*
3499v850-*-*
3500xstormy16-*-*
3501
3502Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3503made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3504
3c7012f5
AC
3505* REMOVED configurations and files
3506
3507Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3508Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3509Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3510Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3511Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3512AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3513Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3514decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3515riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3516sonymips mips-sony-*
3517sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3518
e5fe55f7
AC
3519*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3520
3521* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3522
3523The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3524GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3525command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3526program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3527with GDB".
3528
3529* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3530
3531Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3532libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3533cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3534GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3535shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3536the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3537are created.
3538
3539Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3540
3541* Fixed ISO-C build problems
3542
3543The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3544non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3545compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3546
3547* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3548
3549Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3550wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3551
3552* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3553
3554The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3555permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3556systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3557
3558* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3559
3560Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3561has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3562
3563* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3564
3565GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3566its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3567panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3568
3569* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3570
3571When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3572by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3573not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3574
faae5abe 3575*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 3576
9175c9a3
MC
3577* Removed --with-mmalloc
3578
3579Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3580conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3581
3cc87ec0
MK
3582* Changes in AMD64 configurations
3583
3584The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3585the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3586and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3587you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3588
f0424ef6
MK
3589* Revised SPARC target
3590
3591The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3592FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
3593support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3594from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3595(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3596
59659be2
ILT
3597* New C++ demangler
3598
3599GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3600names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3601with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3602programs.
3603
9e08b29b
DJ
3604* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3605
3606GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3607arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3608encountered these.
3609
8dfe8985
DC
3610* C++ nested types and namespaces
3611
3612GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3613improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3614is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3615Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3616namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3617"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3618frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3619if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3620GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3621
cced5e27
MK
3622* New native configurations
3623
3624NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3625OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3626OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3627OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3628OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3629
b4b4b794
KI
3630* New debugging protocols
3631
3632M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3633
7989c619
AC
3634* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3635
3636The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3637and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3638tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3639
5994185b
AC
3640* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3641
3642Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3643been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3644configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3645permanently REMOVED.
3646
3647Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3648Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3649Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3650Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3651Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3652AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3653Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3654decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3655riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3656sonymips mips-sony-*
3657sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3658
0ddabb4c
AC
3659* REMOVED configurations and files
3660
3661SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3662SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3663Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3664Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3665H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3666HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3667HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3668HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3669PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3670386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3671Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3672 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3673 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3674SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3675SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3676Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3677Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3678
c7f1390e
DJ
3679*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3680
1fe43d45
AC
3681* Objective-C
3682
3683Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3684integrated into GDB.
3685
e6beb428
AC
3686* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3687
3688DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3689information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3690By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3691backtraces.
3692
3693The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3694have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3695DWARF 2 CFI support.
3696
3697* Hosted file I/O.
3698
3699GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3700file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3701remote protocol documentation for details.
3702
3703* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3704
3705All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3706architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3707to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3708ppc32 on ppc64).
3709
3710* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3711
3712GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3713per-thread variables.
3714
3715* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3716
3717GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3718GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3719
3720* Separate debug info.
3721
3722GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3723automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3724of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3725system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3726and optional debug files.
3727
3728* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3729
3730DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3731describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3732debugger.
3733
3734GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3735for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3736
3737* Java
3738
3739A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3740Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3741considered "useable".
3742
85f8f974
DJ
3743* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3744
3745The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3746commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3747kernel.
3748
0fac0b41
DJ
3749* GDB supports logging output to a file
3750
3751There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3752used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3753
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3754* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3755
3756The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3757disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3758command.
3759
e286caf2 3760* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3761
3762The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3763registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3764
d28f9cdf
DJ
3765* Profiling support
3766
3767A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3768be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3769session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3770"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3771data, for more informative profiling results.
3772
da0f9dcd
AC
3773* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3774
3775The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3776option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3777"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3778
3779Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3780removed.
3781
fb9b6b35
JJ
3782Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3783Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3784Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3785 in a subsequent -var-update.
3786
954a4db8
MK
3787* New native configurations.
3788
3789FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3790
6760f9e6
JB
3791* Multi-arched targets.
3792
b4263afa 3793HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3794Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3795
1b831c93
AC
3796* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3797
3798Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3799been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3800configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3801permanently REMOVED.
