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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.2
5
76b8507d 6*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 7
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8* Shared library support for remote targets by default
9
10 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
11 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
12 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
13 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
14 was always disabled for such configurations.
15
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16* C++ Improvements:
17
18 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
19
20 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
21 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
22 For example:
23 namespace A
24 {
25 class B { };
26 void foo (B) { }
27 }
28 ...
29 A::B b
30 foo(b)
31 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
32 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
33 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
34
35 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
36
37 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
38 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
39 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
40 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
41 entry.
42 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
43 mentioned flavors of operators.
44
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45 ** static const class members
46
47 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
48 class definition has been fixed.
49
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50* Windows Thread Information Block access.
51
52 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
53 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
54 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
55 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
56 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
57 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
58
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59* Static tracepoints
60
61 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
62 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
63 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
64 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
65 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
66 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
67 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
68 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
69 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
70 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
71 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
72 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
73 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
74 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
75 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
76 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
77 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
78 the "New remote packets" section below.
79
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80* New remote packets
81
82qGetTIBAddr
83
84 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
85
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86qRelocInsn
87
88 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
89 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
90 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
91 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
92 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
93 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
94
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95qTfSTM, qTsSTM
96
97 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
98
99qTSTMat
100
101 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
102 program.
103
104qXfer:statictrace:read
105
106 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
107 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
108 to gdb's qSupported query.
109
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110* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
111 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
112 a directory.
113
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114* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
115
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116 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
117 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
118 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
119 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
120
121 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
122 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
123 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
124 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
125 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
126 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
127 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
128
129 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
130 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 131
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132 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
133
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134* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
135 it understands register description.
136
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137* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
138
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139* X86 general purpose registers
140
141 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
142 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
143 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
144 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
145 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
146
95a42b64 147* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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148 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
149 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
150 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
151 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
152 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 153
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154* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
155 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
156 in the specified file.
157
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158* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
159 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
160 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
161 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
162 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
163 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
164 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
165 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
166 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
167 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
168
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169* New commands
170
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171eval template, expressions...
172 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
173 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
174
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175set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
176show target-file-system-kind
177 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
178 names.
179
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180save breakpoints <filename>
181 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
182 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
183 definitions, use the `source' command.
184
185`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
186is now deprecated.
187
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188info static-tracepoint-markers
189 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
190
191strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
192 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
193 function, line, address, or marker ID.
194
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195* Python scripting
196
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197** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
198 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
199 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
200 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
201 GDB using Python' in the manual.
202
adc36818 203** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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204 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
205 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
206 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 207
fa33c3cd 208** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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209 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
210
211** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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212
213** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 214
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215** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
216
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217** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
218 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
219 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
220
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221* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
222there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
223tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
224regular breakpoints.
225
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226* New targets
227
228ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
229
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230* D language support.
231 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
232 language.
233
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234* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
235 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
236 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
237 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
238 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
239
240* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
241 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
242 conditions of the form:
243
244 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
245
246 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
247 interface mentioned above.
248
bfbf3774 249*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 250
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251* C++ Improvements
252
253 ** Namespace Support
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254
255 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
256 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
257 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
258 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
259 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
260
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261 ** Bug Fixes
262
263 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
264 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
265 qualified name.
266
267 ** Cast Operators
268
269 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
270 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
271
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272* New targets
273
274Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 275Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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276
277* New Simulators
278
279Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 280Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 281
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282* Multi-program debugging.
283
284 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
285 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
286 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
287 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
288 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
289 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
290 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
291 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
292
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293* New tracing features
294
295 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
296
297 ** Trace state variables
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298
299 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
300 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
301 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
302 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
303 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
304 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
305 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
306 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
307 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
308 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 309
d5551862 310 ** Fast tracepoints
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311
312 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
313 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
314 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
315 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
316 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
317 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
318 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
319 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
320 the regular trace command.
321
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322 ** Disconnected tracing
323
324 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
325 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
326 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
327 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
328 connection is lost unexpectedly.
329
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330 ** Trace files
331
332 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
333 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
334 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
335 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
336 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
337 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
338 <name>".
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339
340 ** Circular trace buffer
341
342 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
343 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
344 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
345 not be available for all target agents.
346
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347* Changed commands
348
349disassemble
350 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
351 the arguments to be comma-separated.
352
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353info variables
354 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
355 which only declare a variable are not shown.
356
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357source
358 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
359 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
360 support.
361
362 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
363 "set script-extension" (see below).
364
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365* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
366
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367record save [<FILENAME>]
368 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
369 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
370
371record restore <FILENAME>
372 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
373 earlier time, for replay debugging.
374
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375add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
376 Add a new inferior.
377
378clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
379 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
380 inferior has loaded.
381
382remove-inferior ID
383 Remove an inferior.
384
385maint info program-spaces
386 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
387
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388set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
389show remote interrupt-sequence
390 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
391 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
392 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
393 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
394 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
395
396set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
397show remote interrupt-on-connect
398 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
399 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
400 Linux kernel.
401
402set remotebreak [on | off]
403show remotebreak
404Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
405
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406tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
407 Create or modify a trace state variable.
408
409info tvariables
410 List trace state variables and their values.
411
412delete tvariable $NAME ...
413 Delete one or more trace state variables.
414
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415teval EXPR, ...
416 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
417 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
418
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419ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
420 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
421
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422* New expression syntax
423
424 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
425 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
426
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427* New options
428
429set follow-exec-mode new|same
430show follow-exec-mode
431 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
432 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
433 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
434
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435set default-collect EXPR, ...
436show default-collect
437 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
438 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
439 such as registers or a critical global variable.
440
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441set disconnected-tracing
442show disconnected-tracing
443 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
444 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
445 upon disconnection.
446
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447set circular-trace-buffer
448show circular-trace-buffer
449 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
450 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
451 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
452 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
453
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454set script-extension off|soft|strict
455show script-extension
456 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
457 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
458 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
459 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
460 evaluation failed.
461 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
462
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463set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
464show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
465 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
466 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
467 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
468 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
469 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
470 is on.
471
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472* Python API Improvements
473
474 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
475 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
476 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
477
478 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
479 `is_base_class' attribute.
480
481 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
482
483 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
484 evaluate an expression.
485
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486* New remote packets
487
488QTDV
489 Define a trace state variable.
490
491qTV
492 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
493
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494QTDisconnected
495 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
496
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497QTBuffer:circular
498 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
499
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500qTfP, qTsP
501 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
502
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503* Bug fixes
504
505Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
506
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507Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
508much more reliable. In particular:
509 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
510 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
511 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
512 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
513 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
514 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
515 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
516 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
517 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
518 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
519 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
520 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
521 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
522 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
523 non-threaded programs.
524
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525PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
526This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
527libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
528executable program.
529
abc7453d 530*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 531
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532* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
533dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
534them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
535for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
536"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
537
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538* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
539breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
540or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
541the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
542for tracepoint actions.
543
e6158f16 544* "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
7280022e 545in hex as well as in symbolic form.
e6158f16 546
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547* Process record and replay
548
549 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
550 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
551 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
552 execute commands.
553
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554* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
555step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
556set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
557reverse execution.
558
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559* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
560feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
5612.6.28 or later.
562
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563* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
564target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
565char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
566literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
567U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
568`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
569system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
570the installation instructions for more information.
571
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572* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
573remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
574with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
575the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
576
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577* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
578and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
579
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580* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
581now complete on file names.
