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c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
75feb17d
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
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UW
6* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
7remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
8with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
9the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
10
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11* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
12now complete on file names.
13
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14* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
15completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
16For instance, consider:
17
18 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
19 # struct example variable;
20 (gdb) p variable.
21
22If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
23completions will be "f1" and "f2".
24
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25* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
26operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
27macros.
28
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29* New remote packets
30
31qSearch:memory:
32 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
33
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34QStartNoAckMode
35 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
36 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
37 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
38
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39qXfer:osdata:read
40 Obtains additional operating system information
41
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42* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
43
44 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
45 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
46 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
47
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48* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
49source+assembly.
50
c055b101 51* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 52DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
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53
54* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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55and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
56`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 57
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58* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
59with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
60
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61* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
62
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63* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
64
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65* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
66which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
67
1fddbabb 68* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 69list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 70
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71* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
72conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
73have also been fixed.
74
bfb8797a 75* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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76From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
77are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 78
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79* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
80
81 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
82 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
83
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84 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
85 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
86 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
87
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88 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
89 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
90
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91 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
92 gdbserver.
93
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94* Python scripting
95
96 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
97 available is determined at configure time.
98
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99* Ada tasking support
100
101 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
102 been introduced:
103
104 info tasks
105 Print the list of Ada tasks.
106 info task N
107 Print detailed information about task number N.
108 task
109 Print the task number of the current task.
110 task N
111 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
112
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113* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
114add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
115
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116* New commands
117
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118find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
119 val1 [, val2, ...]
120 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
121
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TJB
122maint set python print-stack
123maint show python print-stack
124 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
125
126python [CODE]
127 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
128
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129set print symbol-loading
130show print symbol-loading
131 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
132
e0a3ce09 133set debug timestamp
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134show debug timestamp
135 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
136
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137set exec-wrapper
138show exec-wrapper
139unset exec-wrapper
140 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 141
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142set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
143show multiple-symbols
144 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
145 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
146 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
147
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148set breakpoint always-inserted
149show breakpoint always-inserted
150 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
151 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
152 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
153
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154set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
155show arm fallback-mode
156set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
157show arm force-mode
158 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
159 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
160 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
161 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
162
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163set disable-randomization
164show disable-randomization
165 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
166 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
167 multiple debugging sessions.
168
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169set target-async
170 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
171 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
172 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
173 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
174
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175set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
176show tcp auto-retry
177set tcp connect-timeout
178show tcp connect-timeout
179 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
180 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
181 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
182
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183macro define
184macro list
185macro undef
186 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
187 interactively.
188
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189* New native configurations
190
191x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
192
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193info os processes
194 Show operating system information about processes.
195
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196* New targets
197
198x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
199
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200* Removed commands
201
202catch load
203catch unload
204 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
205
75feb17d 206*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 207
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208* New native configurations
209
210NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 211Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
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212
213* New targets
214
215NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 216Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 217
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218* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
219
220 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
221 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
222 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
223 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
224
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225* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
226(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
227
fe6fbf8b 228* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 229is resolved.
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230
231* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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232including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
233and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 234
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235* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
236accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
237more than one contiguous range of addresses.
238
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239* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
240
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241* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
242registers on PowerPC targets.
243
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244* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
245targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
246
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247* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
248commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
249
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250* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
251extended-remote mode.
252
24a836bd 253* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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254The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
255error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
256The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 257
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258* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
259building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
260target architectures.
261
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262* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
263Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
264now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
265stored in two consecutive float registers.
266
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267* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
268breakpoints now.
269
b93b6ca7 270* Improved support for debugging Ada
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271Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
272include:
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273 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
274 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
275 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
276 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
277 of an assignment
278 - Improved command completion in Ada
279 - Several bug fixes
280
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281* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
282process.
283
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284* New commands
285
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286set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
287show print frame-arguments
288 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
289 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
290
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291remote put
292remote get
293remote delete
294 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
295
296* New MI commands
297
298-target-file-put
299-target-file-get
300-target-file-delete
301 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
302
303* New remote packets
304
305vFile:open:
306vFile:close:
307vFile:pread:
308vFile:pwrite:
309vFile:unlink:
310 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 311
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312vAttach
313 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
314 mode.
315
316vRun
317 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
318
8d5f9c6f 319*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 320
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MS
321* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
322bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
323Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
324
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UW
325* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
326symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
327-Bsymbolic linker option.
328
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329* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
330recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
331is not supported.
332
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333* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
334frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
335
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336* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
33732-bit or 64-bit register values.
338
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339* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
340
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341* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
342target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
343a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
344
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345* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
346automatically displayed as character or string data.
347
348* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
349arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
350as strings.
e1f48ead 351
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352* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
353for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 354only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 355
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356* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
357iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 358
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359* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
360ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
361has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
362
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363* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
364
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UW
365* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
366
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367* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
368layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
369segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
370
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371* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
372immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
373
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374* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
375"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
376packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
377where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
378Windows and SymbianOS).
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379
380* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
381(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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382
383* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
384according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 385
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386* New commands
387
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388set remoteflow
389show remoteflow
390 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
391 when debugging using remote targets.
392
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393set mem inaccessible-by-default
394show mem inaccessible-by-default
395 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
396 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
397 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
398 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
399 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
400
401set breakpoint auto-hw
402show breakpoint auto-hw
403 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
404 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
405 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
406 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
407 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
408 including "next" and "finish".
409
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410catch exception
411catch exception unhandled
412 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
413
414catch assert
415 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
416
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417set sysroot
418show sysroot
419 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
420 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
421 an alias to "set sysroot".