3802
8b0e5691 3803Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3804Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3805H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3806HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3807HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3808HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3809PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3810Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3811 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3812 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3813Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3814Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3815
5835abe7
NC
3816* REMOVED configurations and files
3817
3818V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3819Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3820IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3821i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3822i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3823i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3824HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3825 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3826 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3827Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3828Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3829Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3830OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3831I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3832
a094c6fb
AC
3833* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3834
3835The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3836the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3837context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3838address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3839The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3840
299ffc64 3841*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3842
46248966
AC
3843* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3844
3845When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3846`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3847in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3848library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3849shared libs like mad''.
3850
b9d14705 3851* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3852
b9d14705
DJ
3853Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3854the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3855arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3856powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3857
e0e9281e
JB
3858* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3859
3860GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3861and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3862they expand.
3863
dd73b9bb
AC
3864The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3865invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3866
3867The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3868macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3869
e0e9281e
JB
3870Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3871information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3872your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3873information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3874
2250ee0c
CV
3875* Multi-arched targets.
3876
6e3ba3b8
JT
3877DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3878DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3879NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3880National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3881Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3882Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3883
cd9bfe15 3884* New targets.
e33ce519 3885
456f8b9d
DB
3886Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3887
e33ce519 3888
da8ca43d
JT
3889* New native configurations
3890
3891Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3892SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3893MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3894UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3895
cd9bfe15
AC
3896* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3897
3898Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3899been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3900configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3901permanently REMOVED.
3902
92eb23c5 3903Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3904OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3905IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3906Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3907Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3908Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3909i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3910i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3911i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3912HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3913 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3914 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3915I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3916
db034ac5
AC
3917* OBSOLETE languages
3918
3919CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3920
cd9bfe15
AC
3921* REMOVED configurations and files
3922
3923AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3924A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3925AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3926AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3927AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3928
3929testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3930
20f01a46
DH
3931* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3932
3933This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3934commands. The default is 1024.
3935
a5941fbf
MK
3936* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3937
3938Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3939
89743e04
MS
3940* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3941
3942These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3943to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3944from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3945
9fb14e79
JB
3946* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3947
3948The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3949including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3950of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3951
2037aebb
AC
3952*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3953
3954* New targets.
3955
3956Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3957
3958* Bug fixes
3959
3960gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3961mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3962Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3963
3964gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3965dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3966Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3967
3968Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3969Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3970By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3971
3972i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3973avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3974By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3975
37057839 3976*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3977
1a703748
MS
3978* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3979
3980This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3981really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3982In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3983target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3984This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3985(notably embedded) targets.
3986
cefd4ef5
MS
3987* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3988
55241689
AC
3989This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3990process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3991GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3992hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3993
352ed7b4
MS
3994* New command line option
3995
3996GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3997
3998* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3999
4000There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
4001command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
4002a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
4003be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
4004open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
4005issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
4006a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
4007it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
4008GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
4009is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
4010
fe419ffc
RE
4011* Changes in ARM configurations.
4012
4013Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
4014configuration is fully multi-arch.
4015
eb7cedd9
MK
4016* New native configurations
4017
fe419ffc 4018ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 4019x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 4020AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 4021Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 4022
c9f63e6b
CV
4023* New targets
4024
4025Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
4026
9b4ff276
AC
4027* OBSOLETE configurations and files
4028
4029Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4030been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4031configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4032permanently REMOVED.
4033
4034AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
4035A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4036AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4037AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4038AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4039
b4ceaee6 4040testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 4041
e2caac18
AC
4042* REMOVED configurations and files
4043
4044TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 4045WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
4046PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4047PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4048PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 4049Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
4050Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4051 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 4052SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 4053Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
4054Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4055ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 4056Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 4057
c2a727fa
TT
4058* Changes to command line processing
4059
4060The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
4061for the inferior from gdb's command line.
4062
467d8519
TT
4063* Changes to key bindings
4064
4065There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
4066
7072a954
AC
4067*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
4068
4069Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
4070
4071Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
4072corrupted.
4073
4074Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
4075
4076Numerous documentation fixes.
4077
4078Numerous testsuite fixes.