582
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583* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
584completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
585For instance, consider:
586
587 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
588 # struct example variable;
589 (gdb) p variable.
590
591If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
592completions will be "f1" and "f2".
593
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594* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
595the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
596
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597* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
598operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
599macros.
600
47a3467a 601* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
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602the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
603implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
604
605* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
606registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
607can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
608and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 609
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610* New remote packets
611
612qSearch:memory:
613 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
614
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615QStartNoAckMode
616 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
617 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
618 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
619
d7713ae0
EZ
620vKill
621 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
622 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
623
07e059b5
VP
624qXfer:osdata:read
625 Obtains additional operating system information
626
47a3467a
PA
627qXfer:siginfo:read
628qXfer:siginfo:write
629 Read or write additional signal information.
630
060871df
PA
631* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
632
633 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
634 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
635 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
636
d14508fe
DE
637* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
638source+assembly.
639
c055b101 640* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 641DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
642
643* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
644and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
645`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 646
31fffb02
CS
647* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
648with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
649
88d8a8e0
JB
650* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
651
7f99b190
JB
652* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
653
ccd213ac
DJ
654* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
655which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
656
1fddbabb 657* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 658list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 659
a0ef4274
DJ
660* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
661conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
662have also been fixed.
663
bfb8797a 664* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
665From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
666are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 667
71c25dea
TT
668* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
669example, given:
670
671 template<typename T> class C { };
672 C<char const *> c;
673
674GDB will now correctly handle all of:
675
676 ptype C<char const *>
677 ptype C<char const*>
678 ptype C<const char *>
679 ptype C<const char*>
680
ccd213ac
DJ
681* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
682
683 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
684 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
685
7ae0e2a2
UW
686 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
687 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
688 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
689
a6f3e723
SL
690 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
691 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
692
da8bd9a3
DJ
693 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
694 gdbserver.
695
d70e31dd
DE
696 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
697 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
698
699 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
700 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
701 as appropriate.
702
d57a3c85
TJB
703* Python scripting
704
705 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
706 available is determined at configure time.
707
d8906c6f
TJB
708 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
709
aadc346a
JB
710* Ada tasking support
711
712 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
713 been introduced:
714
715 info tasks
716 Print the list of Ada tasks.
717 info task N
718 Print detailed information about task number N.
719 task
720 Print the task number of the current task.
721 task N
722 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
723
adb483fe
DJ
724* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
725add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
726
2277426b
PA
727* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
728
729 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
730 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
731 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
732 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
733 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
734 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
735 below.
736
08d16641
PA
737* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
738"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
739information.
740
e35359c5
UW
741* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
742to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
743architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
744See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
745more information.
746
85e747d2
UW
747* Multi-architecture debugging.
748
749 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
750 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
751 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
752 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
753 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
754
755* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
756use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
757Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
758powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
759--enable-targets configure option.
760
11ade57a
PA
761* Non-stop mode debugging.
762
763 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
764 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
765 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
766 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
767 section in the user manual for more information.
768
769 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
770 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
771 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
772 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
773 extensions on linux targets.
774
d7713ae0 775* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 776
a96d9b2e
SDJ
777catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
778 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
779 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
780 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
781 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
782 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
783 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
784 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
785 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
786
08388c79
DE
787find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
788 val1 [, val2, ...]
789 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
790
d57a3c85
TJB
791maint set python print-stack
792maint show python print-stack
793 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
794
795python [CODE]
796 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
797
d7713ae0
EZ
798macro define
799macro list
800macro undef
801 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
802 interactively.
803
804info os processes
805 Show operating system information about processes.
806
2277426b
PA
807info inferiors
808 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
809
810inferior NUM
811 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
812
813detach inferior NUM
814 Detach from inferior number NUM.
815
816kill inferior NUM
817 Kill inferior number NUM.
818
d7713ae0
EZ
819* New options
820
3285f3fe
UW
821set spu stop-on-load
822show spu stop-on-load
823 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
824
ff1a52c6
UW
825set spu auto-flush-cache
826show spu auto-flush-cache
827 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
828 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
829
d7713ae0
EZ
830set sh calling-convention
831show sh calling-convention
832 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
833
e0a3ce09 834set debug timestamp
75feb17d 835show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
836 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
837
838set disassemble-next-line
839show disassemble-next-line
840 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
841 the debuggee stops.
842
843set remote noack-packet
844show remote noack-packet
845 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
846 under "New remote packets."
847
848set remote query-attached-packet
849show remote query-attached-packet
850 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
851
852set remote read-siginfo-object
853show remote read-siginfo-object
854 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
855 packet.
856
857set remote write-siginfo-object
858show remote write-siginfo-object
859 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
860 packet.
861
40ab02ce
MS
862set remote reverse-continue
863show remote reverse-continue
864 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
865
866set remote reverse-step
867show remote reverse-step
868 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
869
d7713ae0
EZ
870set displaced-stepping
871show displaced-stepping
872 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
873 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
874 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
875
876set debug displaced
877show debug displaced
878 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
879
880maint set internal-error
881maint show internal-error
882 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
883
884maint set internal-warning
885maint show internal-warning
886 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 887
ccd213ac
DJ
888set exec-wrapper
889show exec-wrapper
890unset exec-wrapper
891 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 892
aad4b048
JB
893set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
894show multiple-symbols
895 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
896 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
897 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
898
74960c60
VP
899set breakpoint always-inserted
900show breakpoint always-inserted
901 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
902 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
903 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
904
0428b8f5
DJ
905set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
906show arm fallback-mode
907set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
908show arm force-mode
909 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
910 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
911 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
912 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
913
10568435
JK
914set disable-randomization
915show disable-randomization
916 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
917 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
918 multiple debugging sessions.
919
d7713ae0
EZ
920set non-stop
921show non-stop
922 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
923 a breakpoint.
924
b3eb342c 925set target-async
d7713ae0 926show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
927 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
928 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
929 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
930 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
931
6c7a06a3
TT
932set target-wide-charset
933show target-wide-charset
934 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
935 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
936
84603566
SL
937set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
938show tcp auto-retry
939set tcp connect-timeout
940show tcp connect-timeout
941 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
942 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
943 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
944
17a37d48
PP
945set libthread-db-search-path
946show libthread-db-search-path
947 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
948 libthread_db.
949
d4db2f36
PA
950set schedule-multiple (on|off)
951show schedule-multiple
952 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
953 the current process.
954
4e5d721f
DE
955set stack-cache
956show stack-cache
957 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
958 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
959 affecting correctness.
960
910c5da8
JB
961set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
962show interactive-mode
963 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
964 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
965 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
966 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
967 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
968
2277426b
PA
969* Removed commands
970
971info forks
972 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
973 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
974 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
975 command.
976
977fork NUM
978 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
979 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
980 alias for the `fork' command.
981
982process PID
983 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
984 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
985 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
986
987delete fork NUM
988 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
989 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
990 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
991 fork' command.
992
993detach fork NUM
994 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
995 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
996 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
997 fork' command.