422
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423info spu
424 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
425 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
426 architecture.
427
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428* New native configurations
429
430OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
431
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432set tdesc filename
433unset tdesc filename
434show tdesc filename
435 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
436 not query the target for its built-in description.
437
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438* New targets
439
54fe9172 440OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 441MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 442Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 443
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444* New remote packets
445
446QPassSignals:
447 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
448 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
449
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450qXfer:features:read:
451 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
452 features.
6dd09645 453
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UW
454qXfer:spu:read:
455qXfer:spu:write:
456 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
457 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
458
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459qXfer:libraries:read:
460 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
461 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
462 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
463 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
464
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465* Removed targets
466
467Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
468
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469alpha*-*-osf1*
470alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 471d10v-*-*
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472hppa*-*-hiux*
473i[34567]86-ncr-*
474i[34567]86-*-dgux*
475i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
476i[34567]86-*-netware*
477i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
478i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
479i[34567]86-*-sco*
480i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
481i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
482i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
483i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
484i[34567]86-*-unixware*
485i[34567]86-*-sysv*
486i[34567]86-*-isc*
487m68*-cisco*-*
488m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 489mips*-*-pe
483367ee 490rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 491sh*-*-pe
483367ee 492
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493* Other removed features
494
495target abug
496target cpu32bug
497target est
498target rom68k
499
500 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
501
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502target hms
503target e7000
504target sh3
505target sh3e
506
507 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
508 H8/300.
509
510target ocd
511
512 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
513 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
514 interfaces.
515
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516DWARF 1 support
517
518 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
519 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
520
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521Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
522
523 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
524 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
525 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
526 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
527
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528MIPS ".pdr" sections
529
530 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
531 in debugging information.
532
533Scheme support
534
535 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
536 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
537
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538set mips stack-arg-size
539set mips saved-gpreg-size
540
541 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
542
6dd09645 543*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 544
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545* New targets
546
547Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 548Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 549
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550* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
551(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
552running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
553
554* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
555Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
556supported.
557
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558* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
559broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
560
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561* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
562stub provides the required support.
563
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564* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
565longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
566
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567* New commands
568
569set substitute-path
570unset substitute-path
571show substitute-path
572 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
573 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
574 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
575 between compilation and debugging.
576
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577set trace-commands
578show trace-commands
579 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
580 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
581 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
582
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583* REMOVED features
584
585The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
586
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587Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
588an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
589
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590The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
591
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592* New remote packets
593
594qSupported:
595 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
596 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
597 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
598 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
599 target.
600
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601qXfer:auxv:read:
602 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
603 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
604
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605qXfer:memory-map:read:
606 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
607 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
608
609vFlashErase:
610vFlashWrite:
611vFlashDone:
612 Erase and program a flash memory device.
613
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614* Removed remote packets
615
616qPart:auxv:read:
617 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
618 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
619
e374b601 620*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 621
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MS
622* New targets
623
624Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
625
626Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
627
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628* New commands
629
630init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
631 only if it doesn't already have a value.
632
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MS
633The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
634
635checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
636
637restart <n> Return the program state to a
638 previously saved state.
639
640info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
641
642delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
643
644set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
645 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
646
647info forks List forks of the user program that
648 are available to be debugged.
649
650fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
651 forks of the user program that are
652 available to be debugged.
653
654delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
655 that are available to be debugged (and
656 kill the forked process).
657
658detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
659 that are available to be debugged (and
660 allow the process to continue).
661
3950dc3f
NS
662* New architecture
663
664Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
665
0ea3f30e
DJ
666* Improved Windows host support
667
668GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
669native console support, and remote communications using either
670network sockets or serial ports.
671
f79daebb
GM
672* Improved Modula-2 language support
673
674GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
675basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
676pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
677printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
678written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
679GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
680
acab6ab2
MM
681* REMOVED features
682
683The ARM rdi-share module.
684
f4267320
DJ
685The Netware NLM debug server.
686
53e5f3cf 687*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 688
e0ecbda1
MK
689* New native configurations
690
02a677ac 691OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
692OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
693
d64a6579
KB
694* New targets
695
696Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
697
b33a6190
AS
698* New command line options
699
700--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
701--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
702 the child (debugged) program exited with.
703--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
704 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
705 specified multiple times and in conjunction
706 with the --command (-x) option.
707
11dced61
AC
708* Deprecated commands removed
709
710The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
711removed:
712
713 Command Replacement
714 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
715 othernames set arm disassembler
716 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
717 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
718 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
719 regs info registers
720
6fe85783
MK
721* New BSD user-level threads support
722
723It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
724library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
725configurations are:
726
727FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
728FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
729OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
730
731Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
732are not yet supported.
733
5260ca71
MS
734* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
735(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
736
e84ecc99
AC
737* REMOVED configurations and files
738
739VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 740Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 741National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 742
31e35378
JB
743* New "set print array-indexes" command
744
745After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
746when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
747behavior.
748
e85e5c83
MK
749* VAX floating point support
750
751GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
752
d91e9901
AS
753* User-defined command support
754
755In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
756to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
757section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
758
f2cb65ca
MC
759*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
760
f47b1503
AS
761* New command line option
762
763GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
764debugging.
765
f2cb65ca
MC
766* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
767
768GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
769information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
770by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
771proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
772to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 773
d08c0230
AC
774* Internationalization
775
776When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
777internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
778continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
779
117ea3cf
PH
780* Ada
781
782Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
783implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
784into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
785
d08c0230
AC
786* New native configurations
787
788GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
789
790* Remote 'p' packet
791
792GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
793packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
794
795* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
796
797GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
798The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
799features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
800i386 application).