4079
34f47bc4 4080*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
4081
4082* New native configurations
4083
4084Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
4085x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 4086MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
4087MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4088ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 4089s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 4090
bf64bfd6
AC
4091* New targets
4092
def90278 4093Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 4094CRIS cris-axis
55241689 4095UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 4096
17e78a56 4097* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
4098
4099x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 4100Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
4101Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
4102 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
4103TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4104WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 4105Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
4106PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4107PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4108PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 4109SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
4110Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
4111ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 4112Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 4113
17e78a56
AC
4114stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
4115kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
4116
7fcca85b
AC
4117Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
4118been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
4119configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
4120permanently REMOVED.
4121
a196c81c 4122* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
4123
4124Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4125Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4126Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4127ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4128Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 4129ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 4130
6d6b80e5 4131* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 4132
6d6b80e5 4133GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
4134sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
4135present.
4136
bf64bfd6
AC
4137* Other news:
4138
e23194cb
EZ
4139* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
4140
4141* The MI enabled by default.
4142
4143The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
4144revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
4145engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
4146using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
4147which is now deprecated.
4148
4149* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
4150
4151GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
4152main features are supported:
4153
4154 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
4155
4156 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
4157 extension;
4158
4159 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
4160
4161 - a Pascal expression parser.
4162
4163However, some important features are not yet supported.
4164
4165 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
4166
4167 - there are some problems with boolean types;
4168
4169 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
4170 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
4171
4172 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
4173
4174 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
4175
4176* Changes in completion.
4177
4178Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
4179to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
4180users expect at the shell prompt.
4181
4182Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
4183`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
4184program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
4185files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
4186be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
4187considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
4188name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
4189
4190`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
4191
4192* New platform-independent commands:
4193
4194It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
4195hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
4196documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
4197
4198* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
4199
d7275149
MK
4200Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
4201revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
4202many threads as your system allows you to have.
4203
e23194cb
EZ
4204Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
4205
d7275149
MK
4206Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
4207multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
4208
4209* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
4210
4211Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
4212
e23194cb
EZ
4213GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
4214debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
4215supported.)
4216
4217* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
4218
4219Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
4220breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
4221implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
4222put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
4223and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
4224registers.
4225
4226The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
4227debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
4228watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
4229
4230* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
4231
4232New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
4233the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
4234
4235New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
4236display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
4237IDT.
4238
4239New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
4240from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
4241New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
4242a given linear address.
4243
4244GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
4245program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
4246which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
4247
4248DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
4249
6c56c069
EZ
4250It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
4251
e23194cb
EZ
4252* Changes in documentation.
4253
4254All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
4255Documentation License.
4256
4257Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4258manual.
4259
4260TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
4261
4262Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
4263manual.
4264
4265The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
4266documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
4267hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
4268
5d6640b1
AC
4269* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
4270
4271The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
4272``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
4273contents of this file.
4274
1a1d8446
AC
4275* gdba.el deleted
4276
4277GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 4278
9debab2f 4279*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 4280
c63ce875
EZ
4281* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
4282
4283Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
4284programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
4285displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
4286greater level of detail.
4287
4288* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
4289
4290It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
4291bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
4292on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
4293written.
4294
4295* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
4296
4297The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
4298necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
4299machines ``out of the box''.
4300
4301The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
4302possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
4303signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
4304would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
4305interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
4306
4307It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
4308standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
4309even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
4310and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
4311terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
4312
4313The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
4314enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
4315also works.
4316
4317DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
4318GDB.
4319
4320It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
4321directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
4322times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
4323breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
4324
ed9a39eb
JM
4325* New native configurations
4326
4327ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 4328PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 4329
7a292a7a
SS
4330* New targets
4331
96baa820 4332Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
4333x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4334PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
4335TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4336
085dd6e6
JM
4337* OBSOLETE configurations
4338
4339Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4340Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 4341Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 4342ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 4343Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 4344
9debab2f
AC
4345Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4346but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4347these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4348be permanently REMOVED.
4349
5330533d
SS
4350* Gould support removed
4351
4352Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4353
bc9e5bbf
AC
4354* New features for SVR4
4355
4356On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4357without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4358load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4359
4360* Many C++ enhancements
4361
4362C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4363in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4364
adf40b2e
JM
4365* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4366
4367A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4368sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4369with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4370``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4371
4372 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4373 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4374
43e526b9
JM
4375* MIPS 64 remote protocol
4376
4377A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4378expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4379instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4380
4381The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4382added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4383
96baa820
JM
4384* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4385
4386The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4387``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4388include ``set remote P-packet''.
