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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
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6* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
7recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
8is not supported.
9
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10* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
11frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
12
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13* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1432-bit or 64-bit register values.
15
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16* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
17
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18* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
19target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
20a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
21
e1f48ead 22* Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
f8b73d13 23of numbers.
e1f48ead 24
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25* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
26for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
f8b73d13 27only ARM and MIPS).
123dc839 28
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29* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
30iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 31
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32* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
33ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
34has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
35
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36* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
37
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38* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
39
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40* New commands
41
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42set remoteflow
43show remoteflow
44 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
45 when debugging using remote targets.
46
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47set mem inaccessible-by-default
48show mem inaccessible-by-default
49 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
50 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
51 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
52 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
53 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
54
55set breakpoint auto-hw
56show breakpoint auto-hw
57 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
58 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
59 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
60 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
61 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
62 including "next" and "finish".
63
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64catch exception
65catch exception unhandled
66 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
67
68catch assert
69 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
70
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71set sysroot
72show sysroot
73 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
74 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
75 an alias to "set sysroot".
76
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77info spu
78 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
79 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
80 architecture.
81
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82* New native configurations
83
84OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
85
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86set tdesc filename
87unset tdesc filename
88show tdesc filename
89 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
90 not query the target for its built-in description.
91
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92* New targets
93
54fe9172 94OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 95MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 96Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 97
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98* New remote packets
99
100QPassSignals:
101 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
102 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
103
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104qXfer:features:read:
105 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
106 features.
6dd09645 107
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108qXfer:spu:read:
109qXfer:spu:write:
110 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
111 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
112
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113* Removed targets
114
115Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
116
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117alpha*-*-osf1*
118alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 119d10v-*-*
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120hppa*-*-hiux*
121i[34567]86-ncr-*
122i[34567]86-*-dgux*
123i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
124i[34567]86-*-netware*
125i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
126i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
127i[34567]86-*-sco*
128i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
129i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
130i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
131i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
132i[34567]86-*-unixware*
133i[34567]86-*-sysv*
134i[34567]86-*-isc*
135m68*-cisco*-*
136m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 137mips*-*-pe
483367ee 138rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 139sh*-*-pe
483367ee 140
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141* Other removed features
142
143target abug
144target cpu32bug
145target est
146target rom68k
147
148 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
149
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150target hms
151target e7000
152target sh3
153target sh3e
154
155 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
156 H8/300.
157
158target ocd
159
160 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
161 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
162 interfaces.
163
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164DWARF 1 support
165
166 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
167 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
168
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169Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
170
171 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
172 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
173 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
174 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
175
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176MIPS ".pdr" sections
177
178 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
179 in debugging information.
180
181Scheme support
182
183 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
184 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
185
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186set mips stack-arg-size
187set mips saved-gpreg-size
188
189 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
190
6dd09645 191*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 192
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193* New targets
194
195Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 196Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 197
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198* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
199(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
200running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
201
202* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
203Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
204supported.
205
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206* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
207broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
208
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209* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
210stub provides the required support.
211
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212* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
213longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
214
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215* New commands
216
217set substitute-path
218unset substitute-path
219show substitute-path
220 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
221 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
222 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
223 between compilation and debugging.
224
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225set trace-commands
226show trace-commands
227 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
228 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
229 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
230
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231* REMOVED features
232
233The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
234
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235Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
236an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
237
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238The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
239
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240* New remote packets
241
242qSupported:
243 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
244 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
245 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
246 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
247 target.
248
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249qXfer:auxv:read:
250 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
251 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
252
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253qXfer:memory-map:read:
254 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
255 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
256
257vFlashErase:
258vFlashWrite:
259vFlashDone:
260 Erase and program a flash memory device.
261
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262* Removed remote packets
263
264qPart:auxv:read:
265 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
266 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
267
e374b601 268*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 269
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270* New targets
271
272Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
273
274Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
275
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276* New commands
277
278init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
279 only if it doesn't already have a value.
280
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281The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
282
283checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
284
285restart <n> Return the program state to a
286 previously saved state.
287
288info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
289
290delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
291
292set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
293 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
294
295info forks List forks of the user program that
296 are available to be debugged.
297
298fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
299 forks of the user program that are
300 available to be debugged.
301
302delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
303 that are available to be debugged (and
304 kill the forked process).
305
306detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
307 that are available to be debugged (and
308 allow the process to continue).
309
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310* New architecture
311
312Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
313
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314* Improved Windows host support
315
316GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
317native console support, and remote communications using either
318network sockets or serial ports.
319
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320* Improved Modula-2 language support
321
322GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
323basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
324pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
325printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
326written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
327GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
328
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329* REMOVED features
330
331The ARM rdi-share module.
332
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333The Netware NLM debug server.
334
53e5f3cf 335*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 336
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337* New native configurations
338
02a677ac 339OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
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340OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
341
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342* New targets
343
344Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
345
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346* New command line options
347
348--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
349--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
350 the child (debugged) program exited with.