801
802GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
803compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
804continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
805configurations:
806
807hppa-*-hpux
808ia64-*-aix
809mips-*-irix*
810*-*-lynx
811mips-*-linux-gnu
812sds protocol
813xdr protocol
814powerpc bdm protocol
815
816Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
817made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
818
819* OBSOLETE configurations and files
820
821Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
822been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
823configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
824permanently REMOVED.
825
826h8300-*-*
827mcore-*-*
828mn10300-*-*
829ns32k-*-*
830sh64-*-*
831v850-*-*
832
ebb7c577
AC
833*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
834
835* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
836
837When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
838heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
839been fixed.
840
841* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
842
843When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
844fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
845IRIX long double values).
846
847* VAX and "next"
848
849A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
850command. This problem has been fixed.
851
860660cb 852*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 853
0dea2468
AC
854* Fix for ``many threads''
855
856On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
857rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
858error message:
859
860 ptrace: No such process.
861 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
862
863This problem has been fixed.
864
2c07db7a
AC
865* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
866
867Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
868GDB to dump core).
869
c23968a2
JB
870* New ``start'' command.
871
872This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
873
71009278
MK
874* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
875
876Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
877live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
878platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
879
880FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
881FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
882NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
883NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
884NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
885OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
886OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
887OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
888OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
889
3c0b7db2
AC
890* Signal trampoline code overhauled
891
892Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
893These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
894of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
895call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
896signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
897
73cc75f3
AC
898Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
899features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
900include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 901
7243600a
BF
902* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
903
6f606e1c
MK
904* New native configurations
905
97dc871c 906GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 907OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
908OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
909OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 910OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 911NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 912OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 913
a1b461bf
AC
914* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
915
916GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
917The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
918including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
919migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
920compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
921work, was also included.
922
923GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
924module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
925
926h8300-*-*
927mcore-*-*
928mn10300-*-*
929ns32k-*-*
930sh64-*-*
931v850-*-*
932xstormy16-*-*
933
934Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
935made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
936
3c7012f5
AC
937* REMOVED configurations and files
938
939Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
940Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
941Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
942Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
943Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
944AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
945Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
946decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
947riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
948sonymips mips-sony-*
949sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
950
e5fe55f7
AC
951*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
952
953* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
954
955The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
956GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
957command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
958program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
959with GDB".
960
961* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
962
963Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
964libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
965cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
966GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
967shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
968the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
969are created.
970
971Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
972
973* Fixed ISO-C build problems
974
975The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
976non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
977compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
978
979* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
980
981Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
982wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
983
984* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
985
986The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
987permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
988systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
989
990* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
991
992Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
993has been updated to use constant array sizes.
994
995* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
996
997GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
998its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
999panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1000
1001* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1002
1003When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1004by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1005not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1006
faae5abe 1007*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1008
9175c9a3
MC
1009* Removed --with-mmalloc
1010
1011Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1012conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1013
3cc87ec0
MK
1014* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1015
1016The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1017the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1018and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1019you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1020
f0424ef6
MK
1021* Revised SPARC target
1022
1023The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1024FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1025support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1026from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1027(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1028
59659be2
ILT
1029* New C++ demangler
1030
1031GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1032names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1033with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1034programs.
1035
9e08b29b
DJ
1036* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1037
1038GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1039arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1040encountered these.
1041
8dfe8985
DC
1042* C++ nested types and namespaces
1043
1044GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1045improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1046is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1047Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1048namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1049"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1050frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1051if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1052GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1053
cced5e27
MK
1054* New native configurations
1055
1056NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1057OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1058OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1059OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1060OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1061
b4b4b794
KI
1062* New debugging protocols
1063
1064M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1065
7989c619
AC
1066* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1067
1068The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1069and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1070tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1071
5994185b
AC
1072* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1073
1074Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1075been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1076configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1077permanently REMOVED.
1078
1079Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1080Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1081Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1082Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1083Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1084AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1085Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1086decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1087riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1088sonymips mips-sony-*
1089sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1090
0ddabb4c
AC
1091* REMOVED configurations and files
1092
1093SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1094SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1095Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1096Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1097H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1098HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1099HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1100HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1101PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1102386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1103Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1104 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1105 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1106SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1107SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1108Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1109Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1110
c7f1390e
DJ
1111*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1112
1fe43d45
AC
1113* Objective-C
1114
1115Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1116integrated into GDB.
1117
e6beb428
AC
1118* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1119
1120DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1121information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1122By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1123backtraces.
1124
1125The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1126have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1127DWARF 2 CFI support.
1128
1129* Hosted file I/O.
1130
1131GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1132file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1133remote protocol documentation for details.
1134
1135* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1136
1137All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1138architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1139to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1140ppc32 on ppc64).
1141
1142* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1143
1144GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1145per-thread variables.
1146
1147* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1148
1149GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1150GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1151
1152* Separate debug info.
1153
1154GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1155automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1156of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1157system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1158and optional debug files.
1159
1160* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1161
1162DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1163describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1164debugger.
1165
1166GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1167for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1168
1169* Java
1170
1171A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1172Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1173considered "useable".
1174
85f8f974
DJ
1175* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1176
1177The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1178commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1179kernel.
1180
0fac0b41
DJ
1181* GDB supports logging output to a file
1182
1183There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1184used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1185
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1186* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1187
1188The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1189disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1190command.
1191
e286caf2 1192* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1193
1194The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1195registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1196
d28f9cdf
DJ
1197* Profiling support
1198
1199A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1200be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1201session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1202"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1203data, for more informative profiling results.
1204
da0f9dcd
AC
1205* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1206
1207The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1208option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1209"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1210
1211Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1212removed.