4389
11cf8741
JM
4390* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4391
4392The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4393accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4394``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4395
7876dd43
DB
4396* ``apropos'' command added.
4397
4398The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4399documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4400try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4401
bc9e5bbf
AC
4402* New MI interface
4403
4404A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4405interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
4406process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4407"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4408enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
4409
4410 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4411
c906108c
SS
4412*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4413
4414* New native configurations
4415
4416HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4417HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 4418M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
4419
4420* New targets
4421
4422Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4423Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4424Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4425
4426* OBSOLETE configurations
4427
4428Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4429
4430Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4431but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4432these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4433be permanently REMOVED.
4434
4435* ANSI/ISO C
4436
4437As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4438buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4439containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4440use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4441available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4442configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4443information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4444already.
4445
4446* Readline 2.2
4447
4448GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4449
4450* set extension-language
4451
4452You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4453languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4454you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4455 set extension-language .c c++
4456The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4457and their associated languages.
4458
4459* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4460
4461When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4462you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4463PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4464
4465 set processor NAME
4466
4467sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4468following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4469
4470 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4471 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4472 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4473 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4474 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4475 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4476 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4477 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4478 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4479 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4480 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4481
4482At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4483special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4484registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4485only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4486
4487* HP-UX support
4488
4489Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4490more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4491library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4492support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4493for xdb and dbx commands.
4494
4495* Catchpoints
4496
4497HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4498generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4499to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4500
4501This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4502argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4503output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4504
4505* Debugging across forks
4506
4507On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4508in the inferior.
4509
4510* TUI
4511
4512HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4513it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4514configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4515
4516* GDB remote protocol additions
4517
4518A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4519Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4520fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4521allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4522
4523For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4524full 64-bit address. The command
4525
4526 set remoteaddresssize 32
4527
4528can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4529the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4530will be discarded.
4531
4532In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4533command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4534
4535 maint packet heythere
4536
4537sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4538disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4539time.
4540
4541The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4542target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4543downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4544
4545* Tracing can collect general expressions
4546
4547You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4548further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4549doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4550
4551* mask-address variable for Mips
4552
4553For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4554a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4555of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4556
4557* Higher serial baud rates
4558
4559GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4560230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4561to achieve all of these rates.)
4562
4563* i960 simulator
4564
4565The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4566builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4567
4568
4569*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4570
4571* New native configurations
4572
4573Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4574Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4575Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4576PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4577PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4578Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4579Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4580
4581* New targets
4582
4583Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4584Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4585Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4586Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4587MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4588MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4589MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4590Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4591Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4592Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4593NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4594
4595* New debugging protocols
4596
4597ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4598M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4599DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4600PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4601PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4602Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4603
4604* DWARF 2
4605
4606All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4607format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4608information.
4609
4610* Java frontend
4611
4612GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4613only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4614
4615* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4616
4617For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4618loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4619locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4620
4621* Live range splitting
4622
4623GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4624range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4625more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4626
4627* Hurd support
4628
4629GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4630updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4631
4632* ARM Thumb support
4633
4634GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4635instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4636instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4637accordingly.
4638
4639* MIPS16 support
4640
4641GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4642instruction set.
4643
4644* Overlay support
4645
4646GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4647linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4648will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4649control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4650additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4651in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4652
4653* info symbol
4654
4655The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4656the symbol at the specified address.
4657
4658* Trace support
4659
4660The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4661asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4662extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4663includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4664file tracepoint.c for more details.
4665
4666* MIPS simulator
4667
4668Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4669by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4670of most MIPS variants.
4671
4672* Sparc simulator
4673
4674Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4675by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4676Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4677
4678* set architecture
4679
4680For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4681basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4682architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4683the possible architectures.