351--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
352 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
353 specified multiple times and in conjunction
354 with the --command (-x) option.
355
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356* Deprecated commands removed
357
358The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
359removed:
360
361 Command Replacement
362 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
363 othernames set arm disassembler
364 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
365 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
366 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
367 regs info registers
368
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369* New BSD user-level threads support
370
371It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
372library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
373configurations are:
374
375FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
376FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
377OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
378
379Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
380are not yet supported.
381
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382* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
383(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
384
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385* REMOVED configurations and files
386
387VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 388Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 389National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 390
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391* New "set print array-indexes" command
392
393After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
394when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
395behavior.
396
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397* VAX floating point support
398
399GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
400
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401* User-defined command support
402
403In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
404to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
405section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
406
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407*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
408
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409* New command line option
410
411GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
412debugging.
413
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414* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
415
416GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
417information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
418by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
419proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
420to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 421
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422* Internationalization
423
424When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
425internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
426continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
427
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428* Ada
429
430Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
431implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
432into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
433
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434* New native configurations
435
436GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
437
438* Remote 'p' packet
439
440GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
441packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
442
443* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
444
445GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
446The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
447features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
448i386 application).
449
450GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
451compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
452continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
453configurations:
454
455hppa-*-hpux
456ia64-*-aix
457mips-*-irix*
458*-*-lynx
459mips-*-linux-gnu
460sds protocol
461xdr protocol
462powerpc bdm protocol
463
464Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
465made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
466
467* OBSOLETE configurations and files
468
469Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
470been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
471configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
472permanently REMOVED.
473
474h8300-*-*
475mcore-*-*
476mn10300-*-*
477ns32k-*-*
478sh64-*-*
479v850-*-*
480
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481*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
482
483* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
484
485When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
486heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
487been fixed.
488
489* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
490
491When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
492fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
493IRIX long double values).
494
495* VAX and "next"
496
497A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
498command. This problem has been fixed.
499
860660cb 500*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 501
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502* Fix for ``many threads''
503
504On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
505rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
506error message:
507
508 ptrace: No such process.
509 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
510
511This problem has been fixed.
512
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513* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
514
515Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
516GDB to dump core).
517
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518* New ``start'' command.
519
520This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
521
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522* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
523
524Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
525live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
526platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
527
528FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
529FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
530NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
531NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
532NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
533OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
534OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
535OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
536OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
537
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538* Signal trampoline code overhauled
539
540Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
541These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
542of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
543call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
544signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
545
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546Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
547features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
548include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 549
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550* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
551
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552* New native configurations
553
97dc871c 554GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 555OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
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556OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
557OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 558OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 559NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 560OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 561
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562* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
563
564GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
565The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
566including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
567migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
568compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
569work, was also included.
570
571GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
572module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
573
574h8300-*-*
575mcore-*-*
576mn10300-*-*
577ns32k-*-*
578sh64-*-*
579v850-*-*
580xstormy16-*-*
581
582Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
583made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
584
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585* REMOVED configurations and files
586
587Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
588Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
589Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
590Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
591Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
592AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
593Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
594decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
595riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
596sonymips mips-sony-*
597sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
598
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599*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
600
601* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
602
603The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
604GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
605command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
606program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
607with GDB".
608
609* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
610
611Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
612libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
613cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
614GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
615shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
616the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
617are created.
618
619Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
620
621* Fixed ISO-C build problems
622
623The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
624non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
625compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
626
627* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
628
629Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
630wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
631
632* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
633
634The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
635permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
636systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
637
638* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
639
640Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
641has been updated to use constant array sizes.
642
643* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
644
645GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
646its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
647panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
648
649* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
650
651When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
652by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
653not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
654
faae5abe 655*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 656
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657* Removed --with-mmalloc
658
659Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
660conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
661
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662* Changes in AMD64 configurations
663
664The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
665the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
666and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
667you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
668
f0424ef6
MK
669* Revised SPARC target
670
671The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
672FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
673support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
674from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
675(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 676
59659be2
ILT
677* New C++ demangler
678
679GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
680names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
681with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
682programs.
683
9e08b29b
DJ
684* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
685
686GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
687arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
688encountered these.
689
8dfe8985
DC
690* C++ nested types and namespaces
691
692GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
693improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
694is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
695Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
696namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
697"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
698frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
699if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
700GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
701
cced5e27
MK
702* New native configurations
703
704NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 705OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 706OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
707OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
708OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 709
b4b4b794
KI
710* New debugging protocols
711
712M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
713
7989c619
AC
714* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
715
716The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
717and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
718tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
719
5994185b
AC
720* OBSOLETE configurations and files
721
722Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
723been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
724configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
725permanently REMOVED.