998
a80b95ba
TG
999* New native configurations
1000
1001x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1002
b8bfd3ed
JB
1003x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1004
75a2d5e7
TT
1005* New targets
1006
c28c63d8 1007Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1008x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1009x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1010S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1011
6de3146c
PA
1012* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1013 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1014
d5cbbe6e
JB
1015* Removed commands
1016
1017catch load
1018catch unload
1019 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1020
75feb17d 1021*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1022
af5ca30d
NH
1023* New native configurations
1024
1025NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1026Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1027
1028* New targets
1029
1030NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1031Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1032
7a404eba
PA
1033* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1034
1035 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1036 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1037 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1038 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1039
430ebac9
PA
1040* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1041(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1042
fe6fbf8b 1043* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1044is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1045
1046* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1047including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1048and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1049
10665d76
JB
1050* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1051accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1052more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1053
7cc46491
DJ
1054* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1055
d71340b8
DJ
1056* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1057registers on PowerPC targets.
1058
523c4513
DJ
1059* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1060targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1061
a6b151f1
DJ
1062* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1063commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1064
2d717e4f
DJ
1065* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1066extended-remote mode.
1067
24a836bd 1068* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1069The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1070error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1071The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1072
d0c678e6
UW
1073* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1074building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1075target architectures.
1076
d64a946d
TJB
1077* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1078Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1079now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1080stored in two consecutive float registers.
1081
ee163bf5
VP
1082* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1083breakpoints now.
1084
b93b6ca7 1085* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1086Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1087include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1088 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1089 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1090 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1091 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1092 of an assignment
1093 - Improved command completion in Ada
1094 - Several bug fixes
1095
d001be7a
DJ
1096* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1097process.
1098
a6b151f1
DJ
1099* New commands
1100
6d53d0af
JB
1101set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1102show print frame-arguments
1103 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1104 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1105
a6b151f1
DJ
1106remote put
1107remote get
1108remote delete
1109 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1110
1111* New MI commands
1112
1113-target-file-put
1114-target-file-get
1115-target-file-delete
1116 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1117
1118* New remote packets
1119
1120vFile:open:
1121vFile:close:
1122vFile:pread:
1123vFile:pwrite:
1124vFile:unlink:
1125 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1126
2d717e4f
DJ
1127vAttach
1128 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1129 mode.
1130
1131vRun
1132 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1133
8d5f9c6f 1134*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1135
19d378fc
MS
1136* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1137bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1138Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1139
3a40aaa0
UW
1140* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1141symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1142-Bsymbolic linker option.
1143
a6ec25f2
BW
1144* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1145recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1146is not supported.
1147
6dd09645
JB
1148* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1149frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1150
c9bb8148
DJ
1151* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
115232-bit or 64-bit register values.
1153
0d5de010
DJ
1154* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1155
23181151
DJ
1156* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1157target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1158a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1159
ea37ba09
DJ
1160* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1161automatically displayed as character or string data.
1162
1163* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1164arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1165as strings.
e1f48ead 1166
123dc839
DJ
1167* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1168for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1169only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1170
05a4558a
DJ
1171* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1172iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1173
7c963485
PA
1174* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1175ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1176has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1177
b18be20d
DJ
1178* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1179
0ca420ce
UW
1180* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1181
31d99776
DJ
1182* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1183layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1184segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1185
a4642986
MR
1186* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1187immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1188
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1189* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1190"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1191packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1192where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1193Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1194
1195* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1196(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1197
1198* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1199according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1200
c9bb8148
DJ
1201* New commands
1202
23776285
MR
1203set remoteflow
1204show remoteflow
1205 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1206 when debugging using remote targets.
1207
c9bb8148
DJ
1208set mem inaccessible-by-default
1209show mem inaccessible-by-default
1210 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1211 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1212 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1213 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1214 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1215
1216set breakpoint auto-hw
1217show breakpoint auto-hw
1218 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1219 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1220 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1221 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1222 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1223 including "next" and "finish".
1224
0e420bd8
JB
1225catch exception
1226catch exception unhandled
1227 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1228
1229catch assert
1230 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1231
f822c95b
DJ
1232set sysroot
1233show sysroot
1234 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1235 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1236 an alias to "set sysroot".
1237
83cc5c53
UW
1238info spu
1239 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1240 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1241 architecture.
1242
bd372731
MK
1243* New native configurations
1244
1245OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1246
23181151
DJ
1247set tdesc filename
1248unset tdesc filename
1249show tdesc filename
1250 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1251 not query the target for its built-in description.
1252
c9bb8148
DJ
1253* New targets
1254
54fe9172 1255OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1256MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1257Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1258
6dd09645
JB
1259* New remote packets
1260
1261QPassSignals:
1262 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1263 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1264
23181151
DJ
1265qXfer:features:read:
1266 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1267 features.
6dd09645 1268
83cc5c53
UW
1269qXfer:spu:read:
1270qXfer:spu:write:
1271 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1272 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1273
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1274qXfer:libraries:read:
1275 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1276 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1277 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1278 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1279
483367ee
DJ
1280* Removed targets
1281
1282Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1283
d08950c4
UW
1284alpha*-*-osf1*
1285alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1286d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1287hppa*-*-hiux*
1288i[34567]86-ncr-*
1289i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1290i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1291i[34567]86-*-netware*
1292i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1293i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1294i[34567]86-*-sco*
1295i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1296i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1297i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1298i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1299i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1300i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1301i[34567]86-*-isc*
1302m68*-cisco*-*
1303m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1304mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1305rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1306sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1307
7ce59000
DJ
1308* Other removed features
1309
1310target abug
1311target cpu32bug
1312target est
1313target rom68k
1314
1315 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1316
ea35711c
DJ
1317target hms
1318target e7000
1319target sh3
1320target sh3e
1321
1322 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1323 H8/300.
1324
1325target ocd
1326
1327 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1328 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1329 interfaces.
1330
7ce59000
DJ
1331DWARF 1 support
1332
1333 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1334 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1335
54d61198
DJ
1336Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1337
1338 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1339 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1340 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1341 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1342
ea35711c
DJ
1343MIPS ".pdr" sections
1344
1345 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1346 in debugging information.
1347
1348Scheme support
1349
1350 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1351 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1352
1a69e1e4
DJ
1353set mips stack-arg-size
1354set mips saved-gpreg-size
1355
1356 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1357
6dd09645 1358*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1359
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1360* New targets
1361
1362Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1363Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1364
6aec2e11
DJ
1365* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1366(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1367running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1368
1369* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1370Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1371supported.
1372
17218d91
DJ
1373* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1374broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1375
9ebce043
DJ
1376* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1377stub provides the required support.
1378
7d3d3ece
DJ
1379* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1380longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1381
4f8253f3
JB
1382* New commands
1383
1384set substitute-path
1385unset substitute-path
1386show substitute-path
1387 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1388 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1389 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1390 between compilation and debugging.
1391
9fa66fd7
AS
1392set trace-commands
1393show trace-commands
1394 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1395 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1396 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1397
1f5befc1
DJ
1398* REMOVED features
1399
1400The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1401
2ec3381a
DJ
1402Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1403an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1404
3d00d119
DJ
1405The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1406
be2a5f71
DJ
1407* New remote packets
1408
1409qSupported:
1410 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1411 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1412 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1413 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1414 target.