4684
4685*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4686
4687* New native configurations
4688
4689Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4690M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4691PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4692PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4693PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4694RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4695
4696* New targets
4697
4698ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4699I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4700MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4701MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4702PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4703Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4704Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4705
4706* PowerPC simulator
4707
4708The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4709contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4710PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4711basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4712performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4713
4714* Solaris 2.5
4715
4716GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4717
4718* Windows 95/NT native
4719
4720GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4721To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4722which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4723Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4724ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4725
4726* dont-repeat command
4727
4728If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4729command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4730useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4731extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4732
4733* Send break instead of ^C
4734
4735The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4736rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4737GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4738
4739* Remote protocol timeout
4740
4741The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4742that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4743to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4744
4745* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4746
4747By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4748loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4749stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4750when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4751in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4752
4753Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4754/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4755automatically on hpux10.
4756
4757* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4758
4759Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4760
4761* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4762
4763When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4764may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4765the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4766every character. The default value is 1050.
4767
4768* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4769
4770If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4771a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4772replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4773details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4774remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4775to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4776
4777* Speedups for remote debugging
4778
4779GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4780the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4781and more efficient S-record downloading.
4782
4783* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4784
4785GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4786Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4787
4788*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4789
4790* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4791
4792The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4793can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4794
4795* Remote targets use caching
4796
4797Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4798remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4799it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4800debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4801off' turns the the data cache off.
4802
4803* Remote targets may have threads
4804
4805The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4806in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4807gdb/remote.c for details.
4808
4809* NetROM support
4810
4811If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4812support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4813acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4814write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4815support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4816another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4817sequence is something like
4818
4819 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4820 load <prog>
4821 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4822
4823* Macintosh host
4824
4825GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4826may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4827it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4828available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4829device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4830directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4831scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4832mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4833
4834* Autoconf
4835
4836GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4837but does simplify configuration and building.
4838
4839* hpux10
4840
4841GDB now supports hpux10.
4842
4843*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4844
4845* New native configurations
4846
4847x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4848x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4849NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4850Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4851
4852* New targets
4853
4854A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4855HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4856CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4857PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4858WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4859
4860* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4861
4862GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4863possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4864filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4865the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4866if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4867
4868* Arguments to user-defined commands
4869
4870User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4871Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4872trivial example:
4873define adder
4874 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4875
4876To execute the command use:
4877adder 1 2 3
4878
4879Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4880Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4881use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4882
4883* New `if' and `while' commands
4884
4885This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4886commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4887expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4888execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4889terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4890`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4891if the expression is zero.
4892
4893* Fortran source language mode
4894
4895GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4896Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4897variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4898with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4899Fortran compilers.
4900
4901* Better HPUX support
4902
4903Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4904running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4905processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4906for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4907that behavior do the following before running the program:
4908
4909 adb -w a.out
4910 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4911 control-d
4912
4913This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4914To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4915
4916 adb -w a.out
4917 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4918 control-d
4919
4920You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4921the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4922external linkage.
4923
4924GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4925HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4926
4927* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4928
4929You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4930commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4931current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4932"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4933associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4934configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4935
4936* New DOS host serial code
4937
4938This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4939no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4940a PC's serial port.
4941
4942*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4943
4944* New "complete" command
4945
4946This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4947were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4948
4949* Trailing space optional in prompt
4950
4951"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4952allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4953
4954* Breakpoint hit counts
4955
4956"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4957has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4958can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4959to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4960less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4961that breakpoint.
4962
4963* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4964
4965"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4966an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4967arrays actually contain only short strings.
4968
4969* Shared library breakpoints
4970
4971In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4972breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4973
4974* Hardware watchpoints
4975
4976There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4977targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4978
55241689 4979Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4980
4981* Annotations
4982
4983Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4984and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4985
4986* Improved Irix 5 support
4987
4988GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4989
4990* Improved HPPA support
4991
4992GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4993
4994* New native configurations
4995
4996Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4997HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4998Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4999RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
5000
5001* New targets
5002
5003OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5004MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
5005Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
5006
5007* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
5008
5009There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
5010This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
5011
5012* Fixes
5013
5014As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
5015and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
5016
5017*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
5018
5019* Irix 5 is now supported
5020
5021* HPPA support
5022
5023GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
5024to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
5025GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
5026of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
5027can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
5028
5029
5030*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
5031
5032* User visible changes:
5033
5034* Remote Debugging
5035
5036The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
5037target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
5038debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
5039integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
5040debugging info for the mips target).