726
727Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
728Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
729Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
730Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
731Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
732AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
733Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
734decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
735riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
736sonymips mips-sony-*
737sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 738
0ddabb4c
AC
739* REMOVED configurations and files
740
741SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
742SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
743Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
744Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
745H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
746HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
747HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
748HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
749PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 750386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
751Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
752 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
753 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
754SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
755SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
756Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
757Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 758
c7f1390e
DJ
759*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
760
1fe43d45
AC
761* Objective-C
762
763Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
764integrated into GDB.
765
e6beb428
AC
766* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
767
768DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
769information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
770By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
771backtraces.
772
773The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
774have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
775DWARF 2 CFI support.
776
777* Hosted file I/O.
778
779GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
780file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
781remote protocol documentation for details.
782
783* All targets using the new architecture framework.
784
785All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
786architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
787to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
788ppc32 on ppc64).
789
790* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
791
792GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
793per-thread variables.
794
795* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
796
797GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
798GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
799
800* Separate debug info.
801
802GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
803automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
804of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
805system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
806and optional debug files.
807
808* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
809
810DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
811describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
812debugger.
813
814GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
815for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
816
817* Java
818
819A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
820Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
821considered "useable".
822
85f8f974
DJ
823* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
824
825The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
826commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
827kernel.
828
0fac0b41
DJ
829* GDB supports logging output to a file
830
831There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
832used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 833
6ad8ae5c
DJ
834* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
835
836The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
837disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
838command.
839
e286caf2 840* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
841
842The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
843registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
844
d28f9cdf
DJ
845* Profiling support
846
847A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
848be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
849session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
850"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
851data, for more informative profiling results.
852
da0f9dcd
AC
853* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
854
855The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
856option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 857"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
858
859Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
860removed.
861
fb9b6b35
JJ
862Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
863Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
864Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
865 in a subsequent -var-update.
866
954a4db8
MK
867* New native configurations.
868
869FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
870
6760f9e6
JB
871* Multi-arched targets.
872
b4263afa 873HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 874Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 875
1b831c93
AC
876* OBSOLETE configurations and files
877
878Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
879been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
880configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
881permanently REMOVED.
882
8b0e5691 883Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 884Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 885H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
886HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
887HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
888HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 889PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
890Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
891 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
892 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
893Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
894Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 895
5835abe7
NC
896* REMOVED configurations and files
897
898V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
899Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
900IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
901i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
902i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
903i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
904HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
905 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
906 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
907Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
908Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
909Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
910OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
911I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 912
a094c6fb
AC
913* MIPS $fp behavior changed
914
915The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
916the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
917context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
918address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
919The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
920
299ffc64 921*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 922
46248966
AC
923* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
924
925When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
926`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
927in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
928library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
929shared libs like mad''.
930
b9d14705 931* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 932
b9d14705
DJ
933Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
934the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
935arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
936powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 937
e0e9281e
JB
938* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
939
940GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
941and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
942they expand.
943
dd73b9bb
AC
944The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
945invocations in expression, and shows the result.
946
947The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
948macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
949
e0e9281e
JB
950Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
951information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
952your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
953information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
954
2250ee0c
CV
955* Multi-arched targets.
956
6e3ba3b8
JT
957DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
958DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 959NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 960National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
961Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
962Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 963
cd9bfe15 964* New targets.
e33ce519 965
456f8b9d
DB
966Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
967
e33ce519 968
da8ca43d
JT
969* New native configurations
970
971Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 972SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 973MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 974UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 975
cd9bfe15
AC
976* OBSOLETE configurations and files
977
978Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
979been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
980configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
981permanently REMOVED.
982
92eb23c5 983Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 984OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 985IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 986Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 987Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 988Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
989i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
990i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
991i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
992HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
993 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
994 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 995I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 996
db034ac5
AC
997* OBSOLETE languages
998
999CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1000
cd9bfe15
AC
1001* REMOVED configurations and files
1002
1003AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1004A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1005AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1006AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1007AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1008
1009testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1010
20f01a46
DH
1011* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1012
1013This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1014commands. The default is 1024.
1015
a5941fbf
MK
1016* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1017
1018Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1019
89743e04
MS
1020* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1021
1022These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1023to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1024from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1025
9fb14e79
JB
1026* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1027
1028The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1029including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1030of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1031
2037aebb
AC
1032*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1033
1034* New targets.
1035
1036Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1037
1038* Bug fixes
1039
1040gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1041mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1042Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1043
1044gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1045dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1046Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1047
1048Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1049Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1050By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1051
1052i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1053avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1054By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1055
37057839 1056*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1057
1a703748
MS
1058* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1059
1060This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1061really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1062In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1063target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1064This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1065(notably embedded) targets.
1066
cefd4ef5
MS
1067* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1068
55241689
AC
1069This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1070process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1071GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1072hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1073
352ed7b4
MS
1074* New command line option
1075
1076GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1077
1078* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1079
1080There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1081command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1082a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1083be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1084open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1085issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1086a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1087it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1088GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1089is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1090
fe419ffc
RE
1091* Changes in ARM configurations.
1092
1093Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1094configuration is fully multi-arch.