1415
0876f84a
DJ
1416qXfer:auxv:read:
1417 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1418 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1419
9ebce043
DJ
1420qXfer:memory-map:read:
1421 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1422 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1423
1424vFlashErase:
1425vFlashWrite:
1426vFlashDone:
1427 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1428
0876f84a
DJ
1429* Removed remote packets
1430
1431qPart:auxv:read:
1432 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1433 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1434
e374b601 1435*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1436
96309189
MS
1437* New targets
1438
1439Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1440
1441Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1442
53e5f3cf
AS
1443* New commands
1444
1445init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1446 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1447
ac264b3b
MS
1448The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1449
1450checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1451
1452restart <n> Return the program state to a
1453 previously saved state.
1454
1455info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1456
1457delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1458
1459set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1460 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1461
1462info forks List forks of the user program that
1463 are available to be debugged.
1464
1465fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1466 forks of the user program that are
1467 available to be debugged.
1468
1469delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1470 that are available to be debugged (and
1471 kill the forked process).
1472
1473detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1474 that are available to be debugged (and
1475 allow the process to continue).
1476
3950dc3f
NS
1477* New architecture
1478
1479Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1480
0ea3f30e
DJ
1481* Improved Windows host support
1482
1483GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1484native console support, and remote communications using either
1485network sockets or serial ports.
1486
f79daebb
GM
1487* Improved Modula-2 language support
1488
1489GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1490basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1491pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1492printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1493written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1494GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1495
acab6ab2
MM
1496* REMOVED features
1497
1498The ARM rdi-share module.
1499
f4267320
DJ
1500The Netware NLM debug server.
1501
53e5f3cf 1502*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1503
e0ecbda1
MK
1504* New native configurations
1505
02a677ac 1506OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1507OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1508
d64a6579
KB
1509* New targets
1510
1511Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1512
b33a6190
AS
1513* New command line options
1514
1515--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1516--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1517 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1518--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1519 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1520 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1521 with the --command (-x) option.
1522
11dced61
AC
1523* Deprecated commands removed
1524
1525The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1526removed:
1527
1528 Command Replacement
1529 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1530 othernames set arm disassembler
1531 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1532 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1533 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1534 regs info registers
1535
6fe85783
MK
1536* New BSD user-level threads support
1537
1538It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1539library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1540configurations are:
1541
1542FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1543FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1544OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1545
1546Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1547are not yet supported.
1548
5260ca71
MS
1549* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1550(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1551
e84ecc99
AC
1552* REMOVED configurations and files
1553
1554VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1555Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1556National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1557
31e35378
JB
1558* New "set print array-indexes" command
1559
1560After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1561when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1562behavior.
1563
e85e5c83
MK
1564* VAX floating point support
1565
1566GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1567
d91e9901
AS
1568* User-defined command support
1569
1570In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1571to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1572section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1573
f2cb65ca
MC
1574*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1575
f47b1503
AS
1576* New command line option
1577
1578GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1579debugging.
1580
f2cb65ca
MC
1581* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1582
1583GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1584information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1585by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1586proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1587to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1588
d08c0230
AC
1589* Internationalization
1590
1591When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1592internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1593continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1594
117ea3cf
PH
1595* Ada
1596
1597Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1598implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1599into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1600
d08c0230
AC
1601* New native configurations
1602
1603GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1604
1605* Remote 'p' packet
1606
1607GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1608packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1609
1610* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1611
1612GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1613The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1614features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1615i386 application).
1616
1617GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1618compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1619continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1620configurations:
1621
1622hppa-*-hpux
1623ia64-*-aix
1624mips-*-irix*
1625*-*-lynx
1626mips-*-linux-gnu
1627sds protocol
1628xdr protocol
1629powerpc bdm protocol
1630
1631Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1632made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1633
1634* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1635
1636Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1637been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1638configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1639permanently REMOVED.
1640
1641h8300-*-*
1642mcore-*-*
1643mn10300-*-*
1644ns32k-*-*
1645sh64-*-*
1646v850-*-*
1647
ebb7c577
AC
1648*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1649
1650* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1651
1652When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1653heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1654been fixed.
1655
1656* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1657
1658When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1659fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1660IRIX long double values).
1661
1662* VAX and "next"
1663
1664A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1665command. This problem has been fixed.
1666
860660cb 1667*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1668
0dea2468
AC
1669* Fix for ``many threads''
1670
1671On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1672rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1673error message:
1674
1675 ptrace: No such process.
1676 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1677
1678This problem has been fixed.
1679
2c07db7a
AC
1680* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1681
1682Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1683GDB to dump core).
1684
c23968a2
JB
1685* New ``start'' command.
1686
1687This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1688
71009278
MK
1689* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1690
1691Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1692live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1693platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1694
1695FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1696FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1697NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1698NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1699NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1700OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1701OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1702OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1703OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1704
3c0b7db2
AC
1705* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1706
1707Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1708These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1709of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1710call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1711signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1712
73cc75f3
AC
1713Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1714features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1715include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1716
7243600a
BF
1717* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1718
6f606e1c
MK
1719* New native configurations
1720
97dc871c 1721GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1722OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1723OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1724OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1725OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1726NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1727OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1728
a1b461bf
AC
1729* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1730
1731GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1732The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1733including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1734migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1735compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1736work, was also included.
1737
1738GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1739module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1740
1741h8300-*-*
1742mcore-*-*
1743mn10300-*-*
1744ns32k-*-*
1745sh64-*-*
1746v850-*-*
1747xstormy16-*-*
1748
1749Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1750made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1751
3c7012f5
AC
1752* REMOVED configurations and files
1753
1754Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1755Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1756Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1757Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1758Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1759AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1760Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1761decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1762riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1763sonymips mips-sony-*
1764sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1765
e5fe55f7
AC
1766*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1767
1768* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1769
1770The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1771GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1772command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1773program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1774with GDB".
1775
1776* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1777
1778Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1779libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1780cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1781GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1782shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1783the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1784are created.
1785
1786Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1787
1788* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1789
1790The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1791non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1792compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1793
1794* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1795
1796Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1797wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1798
1799* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1800
1801The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1802permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1803systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1804
1805* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1806
1807Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1808has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1809
1810* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1811
1812GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1813its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1814panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1815
1816* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1817
1818When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1819by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1820not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1821
faae5abe 1822*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1823
9175c9a3
MC
1824* Removed --with-mmalloc
1825
1826Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1827conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1828
3cc87ec0
MK
1829* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1830
1831The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1832the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1833and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1834you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1835
f0424ef6
MK
1836* Revised SPARC target
1837
1838The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1839FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1840support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1841from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1842(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1843
59659be2
ILT
1844* New C++ demangler
1845
1846GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1847names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1848with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1849programs.
1850
9e08b29b
DJ
1851* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1852
1853GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1854arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1855encountered these.
1856
8dfe8985
DC
1857* C++ nested types and namespaces
1858
1859GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1860improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1861is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1862Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1863namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1864"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1865frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1866if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1867GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1868
cced5e27
MK
1869* New native configurations
1870
1871NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1872OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1873OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1874OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1875OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1876
b4b4b794
KI
1877* New debugging protocols
1878
1879M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1880
7989c619
AC
1881* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1882
1883The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1884and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1885tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1886
5994185b
AC
1887* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1888
1889Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1890been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1891configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1892permanently REMOVED.
1893
1894Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1895Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1896Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1897Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1898Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1899AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1900Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1901decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1902riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1903sonymips mips-sony-*
1904sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1905
0ddabb4c
AC
1906* REMOVED configurations and files
1907
1908SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1909SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1910Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1911Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1912H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1913HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1914HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1915HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1916PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1917386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1918Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1919 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1920 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1921SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1922SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1923Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1924Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1925
c7f1390e
DJ
1926*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1927
1fe43d45
AC
1928* Objective-C
1929
1930Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1931integrated into GDB.