5041
5042* DEC Alpha native support
5043
5044GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
5045debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
5046work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
5047Alpha-specific notes.
5048
5049* Preliminary thread implementation
5050
5051GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
5052
5053* LynxOS native and target support for 386
5054
5055This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
5056to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
5057for details).
5058
5059* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
5060
5061This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
5062mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
5063call methods, ...etc.
5064
5065*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
5066
5067 * User visible changes:
5068
5069Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
5070supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
5071other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
5072somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
5073
5074Filename completion now works.
5075
5076When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
5077arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
5078addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
5079
5080All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
5081vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
5082should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
5083your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
5084to be on the far side of a thin network line.
5085
5086 * DEC alpha support
5087
5088This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
5089cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
5090
5091
5092*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
5093
5094 * Testsuite
5095
5096This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
5097The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
5098via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
5099
5100 * C++ demangling
5101
5102'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
5103emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
5104Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
5105disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
5106use gdb with AT&T cfront.
5107
5108 * Simulators
5109
5110GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
5111So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
5112Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
5113
5114 * New targets supported
5115
5116H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5117H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5118SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
5119Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5120IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
5121
5122Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
5123version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
5124GO32 memory extender.
5125
5126 * New remote protocols
5127
5128MIPS remote debugging protocol.
5129
5130 * New source languages supported
5131
5132This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
5133used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
5134into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
5135
5136
5137*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
5138
5139 * HP Precision Architecture supported
5140
5141GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
5142version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
5143University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
5144compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
5145format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
5146(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
5147
5148Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
5149
5150 * Faster and better demangling
5151
5152We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
5153demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
5154character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
5155only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
5156This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
5157increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
5158symbol lookups.
5159
5160`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
5161from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
5162compiler does not actually implement.
5163
5164 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
5165
5166In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
5167inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
5168recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
5169very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
5170The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
5171circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
5172fix.
5173
5174The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
5175release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
5176
5177 * Improved configure script
5178
5179The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
5180you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
5181host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
5182done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
5183
5184We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
5185version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
5186`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
5187The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
5188only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
5189We hope to make this the default in a future release.
5190
5191 * Documentation improvements
5192
5193There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
5194produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
5195before submitting changes.
5196
5197The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
5198M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
5199`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
5200you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
5201a future texinfo-X.Y release.
5202
5203*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
5204We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
5205been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
5206or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
5207`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
5208around this problem.
5209
5210 * New features
5211
5212GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
5213the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
5214`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
5215the target program.
5216
5217The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
5218how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
5219
5220 * New native hosts supported
5221
5222HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
5223386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
5224
5225 * New targets supported
5226
5227AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
5228
5229 * New file formats supported
5230
5231BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
5232HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
5233
5234 * Major bug fixes
5235
5236Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
5237
5238We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
5239printf_filtered("%s") problems.
5240
5241We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
5242for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
5243release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
5244
5245You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
5246will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
5247
5248We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
5249for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
5250especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
5251libraries.
5252
5253The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
5254information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
5255command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
5256any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
5257when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
5258
5259 * Internal improvements
5260
5261GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
5262debugging of multiple languages in the future.
5263
5264GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
5265Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
5266symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
5267contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
5268shared code that handles any of them.
5269
5270 * New command line options
5271
5272We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
5273
5274 * Mmalloc licensing
5275
5276The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
5277General Public License.
5278
5279*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
5280
5281 * Host/native/target split
5282
5283GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
5284hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
5285target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
5286local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
5287ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
5288
5289The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
5290GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
5291is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
5292code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
5293any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
5294built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
5295handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
5296
5297GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
5298It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
5299plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
5300
5301 * New hosts supported
5302
5303HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
5304386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5305386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
5306
5307 * New targets supported
5308
5309Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
531068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
5311
5312 * New native hosts supported
5313
5314386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
5315 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
5316386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
5317
5318 * New file formats supported
5319
5320BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
5321supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
5322format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
5323
5324 * New commands
5325
5326`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5327`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5328These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5329
5330`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5331
5332You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5333scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5334prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5335executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5336
5337 * C++ improvements
5338
5339We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5340info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5341symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5342
5343Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5344
5345 * Major bug fixes
5346
5347The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5348fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5349by the compiler.