1095
eb7cedd9
MK
1096* New native configurations
1097
fe419ffc 1098ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1099x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1100AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1101Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1102
c9f63e6b
CV
1103* New targets
1104
1105Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1106
9b4ff276
AC
1107* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1108
1109Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1110been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1111configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1112permanently REMOVED.
1113
1114AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1115A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1116AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1117AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1118AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1119
b4ceaee6 1120testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1121
e2caac18
AC
1122* REMOVED configurations and files
1123
1124TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1125WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1126PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1127PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1128PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1129Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1130Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1131 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1132SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1133Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1134Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1135ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1136Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1137
c2a727fa
TT
1138* Changes to command line processing
1139
1140The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1141for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1142
467d8519
TT
1143* Changes to key bindings
1144
1145There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1146
7072a954
AC
1147*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1148
1149Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1150
1151Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1152corrupted.
1153
1154Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1155
1156Numerous documentation fixes.
1157
1158Numerous testsuite fixes.
1159
34f47bc4 1160*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1161
1162* New native configurations
1163
1164Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1165x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1166MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1167MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1168ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1169s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1170
bf64bfd6
AC
1171* New targets
1172
def90278 1173Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1174CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1175UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1176
17e78a56 1177* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1178
1179x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1180Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1181Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1182 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1183TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1184WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1185Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1186PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1187PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1188PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1189SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1190Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1191ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1192Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1193
17e78a56
AC
1194stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1195kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1196
7fcca85b
AC
1197Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1198been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1199configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1200permanently REMOVED.
1201
a196c81c 1202* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1203
1204Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1205Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1206Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1207ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1208Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1209ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1210
6d6b80e5 1211* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1212
6d6b80e5 1213GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1214sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1215present.
1216
bf64bfd6
AC
1217* Other news:
1218
e23194cb
EZ
1219* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1220
1221* The MI enabled by default.
1222
1223The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1224revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1225engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1226using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1227which is now deprecated.
1228
1229* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1230
1231GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1232main features are supported:
1233
1234 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1235
1236 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1237 extension;
1238
1239 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1240
1241 - a Pascal expression parser.
1242
1243However, some important features are not yet supported.
1244
1245 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1246
1247 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1248
1249 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1250 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1251
1252 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1253
1254 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1255
1256* Changes in completion.
1257
1258Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1259to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1260users expect at the shell prompt.
1261
1262Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1263`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1264program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1265files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1266be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1267considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1268name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1269
1270`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1271
1272* New platform-independent commands:
1273
1274It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1275hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1276documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1277
1278* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1279
d7275149
MK
1280Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1281revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1282many threads as your system allows you to have.
1283
e23194cb
EZ
1284Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1285
d7275149
MK
1286Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1287multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1288
1289* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1290
1291Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1292
e23194cb
EZ
1293GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1294debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1295supported.)
1296
1297* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1298
1299Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1300breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1301implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1302put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1303and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1304registers.
1305
1306The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1307debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1308watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1309
1310* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1311
1312New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1313the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1314
1315New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1316display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1317IDT.
1318
1319New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1320from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1321New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1322a given linear address.
1323
1324GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1325program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1326which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1327
1328DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1329
6c56c069
EZ
1330It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1331
e23194cb
EZ
1332* Changes in documentation.
1333
1334All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1335Documentation License.
1336
1337Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1338manual.
1339
1340TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1341
1342Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1343manual.
1344
1345The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1346documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1347hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1348
5d6640b1
AC
1349* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1350
1351The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1352``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1353contents of this file.
1354
1a1d8446
AC
1355* gdba.el deleted
1356
1357GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1358
9debab2f 1359*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1360
c63ce875
EZ
1361* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1362
1363Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1364programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1365displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1366greater level of detail.
1367
1368* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1369
1370It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1371bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1372on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1373written.
1374
1375* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1376
1377The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1378necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1379machines ``out of the box''.
1380
1381The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1382possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1383signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1384would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1385interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1386
1387It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1388standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1389even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1390and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1391terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1392
1393The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1394enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1395also works.
1396
1397DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1398GDB.
1399
1400It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1401directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1402times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1403breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1404
ed9a39eb
JM
1405* New native configurations
1406
1407ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1408PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1409
7a292a7a
SS
1410* New targets
1411
96baa820 1412Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1413x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1414PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1415TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1416
085dd6e6
JM
1417* OBSOLETE configurations
1418
1419Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1420Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1421Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1422ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1423Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1424
9debab2f
AC
1425Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1426but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1427these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1428be permanently REMOVED.
1429
5330533d
SS
1430* Gould support removed
1431
1432Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1433
bc9e5bbf
AC
1434* New features for SVR4
1435
1436On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1437without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1438load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1439
1440* Many C++ enhancements
1441
1442C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1443in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1444
adf40b2e
JM
1445* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1446
1447A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1448sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1449with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1450``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1451
1452 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1453 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1454
43e526b9
JM
1455* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1456
1457A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1458expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1459instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1460
1461The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1462added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1463
96baa820
JM
1464* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1465
1466The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1467``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1468include ``set remote P-packet''.