1213
fb9b6b35
JJ
1214Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1215Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1216Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1217 in a subsequent -var-update.
1218
954a4db8
MK
1219* New native configurations.
1220
1221FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1222
6760f9e6
JB
1223* Multi-arched targets.
1224
b4263afa 1225HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1226Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1227
1b831c93
AC
1228* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1229
1230Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1231been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1232configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1233permanently REMOVED.
1234
8b0e5691 1235Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1236Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1237H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1238HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1239HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1240HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1241PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1242Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1243 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1244 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1245Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1246Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1247
5835abe7
NC
1248* REMOVED configurations and files
1249
1250V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1251Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1252IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1253i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1254i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1255i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1256HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1257 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1258 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1259Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1260Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1261Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1262OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1263I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1264
a094c6fb
AC
1265* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1266
1267The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1268the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1269context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1270address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1271The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1272
299ffc64 1273*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1274
46248966
AC
1275* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1276
1277When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1278`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1279in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1280library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1281shared libs like mad''.
1282
b9d14705 1283* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1284
b9d14705
DJ
1285Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1286the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1287arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1288powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1289
e0e9281e
JB
1290* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1291
1292GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1293and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1294they expand.
1295
dd73b9bb
AC
1296The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1297invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1298
1299The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1300macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1301
e0e9281e
JB
1302Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1303information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1304your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1305information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1306
2250ee0c
CV
1307* Multi-arched targets.
1308
6e3ba3b8
JT
1309DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1310DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1311NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1312National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1313Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1314Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1315
cd9bfe15 1316* New targets.
e33ce519 1317
456f8b9d
DB
1318Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1319
e33ce519 1320
da8ca43d
JT
1321* New native configurations
1322
1323Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1324SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1325MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1326UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1327
cd9bfe15
AC
1328* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1329
1330Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1331been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1332configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1333permanently REMOVED.
1334
92eb23c5 1335Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1336OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1337IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1338Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1339Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1340Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1341i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1342i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1343i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1344HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1345 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1346 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1347I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1348
db034ac5
AC
1349* OBSOLETE languages
1350
1351CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1352
cd9bfe15
AC
1353* REMOVED configurations and files
1354
1355AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1356A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1357AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1358AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1359AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1360
1361testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1362
20f01a46
DH
1363* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1364
1365This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1366commands. The default is 1024.
1367
a5941fbf
MK
1368* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1369
1370Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1371
89743e04
MS
1372* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1373
1374These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1375to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1376from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1377
9fb14e79
JB
1378* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1379
1380The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1381including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1382of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1383
2037aebb
AC
1384*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1385
1386* New targets.
1387
1388Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1389
1390* Bug fixes
1391
1392gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1393mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1394Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1395
1396gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1397dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1398Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1399
1400Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1401Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1402By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1403
1404i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1405avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1406By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1407
37057839 1408*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1409
1a703748
MS
1410* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1411
1412This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1413really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1414In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1415target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1416This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1417(notably embedded) targets.
1418
cefd4ef5
MS
1419* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1420
55241689
AC
1421This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1422process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1423GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1424hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1425
352ed7b4
MS
1426* New command line option
1427
1428GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1429
1430* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1431
1432There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1433command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1434a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1435be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1436open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1437issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1438a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1439it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1440GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1441is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1442
fe419ffc
RE
1443* Changes in ARM configurations.
1444
1445Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1446configuration is fully multi-arch.
1447
eb7cedd9
MK
1448* New native configurations
1449
fe419ffc 1450ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1451x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1452AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1453Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1454
c9f63e6b
CV
1455* New targets
1456
1457Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1458
9b4ff276
AC
1459* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1460
1461Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1462been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1463configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1464permanently REMOVED.
1465
1466AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1467A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1468AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1469AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1470AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1471
b4ceaee6 1472testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1473
e2caac18
AC
1474* REMOVED configurations and files
1475
1476TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1477WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1478PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1479PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1480PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1481Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1482Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1483 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1484SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1485Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1486Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1487ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1488Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1489
c2a727fa
TT
1490* Changes to command line processing
1491
1492The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1493for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1494
467d8519
TT
1495* Changes to key bindings
1496
1497There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1498
7072a954
AC
1499*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1500
1501Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1502
1503Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1504corrupted.
1505
1506Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1507
1508Numerous documentation fixes.
1509
1510Numerous testsuite fixes.
1511
34f47bc4 1512*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1513
1514* New native configurations
1515
1516Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1517x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1518MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1519MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1520ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1521s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1522
bf64bfd6
AC
1523* New targets
1524
def90278 1525Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1526CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1527UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1528
17e78a56 1529* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1530
1531x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1532Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1533Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1534 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1535TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1536WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1537Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1538PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1539PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1540PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1541SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1542Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1543ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1544Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1545
17e78a56
AC
1546stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1547kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1548
7fcca85b
AC
1549Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1550been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1551configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1552permanently REMOVED.
1553
a196c81c 1554* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1555
1556Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1557Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1558Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1559ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1560Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1561ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1562
6d6b80e5 1563* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1564
6d6b80e5 1565GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1566sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1567present.
1568
bf64bfd6
AC
1569* Other news:
1570
e23194cb
EZ
1571* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1572
1573* The MI enabled by default.
1574
1575The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1576revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1577engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1578using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1579which is now deprecated.
1580
1581* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1582
1583GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1584main features are supported:
1585
1586 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1587
1588 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1589 extension;
1590
1591 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1592
1593 - a Pascal expression parser.
1594
1595However, some important features are not yet supported.
1596
1597 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1598
1599 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1600
1601 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1602 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1603
1604 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1605
1606 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1607
1608* Changes in completion.
1609
1610Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1611to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1612users expect at the shell prompt.