5350
5351We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5352support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5353
5354John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5355slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5356that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5357purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5358the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5359mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5360
5361Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5362about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5363completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5364we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5365
5366 * AMD 29k support
5367
5368A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5369specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5370calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5371usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5372in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5373
5374We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5375Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5376of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5377resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5378
5379 * Remote interfaces
5380
5381We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5382with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5383message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5384This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5385needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5386breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5387each instruction being stepped through.
5388
5389The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5390registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5391
5392There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5393find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5394Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5395processor with a serial port.
5396
5397 * Configuration
5398
5399Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5400`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5401supported, and what files each one uses.
5402
5403 * Library changes
5404
5405There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5406disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5407Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5408disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5409
5410The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5411Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5412can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5413grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5414
5415 * Documentation
5416
5417The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5418reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5419as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5420encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5421system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5422bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5423
5424And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5425
5426
5427*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5428
5429 * Better support for C++ function names
5430
5431GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5432names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5433(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5434single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5435Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5436
5437GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5438the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5439You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5440lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5441for the list of formats.
5442
5443 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5444
5445Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5446C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5447directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5448can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5449usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5450about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5451this problem.)
5452
5453 * New 'maintenance' command
5454
5455All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5456the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5457can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5458
5459 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5460 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5461 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5462 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5463 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5464 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5465
5466The following commands are new:
5467
5468 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5469 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5470 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5471
5472 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5473
5474We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5475(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5476be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5477read after argv processing.
5478
5479 * New hosts supported
5480
5481Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5482
55241689 5483GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
5484
5485We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5486is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5487for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5488masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5489fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5490It costs extra.
5491
5492 * New targets supported
5493
5494Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5495
5496 * More smarts about finding #include files
5497
5498GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5499all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5500greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5501especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5502the one that contains your sources.
5503
5504We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5505breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5506try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5507
5508 * Interesting infernals change
5509
5510GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5511section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5512target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5513stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5514
5515 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5516
5517There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5518 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5519 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5520
5521See the ChangeLog for details.
5522
5523*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5524
5525 * New machines supported (host and target)
5526
5527IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5528
5529SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5530
5531 * New malloc package
5532
5533GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5534Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5535capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5536This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5537pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5538more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5539
5540 * info proc
5541
5542The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5543'help info proc' for details.
5544
5545 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5546
5547The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5548Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5549possible.
5550
5551 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5552
5553Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5554support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5555conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5556environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5557that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5558in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5559
5560 * Cross byte order fixes
5561
5562Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5563targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5564
5565 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5566
5567If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5568system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5569`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5570program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5571called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5572Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5573and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5574the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5575option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5576starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5577
5578You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5579the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5580information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5581slower, but makes future operations faster.
5582
5583The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5584build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5585A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5586use is:
5587
5588 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5589
5590The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5591It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5592shared across multiple host platforms.
5593
5594 * longjmp() handling
5595
5596GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5597siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5598all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5599platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5600
5601 * Solaris 2.0
5602
5603Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5604this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5605reading symbols.
5606
5607 * Bug fixes
5608
5609As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5610People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5611crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5612
5613*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5614
5615 * New machines supported (host and target)
5616
5617SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5618 (except core files)
5619BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5620Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5621
5622 * New machines supported (target)
5623
5624AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5625
5626 * C++ support
5627
5628GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5629The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5630per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5631
5632GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5633`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5634extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5635good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5636will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5637released.
5638
5639 * New features for SVR4
5640
5641GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5642shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5643only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5644
5645The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5646on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5647it prints the address mappings of the process.
5648
5649If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5650bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5651
5652 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5653
5654Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5655now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5656skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5657make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5658same code linked statically.
5659
5660 * New Getopt
5661
5662GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5663version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5664continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5665Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5666added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5667future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5668
5669 * Bugs fixed
5670
5671The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5672Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5673See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5674
5675
5676*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5677
5678 * New machines supported (host and target)
5679
5680Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5681NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5682Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5683
5684 * Almost SCO Unix support
5685
5686We had hoped to support:
5687SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5688(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5689that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5690about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5691
5692 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5693
5694GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5695debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5696is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5697send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5698reqired (if any).