1469
11cf8741
JM
1470* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1471
1472The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1473accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1474``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1475
7876dd43
DB
1476* ``apropos'' command added.
1477
1478The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1479documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1480try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1481
bc9e5bbf
AC
1482* New MI interface
1483
1484A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1485interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1486process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1487"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1488enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1489
1490 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1491
c906108c
SS
1492*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1493
1494* New native configurations
1495
1496HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1497HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1498M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1499
1500* New targets
1501
1502Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1503Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1504Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1505
1506* OBSOLETE configurations
1507
1508Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1509
1510Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1511but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1512these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1513be permanently REMOVED.
1514
1515* ANSI/ISO C
1516
1517As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1518buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1519containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1520use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1521available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1522configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1523information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1524already.
1525
1526* Readline 2.2
1527
1528GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1529
1530* set extension-language
1531
1532You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1533languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1534you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1535 set extension-language .c c++
1536The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1537and their associated languages.
1538
1539* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1540
1541When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1542you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1543PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1544
1545 set processor NAME
1546
1547sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1548following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1549
1550 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1551 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1552 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1553 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1554 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1555 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1556 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1557 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1558 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1559 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1560 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1561
1562At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1563special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1564registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1565only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1566
1567* HP-UX support
1568
1569Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1570more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1571library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1572support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1573for xdb and dbx commands.
1574
1575* Catchpoints
1576
1577HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1578generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1579to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1580
1581This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1582argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1583output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1584
1585* Debugging across forks
1586
1587On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1588in the inferior.
1589
1590* TUI
1591
1592HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1593it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1594configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1595
1596* GDB remote protocol additions
1597
1598A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1599Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1600fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1601allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1602
1603For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1604full 64-bit address. The command
1605
1606 set remoteaddresssize 32
1607
1608can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1609the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1610will be discarded.
1611
1612In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1613command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1614
1615 maint packet heythere
1616
1617sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1618disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1619time.
1620
1621The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1622target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1623downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1624
1625* Tracing can collect general expressions
1626
1627You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1628further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1629doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1630
1631* mask-address variable for Mips
1632
1633For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1634a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1635of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1636
1637* Higher serial baud rates
1638
1639GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1640230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1641to achieve all of these rates.)
1642
1643* i960 simulator
1644
1645The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1646builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1647
1648
1649*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1650
1651* New native configurations
1652
1653Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1654Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1655Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1656PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1657PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1658Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1659Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1660
1661* New targets
1662
1663Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1664Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1665Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1666Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1667MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1668MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1669MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1670Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1671Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1672Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1673NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1674
1675* New debugging protocols
1676
1677ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1678M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1679DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1680PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1681PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1682Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1683
1684* DWARF 2
1685
1686All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1687format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1688information.
1689
1690* Java frontend
1691
1692GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1693only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1694
1695* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1696
1697For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1698loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1699locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1700
1701* Live range splitting
1702
1703GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1704range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1705more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1706
1707* Hurd support
1708
1709GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1710updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1711
1712* ARM Thumb support
1713
1714GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1715instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1716instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1717accordingly.
1718
1719* MIPS16 support
1720
1721GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1722instruction set.
1723
1724* Overlay support
1725
1726GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1727linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1728will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1729control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1730additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1731in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1732
1733* info symbol
1734
1735The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1736the symbol at the specified address.
1737
1738* Trace support
1739
1740The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1741asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1742extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1743includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1744file tracepoint.c for more details.
1745
1746* MIPS simulator
1747
1748Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1749by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1750of most MIPS variants.
1751
1752* Sparc simulator
1753
1754Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1755by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1756Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1757
1758* set architecture
1759
1760For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1761basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1762architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1763the possible architectures.
1764
1765*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1766
1767* New native configurations
1768
1769Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1770M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1771PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1772PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1773PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1774RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1775
1776* New targets
1777
1778ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1779I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1780MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1781MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1782PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1783Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1784Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1785
1786* PowerPC simulator
1787
1788The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1789contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1790PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1791basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1792performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1793
1794* Solaris 2.5
1795
1796GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1797
1798* Windows 95/NT native
1799
1800GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1801To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1802which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1803Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1804ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1805
1806* dont-repeat command
1807
1808If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1809command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1810useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1811extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1812
1813* Send break instead of ^C
1814
1815The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1816rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1817GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1818
1819* Remote protocol timeout
1820
1821The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1822that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1823to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1824
1825* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1826
1827By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1828loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1829stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1830when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1831in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1832
1833Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1834/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1835automatically on hpux10.
1836
1837* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1838
1839Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1840
1841* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1842
1843When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1844may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1845the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1846every character. The default value is 1050.
1847
1848* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1849
1850If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1851a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1852replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1853details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1854remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1855to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1856
1857* Speedups for remote debugging
1858
1859GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1860the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1861and more efficient S-record downloading.