1932
e6beb428
AC
1933* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1934
1935DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1936information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1937By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1938backtraces.
1939
1940The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1941have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1942DWARF 2 CFI support.
1943
1944* Hosted file I/O.
1945
1946GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1947file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1948remote protocol documentation for details.
1949
1950* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1951
1952All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1953architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1954to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1955ppc32 on ppc64).
1956
1957* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1958
1959GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1960per-thread variables.
1961
1962* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1963
1964GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1965GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1966
1967* Separate debug info.
1968
1969GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1970automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1971of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1972system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1973and optional debug files.
1974
1975* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1976
1977DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1978describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1979debugger.
1980
1981GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1982for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1983
1984* Java
1985
1986A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1987Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1988considered "useable".
1989
85f8f974
DJ
1990* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1991
1992The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1993commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1994kernel.
1995
0fac0b41
DJ
1996* GDB supports logging output to a file
1997
1998There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1999used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2000
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2001* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2002
2003The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2004disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2005command.
2006
e286caf2 2007* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2008
2009The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2010registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2011
d28f9cdf
DJ
2012* Profiling support
2013
2014A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2015be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2016session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2017"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2018data, for more informative profiling results.
2019
da0f9dcd
AC
2020* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2021
2022The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2023option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2024"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2025
2026Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2027removed.
2028
fb9b6b35
JJ
2029Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2030Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2031Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2032 in a subsequent -var-update.
2033
954a4db8
MK
2034* New native configurations.
2035
2036FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2037
6760f9e6
JB
2038* Multi-arched targets.
2039
b4263afa 2040HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2041Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2042
1b831c93
AC
2043* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2044
2045Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2046been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2047configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2048permanently REMOVED.
2049
8b0e5691 2050Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2051Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2052H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2053HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2054HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2055HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2056PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2057Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2058 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2059 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2060Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2061Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2062
5835abe7
NC
2063* REMOVED configurations and files
2064
2065V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2066Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2067IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2068i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2069i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2070i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2071HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2072 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2073 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2074Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2075Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2076Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2077OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2078I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2079
a094c6fb
AC
2080* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2081
2082The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2083the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2084context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2085address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2086The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2087
299ffc64 2088*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2089
46248966
AC
2090* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2091
2092When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2093`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2094in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2095library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2096shared libs like mad''.
2097
b9d14705 2098* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2099
b9d14705
DJ
2100Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2101the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2102arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2103powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2104
e0e9281e
JB
2105* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2106
2107GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2108and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2109they expand.
2110
dd73b9bb
AC
2111The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2112invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2113
2114The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2115macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2116
e0e9281e
JB
2117Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2118information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2119your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2120information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2121
2250ee0c
CV
2122* Multi-arched targets.
2123
6e3ba3b8
JT
2124DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2125DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2126NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2127National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2128Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2129Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2130
cd9bfe15 2131* New targets.
e33ce519 2132
456f8b9d
DB
2133Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2134
e33ce519 2135
da8ca43d
JT
2136* New native configurations
2137
2138Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2139SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2140MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2141UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2142
cd9bfe15
AC
2143* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2144
2145Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2146been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2147configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2148permanently REMOVED.
2149
92eb23c5 2150Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2151OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2152IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2153Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2154Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2155Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2156i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2157i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2158i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2159HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2160 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2161 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2162I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2163
db034ac5
AC
2164* OBSOLETE languages
2165
2166CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2167
cd9bfe15
AC
2168* REMOVED configurations and files
2169
2170AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2171A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2172AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2173AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2174AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2175
2176testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2177
20f01a46
DH
2178* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2179
2180This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2181commands. The default is 1024.
2182
a5941fbf
MK
2183* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2184
2185Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2186
89743e04
MS
2187* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2188
2189These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2190to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2191from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2192
9fb14e79
JB
2193* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2194
2195The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2196including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2197of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2198
2037aebb
AC
2199*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2200
2201* New targets.
2202
2203Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2204
2205* Bug fixes
2206
2207gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2208mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2209Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2210
2211gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2212dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2213Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2214
2215Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2216Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2217By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2218
2219i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2220avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2221By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2222
37057839 2223*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2224
1a703748
MS
2225* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2226
2227This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2228really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2229In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2230target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2231This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2232(notably embedded) targets.
2233
cefd4ef5
MS
2234* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2235
55241689
AC
2236This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2237process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2238GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2239hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2240
352ed7b4
MS
2241* New command line option
2242
2243GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2244
2245* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2246
2247There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2248command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2249a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2250be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2251open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2252issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2253a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2254it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2255GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2256is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2257
fe419ffc
RE
2258* Changes in ARM configurations.
2259
2260Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2261configuration is fully multi-arch.
2262
eb7cedd9
MK
2263* New native configurations
2264
fe419ffc 2265ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2266x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2267AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2268Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2269
c9f63e6b
CV
2270* New targets
2271
2272Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2273
9b4ff276
AC
2274* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2275
2276Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2277been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2278configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2279permanently REMOVED.
2280
2281AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2282A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2283AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2284AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2285AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2286
b4ceaee6 2287testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2288
e2caac18
AC
2289* REMOVED configurations and files
2290
2291TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2292WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2293PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2294PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2295PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2296Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2297Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2298 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2299SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2300Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2301Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2302ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2303Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2304
c2a727fa
TT
2305* Changes to command line processing
2306
2307The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2308for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2309
467d8519
TT
2310* Changes to key bindings
2311
2312There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2313
7072a954
AC
2314*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2315
2316Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2317
2318Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2319corrupted.
2320
2321Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2322
2323Numerous documentation fixes.
2324
2325Numerous testsuite fixes.
2326
34f47bc4 2327*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2328
2329* New native configurations
2330
2331Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2332x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2333MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2334MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2335ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2336s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2337
bf64bfd6
AC
2338* New targets
2339
def90278 2340Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2341CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2342UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2343
17e78a56 2344* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2345
2346x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2347Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2348Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2349 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2350TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2351WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2352Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2353PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2354PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2355PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2356SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2357Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2358ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2359Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2360
17e78a56
AC
2361stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2362kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2363
7fcca85b
AC
2364Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2365been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2366configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2367permanently REMOVED.
2368
a196c81c 2369* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2370
2371Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2372Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2373Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2374ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2375Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2376ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2377
6d6b80e5 2378* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2379
6d6b80e5 2380GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2381sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2382present.
2383
bf64bfd6
AC
2384* Other news:
2385
e23194cb
EZ
2386* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2387
2388* The MI enabled by default.
2389
2390The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2391revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2392engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2393using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2394which is now deprecated.
2395
2396* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2397
2398GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2399main features are supported:
2400
2401 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2402
2403 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2404 extension;
2405
2406 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2407
2408 - a Pascal expression parser.
2409
2410However, some important features are not yet supported.
2411
2412 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2413
2414 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2415
2416 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2417 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2418
2419 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2420
2421 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2422
2423* Changes in completion.
2424
2425Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2426to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2427users expect at the shell prompt.
2428
2429Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2430`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2431program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2432files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2433be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2434considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2435name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2436
2437`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2438
2439* New platform-independent commands:
2440
2441It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2442hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2443documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2444
2445* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2446
d7275149
MK
2447Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2448revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2449many threads as your system allows you to have.