1613
1614Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1615`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1616program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1617files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1618be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1619considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1620name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1621
1622`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1623
1624* New platform-independent commands:
1625
1626It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1627hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1628documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1629
1630* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1631
d7275149
MK
1632Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1633revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1634many threads as your system allows you to have.
1635
e23194cb
EZ
1636Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1637
d7275149
MK
1638Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1639multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1640
1641* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1642
1643Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1644
e23194cb
EZ
1645GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1646debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1647supported.)
1648
1649* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1650
1651Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1652breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1653implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1654put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1655and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1656registers.
1657
1658The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1659debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1660watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1661
1662* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1663
1664New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1665the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1666
1667New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1668display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1669IDT.
1670
1671New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1672from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1673New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1674a given linear address.
1675
1676GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1677program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1678which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1679
1680DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1681
6c56c069
EZ
1682It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1683
e23194cb
EZ
1684* Changes in documentation.
1685
1686All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1687Documentation License.
1688
1689Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1690manual.
1691
1692TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1693
1694Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1695manual.
1696
1697The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1698documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1699hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1700
5d6640b1
AC
1701* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1702
1703The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1704``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1705contents of this file.
1706
1a1d8446
AC
1707* gdba.el deleted
1708
1709GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1710
9debab2f 1711*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1712
c63ce875
EZ
1713* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1714
1715Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1716programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1717displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1718greater level of detail.
1719
1720* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1721
1722It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1723bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1724on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1725written.
1726
1727* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1728
1729The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1730necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1731machines ``out of the box''.
1732
1733The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1734possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1735signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1736would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1737interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1738
1739It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1740standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1741even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1742and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1743terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1744
1745The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1746enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1747also works.
1748
1749DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1750GDB.
1751
1752It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1753directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1754times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1755breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1756
ed9a39eb
JM
1757* New native configurations
1758
1759ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1760PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1761
7a292a7a
SS
1762* New targets
1763
96baa820 1764Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1765x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1766PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1767TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1768
085dd6e6
JM
1769* OBSOLETE configurations
1770
1771Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1772Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1773Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1774ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1775Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1776
9debab2f
AC
1777Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1778but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1779these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1780be permanently REMOVED.
1781
5330533d
SS
1782* Gould support removed
1783
1784Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1785
bc9e5bbf
AC
1786* New features for SVR4
1787
1788On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1789without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1790load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1791
1792* Many C++ enhancements
1793
1794C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1795in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1796
adf40b2e
JM
1797* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1798
1799A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1800sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1801with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1802``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1803
1804 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1805 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1806
43e526b9
JM
1807* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1808
1809A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1810expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1811instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1812
1813The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1814added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1815
96baa820
JM
1816* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1817
1818The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1819``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1820include ``set remote P-packet''.
1821
11cf8741
JM
1822* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1823
1824The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1825accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1826``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1827
7876dd43
DB
1828* ``apropos'' command added.
1829
1830The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1831documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1832try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1833
bc9e5bbf
AC
1834* New MI interface
1835
1836A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1837interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1838process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1839"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1840enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1841
1842 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1843
c906108c
SS
1844*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1845
1846* New native configurations
1847
1848HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1849HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1850M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1851
1852* New targets
1853
1854Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1855Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1856Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1857
1858* OBSOLETE configurations
1859
1860Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1861
1862Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1863but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1864these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1865be permanently REMOVED.
1866
1867* ANSI/ISO C
1868
1869As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1870buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1871containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1872use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1873available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1874configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1875information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1876already.
1877
1878* Readline 2.2
1879
1880GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1881
1882* set extension-language
1883
1884You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1885languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1886you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1887 set extension-language .c c++
1888The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1889and their associated languages.
1890
1891* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1892
1893When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1894you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1895PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1896
1897 set processor NAME
1898
1899sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1900following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1901
1902 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1903 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1904 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1905 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1906 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1907 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1908 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1909 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1910 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1911 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1912 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1913
1914At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1915special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1916registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1917only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1918
1919* HP-UX support
1920
1921Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1922more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1923library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1924support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1925for xdb and dbx commands.
1926
1927* Catchpoints
1928
1929HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1930generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1931to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1932
1933This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1934argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1935output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1936
1937* Debugging across forks
1938
1939On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1940in the inferior.
1941
1942* TUI
1943
1944HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1945it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1946configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1947
1948* GDB remote protocol additions
1949
1950A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1951Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1952fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1953allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1954
1955For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1956full 64-bit address. The command
1957
1958 set remoteaddresssize 32
1959
1960can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1961the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1962will be discarded.
1963
1964In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1965command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1966
1967 maint packet heythere
1968
1969sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1970disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1971time.
1972
1973The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1974target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1975downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1976
1977* Tracing can collect general expressions
1978
1979You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1980further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1981doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1982
1983* mask-address variable for Mips
1984
1985For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1986a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1987of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1988
1989* Higher serial baud rates
1990
1991GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1992230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1993to achieve all of these rates.)
1994
1995* i960 simulator
1996
1997The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1998builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1999
2000
2001*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2002
2003* New native configurations
2004
2005Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2006Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2007Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2008PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2009PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2010Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2011Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2012
2013* New targets
2014
2015Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2016Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2017Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2018Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2019MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2020MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2021MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2022Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2023Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2024Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2025NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2026
2027* New debugging protocols
2028
2029ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2030M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2031DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2032PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2033PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2034Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2035
2036* DWARF 2
2037
2038All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2039format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2040information.
2041
2042* Java frontend
2043
2044GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2045only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2046
2047* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2048
2049For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2050loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2051locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2052
2053* Live range splitting
2054
2055GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2056range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2057more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2058
2059* Hurd support
2060
2061GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2062updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2063
2064* ARM Thumb support
2065
2066GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2067instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2068instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2069accordingly.