1862
1863* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1864
1865GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1866Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1867
1868*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1869
1870* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1871
1872The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1873can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1874
1875* Remote targets use caching
1876
1877Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1878remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1879it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1880debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1881off' turns the the data cache off.
1882
1883* Remote targets may have threads
1884
1885The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1886in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1887gdb/remote.c for details.
1888
1889* NetROM support
1890
1891If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1892support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1893acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1894write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1895support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1896another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1897sequence is something like
1898
1899 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1900 load <prog>
1901 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1902
1903* Macintosh host
1904
1905GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1906may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1907it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1908available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1909device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1910directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1911scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1912mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1913
1914* Autoconf
1915
1916GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1917but does simplify configuration and building.
1918
1919* hpux10
1920
1921GDB now supports hpux10.
1922
1923*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1924
1925* New native configurations
1926
1927x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1928x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1929NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1930Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1931
1932* New targets
1933
1934A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1935HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1936CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1937PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1938WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1939
1940* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1941
1942GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1943possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1944filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1945the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1946if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1947
1948* Arguments to user-defined commands
1949
1950User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1951Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1952trivial example:
1953define adder
1954 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1955
1956To execute the command use:
1957adder 1 2 3
1958
1959Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1960Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1961use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1962
1963* New `if' and `while' commands
1964
1965This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1966commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1967expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1968execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1969terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1970`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1971if the expression is zero.
1972
1973* Fortran source language mode
1974
1975GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1976Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1977variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1978with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1979Fortran compilers.
1980
1981* Better HPUX support
1982
1983Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1984running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1985processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1986for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1987that behavior do the following before running the program:
1988
1989 adb -w a.out
1990 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1991 control-d
1992
1993This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1994To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1995
1996 adb -w a.out
1997 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1998 control-d
1999
2000You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2001the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2002external linkage.
2003
2004GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2005HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2006
2007* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2008
2009You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2010commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2011current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2012"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2013associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2014configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2015
2016* New DOS host serial code
2017
2018This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2019no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2020a PC's serial port.
2021
2022*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2023
2024* New "complete" command
2025
2026This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2027were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2028
2029* Trailing space optional in prompt
2030
2031"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2032allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2033
2034* Breakpoint hit counts
2035
2036"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2037has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2038can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2039to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2040less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2041that breakpoint.
2042
2043* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2044
2045"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2046an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2047arrays actually contain only short strings.
2048
2049* Shared library breakpoints
2050
2051In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2052breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2053
2054* Hardware watchpoints
2055
2056There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2057targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2058
55241689 2059Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2060
2061* Annotations
2062
2063Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2064and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2065
2066* Improved Irix 5 support
2067
2068GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2069
2070* Improved HPPA support
2071
2072GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2073
2074* New native configurations
2075
2076Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2077HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2078Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2079RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2080
2081* New targets
2082
2083OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2084MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2085Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2086
2087* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2088
2089There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2090This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2091
2092* Fixes
2093
2094As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2095and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2096
2097*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2098
2099* Irix 5 is now supported
2100
2101* HPPA support
2102
2103GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2104to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2105GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2106of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2107can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2108
2109
2110*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2111
2112* User visible changes:
2113
2114* Remote Debugging
2115
2116The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2117target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2118debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2119integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2120debugging info for the mips target).
2121
2122* DEC Alpha native support
2123
2124GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2125debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2126work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2127Alpha-specific notes.
2128
2129* Preliminary thread implementation
2130
2131GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2132
2133* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2134
2135This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2136to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2137for details).
2138
2139* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2140
2141This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2142mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2143call methods, ...etc.
2144
2145*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2146
2147 * User visible changes:
2148
2149Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2150supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2151other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2152somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2153
2154Filename completion now works.
2155
2156When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2157arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2158addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2159
2160All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2161vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2162should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2163your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2164to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2165
2166 * DEC alpha support
2167
2168This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2169cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2170
2171
2172*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2173
2174 * Testsuite
2175
2176This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2177The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2178via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2179
2180 * C++ demangling
2181
2182'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2183emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2184Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2185disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2186use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2187
2188 * Simulators
2189
2190GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2191So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2192Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2193
2194 * New targets supported
2195
2196H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2197H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2198SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2199Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2200IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2201
2202Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2203version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2204GO32 memory extender.
2205
2206 * New remote protocols
2207
2208MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2209
2210 * New source languages supported
2211
2212This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2213used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2214into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2215
2216
2217*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2218
2219 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2220
2221GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2222version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2223University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2224compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2225format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2226(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2227
2228Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2229
2230 * Faster and better demangling
2231
2232We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2233demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2234character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2235only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2236This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2237increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2238symbol lookups.
2239
2240`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2241from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2242compiler does not actually implement.
2243
2244 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2245
2246In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2247inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2248recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2249very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2250The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2251circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2252fix.