2450
e23194cb
EZ
2451Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2452
d7275149
MK
2453Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2454multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2455
2456* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2457
2458Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2459
e23194cb
EZ
2460GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2461debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2462supported.)
2463
2464* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2465
2466Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2467breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2468implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2469put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2470and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2471registers.
2472
2473The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2474debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2475watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2476
2477* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2478
2479New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2480the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2481
2482New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2483display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2484IDT.
2485
2486New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2487from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2488New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2489a given linear address.
2490
2491GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2492program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2493which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2494
2495DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2496
6c56c069
EZ
2497It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2498
e23194cb
EZ
2499* Changes in documentation.
2500
2501All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2502Documentation License.
2503
2504Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2505manual.
2506
2507TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2508
2509Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2510manual.
2511
2512The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2513documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2514hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2515
5d6640b1
AC
2516* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2517
2518The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2519``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2520contents of this file.
2521
1a1d8446
AC
2522* gdba.el deleted
2523
2524GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2525
9debab2f 2526*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2527
c63ce875
EZ
2528* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2529
2530Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2531programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2532displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2533greater level of detail.
2534
2535* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2536
2537It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2538bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2539on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2540written.
2541
2542* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2543
2544The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2545necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2546machines ``out of the box''.
2547
2548The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2549possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2550signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2551would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2552interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2553
2554It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2555standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2556even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2557and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2558terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2559
2560The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2561enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2562also works.
2563
2564DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2565GDB.
2566
2567It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2568directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2569times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2570breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2571
ed9a39eb
JM
2572* New native configurations
2573
2574ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2575PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2576
7a292a7a
SS
2577* New targets
2578
96baa820 2579Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2580x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2581PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2582TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2583
085dd6e6
JM
2584* OBSOLETE configurations
2585
2586Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2587Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2588Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2589ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2590Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2591
9debab2f
AC
2592Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2593but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2594these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2595be permanently REMOVED.
2596
5330533d
SS
2597* Gould support removed
2598
2599Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2600
bc9e5bbf
AC
2601* New features for SVR4
2602
2603On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2604without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2605load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2606
2607* Many C++ enhancements
2608
2609C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2610in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2611
adf40b2e
JM
2612* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2613
2614A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2615sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2616with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2617``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2618
2619 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2620 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2621
43e526b9
JM
2622* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2623
2624A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2625expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2626instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2627
2628The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2629added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2630
96baa820
JM
2631* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2632
2633The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2634``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2635include ``set remote P-packet''.
2636
11cf8741
JM
2637* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2638
2639The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2640accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2641``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2642
7876dd43
DB
2643* ``apropos'' command added.
2644
2645The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2646documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2647try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2648
bc9e5bbf
AC
2649* New MI interface
2650
2651A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2652interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2653process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2654"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2655enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2656
2657 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2658
c906108c
SS
2659*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2660
2661* New native configurations
2662
2663HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2664HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2665M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2666
2667* New targets
2668
2669Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2670Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2671Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2672
2673* OBSOLETE configurations
2674
2675Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2676
2677Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2678but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2679these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2680be permanently REMOVED.
2681
2682* ANSI/ISO C
2683
2684As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2685buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2686containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2687use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2688available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2689configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2690information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2691already.
2692
2693* Readline 2.2
2694
2695GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2696
2697* set extension-language
2698
2699You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2700languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2701you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2702 set extension-language .c c++
2703The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2704and their associated languages.
2705
2706* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2707
2708When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2709you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2710PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2711
2712 set processor NAME
2713
2714sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2715following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2716
2717 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2718 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2719 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2720 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2721 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2722 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2723 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2724 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2725 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2726 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2727 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2728
2729At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2730special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2731registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2732only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2733
2734* HP-UX support
2735
2736Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2737more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2738library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2739support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2740for xdb and dbx commands.
2741
2742* Catchpoints
2743
2744HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2745generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2746to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2747
2748This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2749argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2750output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2751
2752* Debugging across forks
2753
2754On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2755in the inferior.
2756
2757* TUI
2758
2759HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2760it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2761configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2762
2763* GDB remote protocol additions
2764
2765A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2766Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2767fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2768allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2769
2770For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2771full 64-bit address. The command
2772
2773 set remoteaddresssize 32
2774
2775can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2776the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2777will be discarded.
2778
2779In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2780command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2781
2782 maint packet heythere
2783
2784sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2785disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2786time.
2787
2788The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2789target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2790downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2791
2792* Tracing can collect general expressions
2793
2794You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2795further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2796doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2797
2798* mask-address variable for Mips
2799
2800For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2801a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2802of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2803
2804* Higher serial baud rates
2805
2806GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2807230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2808to achieve all of these rates.)
2809
2810* i960 simulator
2811
2812The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2813builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2814
2815
2816*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2817
2818* New native configurations
2819
2820Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2821Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2822Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2823PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2824PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2825Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2826Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2827
2828* New targets
2829
2830Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2831Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2832Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2833Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2834MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2835MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2836MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2837Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2838Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2839Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2840NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2841
2842* New debugging protocols
2843
2844ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2845M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2846DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2847PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2848PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2849Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2850
2851* DWARF 2
2852
2853All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2854format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2855information.
2856
2857* Java frontend
2858
2859GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2860only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2861
2862* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2863
2864For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2865loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2866locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2867
2868* Live range splitting
2869
2870GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2871range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2872more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2873
2874* Hurd support
2875
2876GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2877updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2878
2879* ARM Thumb support
2880
2881GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2882instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2883instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2884accordingly.
2885
2886* MIPS16 support
2887
2888GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2889instruction set.
2890
2891* Overlay support
2892
2893GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2894linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2895will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2896control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2897additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2898in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2899
2900* info symbol
2901
2902The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2903the symbol at the specified address.
2904
2905* Trace support
2906
2907The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2908asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2909extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2910includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2911file tracepoint.c for more details.
2912
2913* MIPS simulator
2914
2915Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2916by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2917of most MIPS variants.
2918
2919* Sparc simulator
2920
2921Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2922by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2923Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2924
2925* set architecture
2926
2927For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2928basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2929architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2930the possible architectures.
2931
2932*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2933
2934* New native configurations
2935
2936Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2937M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2938PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2939PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2940PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2941RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2942
2943* New targets
2944
2945ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2946I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2947MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2948MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2949PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2950Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2951Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2952
2953* PowerPC simulator
2954
2955The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2956contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2957PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2958basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2959performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2960
2961* Solaris 2.5
2962
2963GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2964
2965* Windows 95/NT native
2966
2967GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2968To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2969which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2970Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2971ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2972
2973* dont-repeat command
2974
2975If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2976command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2977useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2978extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2979
2980* Send break instead of ^C
2981
2982The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2983rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2984GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2985
2986* Remote protocol timeout
2987
2988The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2989that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2990to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2991
2992* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2993
2994By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2995loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2996stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2997when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2998in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2999
3000Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3001/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3002automatically on hpux10.
3003
3004* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3005
3006Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3007
3008* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3009
3010When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3011may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3012the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3013every character. The default value is 1050.
3014
3015* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3016
3017If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3018a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3019replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3020details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3021remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3022to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3023
3024* Speedups for remote debugging
3025
3026GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3027the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3028and more efficient S-record downloading.
3029
3030* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3031
3032GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3033Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3034
3035*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3036
3037* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3038
3039The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3040can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3041
3042* Remote targets use caching
3043
3044Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3045remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3046it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3047debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3048off' turns the the data cache off.