2070
2071* MIPS16 support
2072
2073GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2074instruction set.
2075
2076* Overlay support
2077
2078GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2079linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2080will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2081control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2082additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2083in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2084
2085* info symbol
2086
2087The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2088the symbol at the specified address.
2089
2090* Trace support
2091
2092The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2093asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2094extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2095includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2096file tracepoint.c for more details.
2097
2098* MIPS simulator
2099
2100Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2101by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2102of most MIPS variants.
2103
2104* Sparc simulator
2105
2106Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2107by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2108Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2109
2110* set architecture
2111
2112For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2113basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2114architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2115the possible architectures.
2116
2117*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2118
2119* New native configurations
2120
2121Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2122M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2123PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2124PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2125PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2126RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2127
2128* New targets
2129
2130ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2131I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2132MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2133MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2134PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2135Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2136Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2137
2138* PowerPC simulator
2139
2140The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2141contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2142PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2143basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2144performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2145
2146* Solaris 2.5
2147
2148GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2149
2150* Windows 95/NT native
2151
2152GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2153To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2154which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2155Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2156ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2157
2158* dont-repeat command
2159
2160If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2161command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2162useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2163extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2164
2165* Send break instead of ^C
2166
2167The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2168rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2169GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2170
2171* Remote protocol timeout
2172
2173The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2174that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2175to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2176
2177* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2178
2179By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2180loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2181stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2182when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2183in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2184
2185Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2186/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2187automatically on hpux10.
2188
2189* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2190
2191Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2192
2193* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2194
2195When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2196may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2197the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2198every character. The default value is 1050.
2199
2200* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2201
2202If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2203a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2204replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2205details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2206remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2207to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2208
2209* Speedups for remote debugging
2210
2211GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2212the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2213and more efficient S-record downloading.
2214
2215* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2216
2217GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2218Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2219
2220*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2221
2222* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2223
2224The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2225can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2226
2227* Remote targets use caching
2228
2229Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2230remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2231it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2232debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2233off' turns the the data cache off.
2234
2235* Remote targets may have threads
2236
2237The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2238in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2239gdb/remote.c for details.
2240
2241* NetROM support
2242
2243If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2244support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2245acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2246write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2247support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2248another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2249sequence is something like
2250
2251 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2252 load <prog>
2253 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2254
2255* Macintosh host
2256
2257GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2258may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2259it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2260available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2261device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2262directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2263scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2264mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2265
2266* Autoconf
2267
2268GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2269but does simplify configuration and building.
2270
2271* hpux10
2272
2273GDB now supports hpux10.
2274
2275*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2276
2277* New native configurations
2278
2279x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2280x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2281NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2282Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2283
2284* New targets
2285
2286A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2287HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2288CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2289PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2290WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2291
2292* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2293
2294GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2295possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2296filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2297the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2298if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2299
2300* Arguments to user-defined commands
2301
2302User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2303Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2304trivial example:
2305define adder
2306 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2307
2308To execute the command use:
2309adder 1 2 3
2310
2311Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2312Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2313use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2314
2315* New `if' and `while' commands
2316
2317This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2318commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2319expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2320execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2321terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2322`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2323if the expression is zero.
2324
2325* Fortran source language mode
2326
2327GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2328Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2329variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2330with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2331Fortran compilers.
2332
2333* Better HPUX support
2334
2335Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2336running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2337processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2338for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2339that behavior do the following before running the program:
2340
2341 adb -w a.out
2342 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2343 control-d
2344
2345This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2346To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2347
2348 adb -w a.out
2349 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2350 control-d
2351
2352You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2353the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2354external linkage.
2355
2356GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2357HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2358
2359* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2360
2361You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2362commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2363current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2364"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2365associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2366configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2367
2368* New DOS host serial code
2369
2370This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2371no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2372a PC's serial port.
2373
2374*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2375
2376* New "complete" command
2377
2378This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2379were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2380
2381* Trailing space optional in prompt
2382
2383"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2384allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2385
2386* Breakpoint hit counts
2387
2388"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2389has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2390can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2391to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2392less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2393that breakpoint.
2394
2395* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2396
2397"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2398an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2399arrays actually contain only short strings.
2400
2401* Shared library breakpoints
2402
2403In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2404breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2405
2406* Hardware watchpoints
2407
2408There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2409targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2410
55241689 2411Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2412
2413* Annotations
2414
2415Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2416and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2417
2418* Improved Irix 5 support
2419
2420GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2421
2422* Improved HPPA support
2423
2424GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2425
2426* New native configurations
2427
2428Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2429HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2430Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2431RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2432
2433* New targets
2434
2435OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2436MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2437Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2438
2439* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2440
2441There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2442This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2443
2444* Fixes
2445
2446As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2447and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2448
2449*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2450
2451* Irix 5 is now supported
2452
2453* HPPA support
2454
2455GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2456to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2457GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2458of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2459can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2460
2461
2462*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2463
2464* User visible changes:
2465
2466* Remote Debugging
2467
2468The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2469target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2470debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2471integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2472debugging info for the mips target).
2473
2474* DEC Alpha native support
2475
2476GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2477debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2478work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2479Alpha-specific notes.
2480
2481* Preliminary thread implementation
2482
2483GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2484
2485* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2486
2487This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2488to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2489for details).
2490
2491* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2492
2493This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2494mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2495call methods, ...etc.
2496
2497*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2498
2499 * User visible changes:
2500
2501Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2502supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2503other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2504somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2505
2506Filename completion now works.