2253
2254The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2255release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2256
2257 * Improved configure script
2258
2259The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2260you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2261host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2262done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2263
2264We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2265version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2266`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2267The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2268only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2269We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2270
2271 * Documentation improvements
2272
2273There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2274produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2275before submitting changes.
2276
2277The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2278M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2279`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2280you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2281a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2282
2283*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2284We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2285been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2286or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2287`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2288around this problem.
2289
2290 * New features
2291
2292GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2293the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2294`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2295the target program.
2296
2297The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2298how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2299
2300 * New native hosts supported
2301
2302HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2303386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2304
2305 * New targets supported
2306
2307AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2308
2309 * New file formats supported
2310
2311BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2312HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2313
2314 * Major bug fixes
2315
2316Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2317
2318We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2319printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2320
2321We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2322for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2323release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2324
2325You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2326will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2327
2328We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2329for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2330especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2331libraries.
2332
2333The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2334information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2335command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2336any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2337when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2338
2339 * Internal improvements
2340
2341GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2342debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2343
2344GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2345Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2346symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2347contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2348shared code that handles any of them.
2349
2350 * New command line options
2351
2352We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2353
2354 * Mmalloc licensing
2355
2356The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2357General Public License.
2358
2359*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2360
2361 * Host/native/target split
2362
2363GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2364hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2365target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2366local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2367ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2368
2369The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2370GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2371is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2372code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2373any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2374built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2375handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2376
2377GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2378It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2379plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2380
2381 * New hosts supported
2382
2383HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2384386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2385386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2386
2387 * New targets supported
2388
2389Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
239068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2391
2392 * New native hosts supported
2393
2394386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2395 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2396386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2397
2398 * New file formats supported
2399
2400BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2401supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2402format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2403
2404 * New commands
2405
2406`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2407`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2408These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2409
2410`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2411
2412You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2413scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2414prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2415executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2416
2417 * C++ improvements
2418
2419We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2420info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2421symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2422
2423Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2424
2425 * Major bug fixes
2426
2427The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2428fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2429by the compiler.
2430
2431We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2432support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2433
2434John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2435slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2436that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2437purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2438the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2439mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2440
2441Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2442about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2443completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2444we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2445
2446 * AMD 29k support
2447
2448A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2449specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2450calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2451usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2452in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2453
2454We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2455Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2456of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2457resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2458
2459 * Remote interfaces
2460
2461We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2462with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2463message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2464This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2465needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2466breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2467each instruction being stepped through.
2468
2469The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2470registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2471
2472There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2473find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2474Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2475processor with a serial port.
2476
2477 * Configuration
2478
2479Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2480`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2481supported, and what files each one uses.
2482
2483 * Library changes
2484
2485There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2486disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2487Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2488disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2489
2490The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2491Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2492can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2493grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2494
2495 * Documentation
2496
2497The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2498reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2499as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2500encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2501system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2502bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2503
2504And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2505
2506
2507*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2508
2509 * Better support for C++ function names
2510
2511GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2512names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2513(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2514single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2515Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2516
2517GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2518the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2519You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2520lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2521for the list of formats.
2522
2523 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2524
2525Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2526C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2527directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2528can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2529usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2530about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2531this problem.)
2532
2533 * New 'maintenance' command
2534
2535All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2536the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2537can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2538
2539 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2540 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2541 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2542 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2543 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2544 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2545
2546The following commands are new:
2547
2548 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2549 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2550 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2551
2552 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2553
2554We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2555(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2556be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2557read after argv processing.
2558
2559 * New hosts supported
2560
2561Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2562
55241689 2563GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2564
2565We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2566is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2567for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2568masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2569fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2570It costs extra.
2571
2572 * New targets supported
2573
2574Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2575
2576 * More smarts about finding #include files
2577
2578GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2579all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2580greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2581especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2582the one that contains your sources.
2583
2584We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2585breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2586try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2587
2588 * Interesting infernals change
2589
2590GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2591section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2592target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2593stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2594
2595 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2596
2597There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2598 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2599 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2600
2601See the ChangeLog for details.
2602
2603*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2604
2605 * New machines supported (host and target)
2606
2607IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2608
2609SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2610
2611 * New malloc package
2612
2613GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2614Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2615capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2616This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2617pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2618more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2619
2620 * info proc
2621
2622The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2623'help info proc' for details.
2624
2625 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2626
2627The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2628Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2629possible.
2630
2631 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2632
2633Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2634support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2635conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2636environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2637that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2638in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2639
2640 * Cross byte order fixes
2641
2642Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2643targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2644
2645 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2646
2647If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2648system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2649`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2650program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2651called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2652Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2653and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2654the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2655option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2656starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2657
2658You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2659the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2660information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2661slower, but makes future operations faster.
2662
2663The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2664build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2665A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2666use is:
2667
2668 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2669
2670The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2671It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2672shared across multiple host platforms.