5699
5700 * New Readline
5701
5702GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5703is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5704required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5705
5706 * Bugs fixed
5707
5708The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5709Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5710See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5711
5712 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5713
5714GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5715supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5716symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5717
5718Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5719mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5720debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5721mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5722version 2.
5723
5724Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5725really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5726line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5727variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5728situation somewhat.
5729
5730When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5731However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5732methods.
5733
5734We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5735DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5736encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5737
5738
5739*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5740
5741 * Improved configuration
5742
5743Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5744Porting BFD is simpler.
5745
5746 * Stepping improved
5747
5748The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5749of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5750in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5751function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5752
5753 * Bug fixing
5754
5755Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5756
5757 * New host supported (not target)
5758
5759Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5760
5761
5762*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5763
5764 * Multiple source language support
5765
5766GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5767It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5768and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5769language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5770You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5771`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5772
5773 * GDB and Modula-2
5774
5775GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5776currently under development at the State University of New York at
5777Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5778continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5779
5780Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5781debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5782symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5783
5784There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5785in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5786
5787 * set write on/off
5788
5789GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5790a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5791the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5792by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5793effect immediately.
5794
5795 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5796
5797When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5798shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5799The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5800examining core files.
5801
5802 * set listsize
5803
5804You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5805The default is 10.
5806
5807 * New machines supported (host and target)
5808
5809SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5810Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5811Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5812
5813 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5814
5815IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5816
5817 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5818
5819AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5820AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5821Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5822
5823 * New remote interfaces
5824
5825AMD 29000 Adapt
5826AMD 29000 Minimon
5827
5828
5829*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5830
5831 * New Facilities
5832
5833Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5834
5835Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5836target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5837is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5838remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5839remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5840also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5841using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5842stub on the target system.
5843
5844New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5845
5846GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5847library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5848object file types such as a.out and coff.
5849
5850There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5851refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5852
5853
5854 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5855
5856All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5857by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5858
5859For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5860``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5861Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5862
5863What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5864print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5865will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5866all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5867
5868confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5869 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5870 it is already running. Default is ON.
5871
5872editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5873 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5874 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5875 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5876 Default is ON.
5877
5878history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5879 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5880 or the value of the environment variable
5881 GDBHISTFILE.
5882
5883history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5884 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5885 HISTSIZE.
5886
5887history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5888 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5889 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5890
5891history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5892 history expansion will be performed on
5893 command line input. The default is OFF.
5894
5895radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5896 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5897 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5898
5899height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5900 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5901 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5902 variable TERM.
5903
5904width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5905 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5906 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5907 variable TERM.
5908
5909Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5910``set width'' instead.
5911
5912print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5913 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5914 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5915 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5916
5917print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5918 is OFF.
5919
5920print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5921 "raw" form if off.
5922
5923print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5924 like instructions.
5925
5926print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5927
5928
5929 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5930
5931The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5932new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5933are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5934window.
5935
5936
5937 * Support for Shared Libraries
5938
5939GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5940Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5941before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5942happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5943At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5944from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5945shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5946It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5947
5948sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5949 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5950 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5951
5952info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5953
5954
5955 * Watchpoints
5956
5957A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5958expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5959tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5960quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5961problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5962more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5963
5964watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5965
5966info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5967
5968delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5969disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5970enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5971
5972
5973 * C++ multiple inheritance
5974
5975When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5976for C++ programs.
5977
5978 * C++ exception handling
5979
5980Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5981ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5982the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5983handler's context).
5984
5985catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5986 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5987 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5988
5989info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5990 current stack frame.
5991
5992
5993 * Minor command changes
5994
5995The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5996command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5997is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5998
5999The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
6000at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
6001frames without printing.
6002
6003 * New directory command
6004
6005'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
6006The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
6007about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
6008with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
6009find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
6010
6011 * Configuring GDB for compilation
6012
6013For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
6014for more details.
6015
6016GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
6017two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
6018Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
6019where the program that you are debugging will run.