3049
3050* Remote targets may have threads
3051
3052The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3053in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3054gdb/remote.c for details.
3055
3056* NetROM support
3057
3058If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3059support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3060acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3061write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3062support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3063another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3064sequence is something like
3065
3066 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3067 load <prog>
3068 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3069
3070* Macintosh host
3071
3072GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3073may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3074it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3075available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3076device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3077directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3078scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3079mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3080
3081* Autoconf
3082
3083GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3084but does simplify configuration and building.
3085
3086* hpux10
3087
3088GDB now supports hpux10.
3089
3090*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3091
3092* New native configurations
3093
3094x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3095x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3096NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3097Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3098
3099* New targets
3100
3101A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3102HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3103CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3104PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3105WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3106
3107* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3108
3109GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3110possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3111filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3112the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3113if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3114
3115* Arguments to user-defined commands
3116
3117User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3118Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3119trivial example:
3120define adder
3121 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3122
3123To execute the command use:
3124adder 1 2 3
3125
3126Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3127Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3128use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3129
3130* New `if' and `while' commands
3131
3132This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3133commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3134expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3135execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3136terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3137`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3138if the expression is zero.
3139
3140* Fortran source language mode
3141
3142GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3143Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3144variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3145with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3146Fortran compilers.
3147
3148* Better HPUX support
3149
3150Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3151running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3152processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3153for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3154that behavior do the following before running the program:
3155
3156 adb -w a.out
3157 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3158 control-d
3159
3160This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3161To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3162
3163 adb -w a.out
3164 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3165 control-d
3166
3167You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3168the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3169external linkage.
3170
3171GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3172HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3173
3174* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3175
3176You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3177commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3178current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3179"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3180associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3181configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3182
3183* New DOS host serial code
3184
3185This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3186no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3187a PC's serial port.
3188
3189*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3190
3191* New "complete" command
3192
3193This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3194were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3195
3196* Trailing space optional in prompt
3197
3198"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3199allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3200
3201* Breakpoint hit counts
3202
3203"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3204has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3205can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3206to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3207less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3208that breakpoint.
3209
3210* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3211
3212"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3213an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3214arrays actually contain only short strings.
3215
3216* Shared library breakpoints
3217
3218In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3219breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3220
3221* Hardware watchpoints
3222
3223There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3224targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3225
55241689 3226Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3227
3228* Annotations
3229
3230Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3231and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3232
3233* Improved Irix 5 support
3234
3235GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3236
3237* Improved HPPA support
3238
3239GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3240
3241* New native configurations
3242
3243Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3244HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3245Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3246RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3247
3248* New targets
3249
3250OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3251MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3252Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3253
3254* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3255
3256There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3257This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3258
3259* Fixes
3260
3261As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3262and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3263
3264*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3265
3266* Irix 5 is now supported
3267
3268* HPPA support
3269
3270GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3271to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3272GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3273of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3274can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3275
3276
3277*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3278
3279* User visible changes:
3280
3281* Remote Debugging
3282
3283The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3284target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3285debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3286integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3287debugging info for the mips target).
3288
3289* DEC Alpha native support
3290
3291GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3292debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3293work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3294Alpha-specific notes.
3295
3296* Preliminary thread implementation
3297
3298GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3299
3300* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3301
3302This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3303to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3304for details).
3305
3306* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3307
3308This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3309mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3310call methods, ...etc.
3311
3312*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3313
3314 * User visible changes:
3315
3316Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3317supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3318other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3319somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3320
3321Filename completion now works.
3322
3323When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3324arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3325addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3326
3327All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3328vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3329should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3330your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3331to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3332
3333 * DEC alpha support
3334
3335This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3336cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3337
3338
3339*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3340
3341 * Testsuite
3342
3343This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3344The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3345via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3346
3347 * C++ demangling
3348
3349'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3350emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3351Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3352disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3353use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3354
3355 * Simulators
3356
3357GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3358So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3359Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3360
3361 * New targets supported
3362
3363H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3364H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3365SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3366Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3367IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3368
3369Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3370version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3371GO32 memory extender.
3372
3373 * New remote protocols
3374
3375MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3376
3377 * New source languages supported
3378
3379This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3380used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3381into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3382
3383
3384*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3385
3386 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3387
3388GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3389version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3390University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3391compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3392format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3393(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3394
3395Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3396
3397 * Faster and better demangling
3398
3399We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3400demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3401character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3402only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3403This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3404increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3405symbol lookups.
3406
3407`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3408from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3409compiler does not actually implement.
3410
3411 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3412
3413In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3414inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3415recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3416very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3417The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3418circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3419fix.
3420
3421The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3422release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3423
3424 * Improved configure script
3425
3426The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3427you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3428host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3429done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3430
3431We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3432version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3433`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3434The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3435only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3436We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3437
3438 * Documentation improvements
3439
3440There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3441produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3442before submitting changes.
3443
3444The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3445M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3446`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3447you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3448a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3449
3450*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3451We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3452been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3453or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3454`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3455around this problem.
3456
3457 * New features
3458
3459GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3460the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3461`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3462the target program.
3463
3464The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3465how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3466
3467 * New native hosts supported
3468
3469HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3470386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3471
3472 * New targets supported
3473
3474AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3475
3476 * New file formats supported
3477
3478BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3479HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3480
3481 * Major bug fixes
3482
3483Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3484
3485We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3486printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3487
3488We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3489for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3490release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3491
3492You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3493will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3494
3495We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3496for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3497especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3498libraries.
3499
3500The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3501information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3502command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3503any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3504when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3505
3506 * Internal improvements
3507
3508GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3509debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3510
3511GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3512Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3513symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3514contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3515shared code that handles any of them.
3516
3517 * New command line options
3518
3519We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3520
3521 * Mmalloc licensing
3522
3523The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3524General Public License.
3525
3526*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3527
3528 * Host/native/target split
3529
3530GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3531hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3532target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3533local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3534ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3535
3536The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3537GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3538is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3539code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3540any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3541built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3542handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3543
3544GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3545It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3546plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3547
3548 * New hosts supported
3549
3550HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3551386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3552386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3553
3554 * New targets supported
3555
3556Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
355768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3558
3559 * New native hosts supported
3560
3561386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3562 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3563386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3564
3565 * New file formats supported
3566
3567BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3568supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3569format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3570
3571 * New commands
3572
3573`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3574`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3575These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3576
3577`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3578
3579You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3580scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3581prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3582executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3583
3584 * C++ improvements
3585
3586We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3587info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3588symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3589
3590Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3591
3592 * Major bug fixes
3593
3594The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3595fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3596by the compiler.
3597
3598We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3599support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3600
3601John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3602slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3603that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3604purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3605the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3606mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3607
3608Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3609about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3610completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3611we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3612
3613 * AMD 29k support
3614
3615A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3616specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3617calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3618usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3619in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3620
3621We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3622Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3623of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3624resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3625
3626 * Remote interfaces
3627
3628We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3629with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3630message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3631This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3632needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3633breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3634each instruction being stepped through.
3635
3636The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3637registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3638
3639There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3640find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3641Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3642processor with a serial port.
3643
3644 * Configuration
3645
3646Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3647`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3648supported, and what files each one uses.