2507
2508When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2509arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2510addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2511
2512All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2513vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2514should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2515your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2516to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2517
2518 * DEC alpha support
2519
2520This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2521cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2522
2523
2524*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2525
2526 * Testsuite
2527
2528This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2529The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2530via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2531
2532 * C++ demangling
2533
2534'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2535emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2536Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2537disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2538use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2539
2540 * Simulators
2541
2542GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2543So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2544Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2545
2546 * New targets supported
2547
2548H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2549H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2550SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2551Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2552IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2553
2554Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2555version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2556GO32 memory extender.
2557
2558 * New remote protocols
2559
2560MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2561
2562 * New source languages supported
2563
2564This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2565used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2566into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2567
2568
2569*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2570
2571 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2572
2573GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2574version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2575University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2576compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2577format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2578(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2579
2580Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2581
2582 * Faster and better demangling
2583
2584We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2585demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2586character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2587only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2588This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2589increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2590symbol lookups.
2591
2592`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2593from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2594compiler does not actually implement.
2595
2596 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2597
2598In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2599inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2600recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2601very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2602The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2603circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2604fix.
2605
2606The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2607release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2608
2609 * Improved configure script
2610
2611The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2612you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2613host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2614done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2615
2616We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2617version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2618`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2619The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2620only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2621We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2622
2623 * Documentation improvements
2624
2625There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2626produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2627before submitting changes.
2628
2629The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2630M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2631`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2632you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2633a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2634
2635*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2636We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2637been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2638or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2639`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2640around this problem.
2641
2642 * New features
2643
2644GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2645the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2646`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2647the target program.
2648
2649The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2650how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2651
2652 * New native hosts supported
2653
2654HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2655386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2656
2657 * New targets supported
2658
2659AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2660
2661 * New file formats supported
2662
2663BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2664HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2665
2666 * Major bug fixes
2667
2668Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2669
2670We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2671printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2672
2673We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2674for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2675release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2676
2677You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2678will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2679
2680We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2681for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2682especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2683libraries.
2684
2685The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2686information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2687command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2688any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2689when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2690
2691 * Internal improvements
2692
2693GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2694debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2695
2696GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2697Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2698symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2699contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2700shared code that handles any of them.
2701
2702 * New command line options
2703
2704We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2705
2706 * Mmalloc licensing
2707
2708The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2709General Public License.
2710
2711*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2712
2713 * Host/native/target split
2714
2715GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2716hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2717target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2718local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2719ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2720
2721The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2722GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2723is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2724code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2725any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2726built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2727handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2728
2729GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2730It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2731plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2732
2733 * New hosts supported
2734
2735HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2736386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2737386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2738
2739 * New targets supported
2740
2741Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
274268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2743
2744 * New native hosts supported
2745
2746386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2747 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2748386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2749
2750 * New file formats supported
2751
2752BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2753supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2754format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2755
2756 * New commands
2757
2758`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2759`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2760These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2761
2762`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2763
2764You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2765scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2766prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2767executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2768
2769 * C++ improvements
2770
2771We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2772info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2773symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2774
2775Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2776
2777 * Major bug fixes
2778
2779The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2780fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2781by the compiler.
2782
2783We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2784support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2785
2786John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2787slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2788that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2789purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2790the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2791mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2792
2793Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2794about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2795completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2796we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2797
2798 * AMD 29k support
2799
2800A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2801specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2802calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2803usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2804in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2805
2806We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2807Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2808of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2809resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2810
2811 * Remote interfaces
2812
2813We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2814with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2815message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2816This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2817needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2818breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2819each instruction being stepped through.
2820
2821The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2822registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2823
2824There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2825find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2826Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2827processor with a serial port.
2828
2829 * Configuration
2830
2831Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2832`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2833supported, and what files each one uses.
2834
2835 * Library changes
2836
2837There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2838disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2839Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2840disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2841
2842The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2843Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2844can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2845grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2846
2847 * Documentation
2848
2849The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2850reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2851as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2852encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2853system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2854bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2855
2856And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2857
2858
2859*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2860
2861 * Better support for C++ function names
2862
2863GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2864names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2865(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2866single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2867Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2868
2869GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2870the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2871You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2872lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2873for the list of formats.
2874
2875 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2876
2877Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2878C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2879directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2880can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2881usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2882about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2883this problem.)
2884
2885 * New 'maintenance' command
2886
2887All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2888the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2889can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2890
2891 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2892 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2893 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2894 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2895 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2896 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2897
2898The following commands are new:
2899
2900 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2901 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2902 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2903
2904 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2905
2906We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2907(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2908be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2909read after argv processing.
2910
2911 * New hosts supported
2912
2913Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2914
55241689 2915GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2916
2917We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2918is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2919for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2920masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2921fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2922It costs extra.
2923
2924 * New targets supported
2925
2926Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2927
2928 * More smarts about finding #include files
2929
2930GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2931all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2932greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2933especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2934the one that contains your sources.
2935
2936We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2937breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2938try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2939
2940 * Interesting infernals change
2941
2942GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2943section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2944target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2945stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2946
2947 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2948
2949There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2950 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2951 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2952
2953See the ChangeLog for details.
2954
2955*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2956
2957 * New machines supported (host and target)
2958
2959IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2960
2961SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2962
2963 * New malloc package
2964
2965GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2966Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2967capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2968This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2969pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2970more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2971
2972 * info proc
2973
2974The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2975'help info proc' for details.
2976
2977 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2978
2979The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2980Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2981possible.
2982
2983 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2984
2985Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2986support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2987conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2988environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2989that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2990in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2991
2992 * Cross byte order fixes
2993
2994Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2995targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2996
2997 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2998
2999If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3000system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3001`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3002program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3003called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3004Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3005and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3006the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3007option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3008starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3009
3010You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3011the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3012information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3013slower, but makes future operations faster.
3014
3015The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3016build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3017A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3018use is:
3019
3020 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3021
3022The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3023It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3024shared across multiple host platforms.
3025
3026 * longjmp() handling
3027
3028GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3029siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3030all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3031platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3032
3033 * Solaris 2.0
3034
3035Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3036this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3037reading symbols.
3038
3039 * Bug fixes
3040
3041As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3042People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3043crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3044
3045*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3046
3047 * New machines supported (host and target)
3048
3049SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3050 (except core files)
3051BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3052Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3053
3054 * New machines supported (target)
3055
3056AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3057
3058 * C++ support
3059
3060GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3061The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3062per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3063
3064GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3065`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3066extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3067good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3068will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3069released.
3070
3071 * New features for SVR4
3072
3073GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3074shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3075only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3076
3077The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3078on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3079it prints the address mappings of the process.
3080
3081If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3082bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3083
3084 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3085
3086Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3087now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3088skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3089make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3090same code linked statically.
3091
3092 * New Getopt
3093
3094GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3095version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3096continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3097Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3098added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3099future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3100
3101 * Bugs fixed
3102
3103The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3104Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3105See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3106
3107
3108*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3109
3110 * New machines supported (host and target)
3111
3112Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3113NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3114Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3115
3116 * Almost SCO Unix support
3117
3118We had hoped to support:
3119SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3120(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3121that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3122about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3123
3124 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3125
3126GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3127debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3128is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3129send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3130reqired (if any).
3131
3132 * New Readline
3133
3134GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3135is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3136required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3137
3138 * Bugs fixed
3139
3140The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3141Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3142See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3143
3144 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3145
3146GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3147supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3148symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3149
3150Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3151mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3152debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3153mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3154version 2.
3155
3156Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3157really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3158line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3159variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3160situation somewhat.
3161
3162When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3163However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3164methods.
3165
3166We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3167DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3168encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3169
3170
3171*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3172
3173 * Improved configuration
3174
3175Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3176Porting BFD is simpler.
3177
3178 * Stepping improved
3179
3180The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3181of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3182in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3183function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3184
3185 * Bug fixing
3186
3187Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3188
3189 * New host supported (not target)
3190
3191Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3192
3193
3194*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3195
3196 * Multiple source language support
3197
3198GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3199It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3200and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3201language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3202You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3203`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3204
3205 * GDB and Modula-2
3206
3207GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3208currently under development at the State University of New York at
3209Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3210continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3211
3212Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3213debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3214symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3215
3216There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3217in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3218
3219 * set write on/off
3220
3221GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3222a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3223the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3224by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3225effect immediately.
3226
3227 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3228
3229When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3230shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3231The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3232examining core files.
3233
3234 * set listsize
3235
3236You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3237The default is 10.
3238
3239 * New machines supported (host and target)
3240
3241SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3242Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3243Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3244
3245 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3246
3247IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3248
3249 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3250
3251AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3252AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3253Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3254
3255 * New remote interfaces
3256
3257AMD 29000 Adapt
3258AMD 29000 Minimon
3259
3260
3261*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3262
3263 * New Facilities
3264
3265Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3266
3267Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3268target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3269is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3270remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3271remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3272also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3273using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3274stub on the target system.
3275
3276New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3277
3278GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3279library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3280object file types such as a.out and coff.
3281
3282There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3283refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3284
3285
3286 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3287
3288All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3289by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3290
3291For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3292``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3293Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3294
3295What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3296print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3297will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3298all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3299
3300confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3301 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3302 it is already running. Default is ON.
3303
3304editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3305 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3306 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3307 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3308 Default is ON.
3309
3310history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3311 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3312 or the value of the environment variable
3313 GDBHISTFILE.
3314
3315history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3316 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3317 HISTSIZE.
3318
3319history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3320 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3321 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3322
3323history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3324 history expansion will be performed on
3325 command line input. The default is OFF.
3326
3327radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3328 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3329 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3330
3331height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3332 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3333 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3334 variable TERM.
3335
3336width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3337 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3338 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3339 variable TERM.
3340
3341Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3342``set width'' instead.
3343
3344print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3345 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3346 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3347 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3348
3349print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3350 is OFF.
3351
3352print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3353 "raw" form if off.
3354
3355print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3356 like instructions.
3357
3358print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3359
3360
3361 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3362
3363The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3364new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3365are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3366window.
3367
3368
3369 * Support for Shared Libraries
3370
3371GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3372Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3373before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3374happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3375At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3376from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3377shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3378It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3379
3380sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3381 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3382 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3383
3384info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3385
3386
3387 * Watchpoints
3388
3389A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3390expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3391tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3392quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3393problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3394more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3395
3396watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3397
3398info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3399
3400delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3401disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3402enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3403
3404
3405 * C++ multiple inheritance
3406
3407When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3408for C++ programs.
3409
3410 * C++ exception handling
3411
3412Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3413ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3414the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3415handler's context).
3416
3417catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3418 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3419 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3420
3421info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3422 current stack frame.
3423
3424
3425 * Minor command changes
3426
3427The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3428command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3429is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3430
3431The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3432at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3433frames without printing.
3434
3435 * New directory command
3436
3437'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3438The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3439about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3440with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3441find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3442
3443 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3444
3445For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3446for more details.
3447
3448GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3449two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3450Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3451where the program that you are debugging will run.