3649
3650 * Library changes
3651
3652There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3653disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3654Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3655disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3656
3657The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3658Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3659can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3660grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3661
3662 * Documentation
3663
3664The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3665reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3666as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3667encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3668system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3669bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3670
3671And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3672
3673
3674*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3675
3676 * Better support for C++ function names
3677
3678GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3679names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3680(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3681single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3682Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3683
3684GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3685the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3686You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3687lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3688for the list of formats.
3689
3690 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3691
3692Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3693C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3694directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3695can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3696usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3697about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3698this problem.)
3699
3700 * New 'maintenance' command
3701
3702All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3703the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3704can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3705
3706 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3707 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3708 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3709 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3710 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3711 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3712
3713The following commands are new:
3714
3715 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3716 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3717 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3718
3719 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3720
3721We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3722(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3723be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3724read after argv processing.
3725
3726 * New hosts supported
3727
3728Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3729
55241689 3730GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3731
3732We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3733is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3734for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3735masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3736fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3737It costs extra.
3738
3739 * New targets supported
3740
3741Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3742
3743 * More smarts about finding #include files
3744
3745GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3746all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3747greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3748especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3749the one that contains your sources.
3750
3751We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3752breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3753try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3754
3755 * Interesting infernals change
3756
3757GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3758section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3759target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3760stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3761
3762 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3763
3764There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3765 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3766 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3767
3768See the ChangeLog for details.
3769
3770*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3771
3772 * New machines supported (host and target)
3773
3774IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3775
3776SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3777
3778 * New malloc package
3779
3780GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3781Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3782capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3783This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3784pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3785more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3786
3787 * info proc
3788
3789The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3790'help info proc' for details.
3791
3792 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3793
3794The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3795Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3796possible.
3797
3798 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3799
3800Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3801support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3802conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3803environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3804that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3805in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3806
3807 * Cross byte order fixes
3808
3809Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3810targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3811
3812 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3813
3814If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3815system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3816`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3817program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3818called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3819Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3820and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3821the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3822option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3823starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3824
3825You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3826the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3827information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3828slower, but makes future operations faster.
3829
3830The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3831build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3832A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3833use is:
3834
3835 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3836
3837The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3838It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3839shared across multiple host platforms.
3840
3841 * longjmp() handling
3842
3843GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3844siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3845all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3846platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3847
3848 * Solaris 2.0
3849
3850Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3851this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3852reading symbols.
3853
3854 * Bug fixes
3855
3856As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3857People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3858crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3859
3860*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3861
3862 * New machines supported (host and target)
3863
3864SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3865 (except core files)
3866BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3867Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3868
3869 * New machines supported (target)
3870
3871AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3872
3873 * C++ support
3874
3875GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3876The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3877per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3878
3879GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3880`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3881extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3882good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3883will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3884released.
3885
3886 * New features for SVR4
3887
3888GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3889shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3890only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3891
3892The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3893on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3894it prints the address mappings of the process.
3895
3896If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3897bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3898
3899 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3900
3901Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3902now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3903skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3904make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3905same code linked statically.
3906
3907 * New Getopt
3908
3909GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3910version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3911continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3912Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3913added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3914future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3915
3916 * Bugs fixed
3917
3918The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3919Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3920See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3921
3922
3923*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3924
3925 * New machines supported (host and target)
3926
3927Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3928NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3929Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3930
3931 * Almost SCO Unix support
3932
3933We had hoped to support:
3934SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3935(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3936that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3937about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3938
3939 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3940
3941GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3942debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3943is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3944send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3945reqired (if any).
3946
3947 * New Readline
3948
3949GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3950is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3951required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3952
3953 * Bugs fixed
3954
3955The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3956Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3957See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3958
3959 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3960
3961GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3962supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3963symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3964
3965Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3966mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3967debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3968mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3969version 2.
3970
3971Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3972really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3973line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3974variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3975situation somewhat.
3976
3977When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3978However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3979methods.
3980
3981We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3982DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3983encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3984
3985
3986*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3987
3988 * Improved configuration
3989
3990Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3991Porting BFD is simpler.
3992
3993 * Stepping improved
3994
3995The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3996of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3997in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3998function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3999
4000 * Bug fixing
4001
4002Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4003
4004 * New host supported (not target)
4005
4006Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4007
4008
4009*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4010
4011 * Multiple source language support
4012
4013GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4014It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4015and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4016language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4017You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4018`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4019
4020 * GDB and Modula-2
4021
4022GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4023currently under development at the State University of New York at
4024Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4025continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4026
4027Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4028debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4029symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4030
4031There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4032in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4033
4034 * set write on/off
4035
4036GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4037a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4038the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4039by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4040effect immediately.
4041
4042 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4043
4044When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4045shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4046The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4047examining core files.
4048
4049 * set listsize
4050
4051You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4052The default is 10.
4053
4054 * New machines supported (host and target)
4055
4056SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4057Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4058Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4059
4060 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4061
4062IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4063
4064 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4065
4066AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4067AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4068Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4069
4070 * New remote interfaces
4071
4072AMD 29000 Adapt
4073AMD 29000 Minimon
4074
4075
4076*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4077
4078 * New Facilities
4079
4080Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4081
4082Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4083target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4084is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4085remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4086remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4087also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4088using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4089stub on the target system.
4090
4091New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4092
4093GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4094library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4095object file types such as a.out and coff.
4096
4097There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4098refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4099
4100
4101 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4102
4103All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4104by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4105
4106For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4107``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4108Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4109
4110What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4111print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4112will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4113all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4114
4115confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4116 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4117 it is already running. Default is ON.
4118
4119editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4120 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4121 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4122 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4123 Default is ON.
4124
4125history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4126 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4127 or the value of the environment variable
4128 GDBHISTFILE.
4129
4130history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4131 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4132 HISTSIZE.
4133
4134history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4135 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4136 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4137
4138history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4139 history expansion will be performed on
4140 command line input. The default is OFF.
4141
4142radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4143 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4144 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4145
4146height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4147 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4148 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4149 variable TERM.
4150
4151width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4152 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4153 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4154 variable TERM.
4155
4156Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4157``set width'' instead.
4158
4159print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4160 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4161 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4162 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4163
4164print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4165 is OFF.
4166
4167print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4168 "raw" form if off.
4169
4170print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4171 like instructions.
4172
4173print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4174
4175
4176 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4177
4178The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4179new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4180are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4181window.
4182
4183
4184 * Support for Shared Libraries
4185
4186GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4187Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4188before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4189happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4190At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4191from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4192shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4193It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4194
4195sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4196 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4197 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4198
4199info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4200
4201
4202 * Watchpoints
4203
4204A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4205expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4206tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4207quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4208problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4209more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4210
4211watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4212
4213info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4214
4215delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4216disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4217enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4218
4219
4220 * C++ multiple inheritance
4221
4222When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4223for C++ programs.
4224
4225 * C++ exception handling
4226
4227Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4228ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4229the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4230handler's context).
4231
4232catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4233 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4234 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4235
4236info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4237 current stack frame.
4238
4239
4240 * Minor command changes
4241
4242The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4243command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4244is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4245
4246The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4247at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4248frames without printing.
4249
4250 * New directory command
4251
4252'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4253The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4254about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4255with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4256find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4257
4258 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4259
4260For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4261for more details.
4262
4263GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4264two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4265Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4266where the program that you are debugging will run.