2673
2674 * longjmp() handling
2675
2676GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2677siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2678all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2679platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2680
2681 * Solaris 2.0
2682
2683Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2684this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2685reading symbols.
2686
2687 * Bug fixes
2688
2689As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2690People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2691crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2692
2693*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2694
2695 * New machines supported (host and target)
2696
2697SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2698 (except core files)
2699BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2700Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2701
2702 * New machines supported (target)
2703
2704AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2705
2706 * C++ support
2707
2708GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2709The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2710per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2711
2712GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2713`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2714extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2715good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2716will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2717released.
2718
2719 * New features for SVR4
2720
2721GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2722shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2723only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2724
2725The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2726on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2727it prints the address mappings of the process.
2728
2729If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2730bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2731
2732 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2733
2734Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2735now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2736skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2737make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2738same code linked statically.
2739
2740 * New Getopt
2741
2742GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2743version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2744continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2745Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2746added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2747future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2748
2749 * Bugs fixed
2750
2751The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2752Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2753See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2754
2755
2756*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2757
2758 * New machines supported (host and target)
2759
2760Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2761NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2762Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2763
2764 * Almost SCO Unix support
2765
2766We had hoped to support:
2767SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2768(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2769that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2770about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2771
2772 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2773
2774GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2775debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2776is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2777send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2778reqired (if any).
2779
2780 * New Readline
2781
2782GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2783is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2784required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2785
2786 * Bugs fixed
2787
2788The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2789Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2790See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2791
2792 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2793
2794GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2795supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2796symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2797
2798Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2799mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2800debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2801mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2802version 2.
2803
2804Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2805really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2806line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2807variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2808situation somewhat.
2809
2810When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2811However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2812methods.
2813
2814We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2815DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2816encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2817
2818
2819*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2820
2821 * Improved configuration
2822
2823Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2824Porting BFD is simpler.
2825
2826 * Stepping improved
2827
2828The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2829of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2830in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2831function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2832
2833 * Bug fixing
2834
2835Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2836
2837 * New host supported (not target)
2838
2839Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2840
2841
2842*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2843
2844 * Multiple source language support
2845
2846GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2847It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2848and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2849language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2850You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2851`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2852
2853 * GDB and Modula-2
2854
2855GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2856currently under development at the State University of New York at
2857Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2858continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2859
2860Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2861debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2862symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2863
2864There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2865in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2866
2867 * set write on/off
2868
2869GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2870a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2871the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2872by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2873effect immediately.
2874
2875 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2876
2877When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2878shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2879The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2880examining core files.
2881
2882 * set listsize
2883
2884You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2885The default is 10.
2886
2887 * New machines supported (host and target)
2888
2889SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2890Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2891Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2892
2893 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2894
2895IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2896
2897 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2898
2899AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2900AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2901Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2902
2903 * New remote interfaces
2904
2905AMD 29000 Adapt
2906AMD 29000 Minimon
2907
2908
2909*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2910
2911 * New Facilities
2912
2913Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2914
2915Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2916target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2917is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2918remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2919remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2920also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2921using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2922stub on the target system.
2923
2924New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2925
2926GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2927library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2928object file types such as a.out and coff.
2929
2930There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2931refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2932
2933
2934 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2935
2936All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2937by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2938
2939For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2940``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2941Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2942
2943What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2944print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2945will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2946all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2947
2948confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2949 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2950 it is already running. Default is ON.
2951
2952editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2953 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2954 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2955 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2956 Default is ON.
2957
2958history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2959 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2960 or the value of the environment variable
2961 GDBHISTFILE.
2962
2963history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2964 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2965 HISTSIZE.
2966
2967history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2968 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2969 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2970
2971history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2972 history expansion will be performed on
2973 command line input. The default is OFF.
2974
2975radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2976 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2977 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2978
2979height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2980 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2981 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2982 variable TERM.
2983
2984width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2985 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2986 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2987 variable TERM.
2988
2989Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2990``set width'' instead.
2991
2992print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2993 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2994 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2995 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2996
2997print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2998 is OFF.
2999
3000print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3001 "raw" form if off.
3002
3003print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3004 like instructions.
3005
3006print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3007
3008
3009 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3010
3011The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3012new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3013are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3014window.
3015
3016
3017 * Support for Shared Libraries
3018
3019GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3020Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3021before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3022happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3023At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3024from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3025shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3026It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3027
3028sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3029 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3030 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3031
3032info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3033
3034
3035 * Watchpoints
3036
3037A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3038expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3039tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3040quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3041problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3042more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3043
3044watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3045
3046info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3047
3048delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3049disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3050enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3051
3052
3053 * C++ multiple inheritance
3054
3055When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3056for C++ programs.
3057
3058 * C++ exception handling
3059
3060Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3061ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3062the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3063handler's context).
3064
3065catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3066 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3067 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3068
3069info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3070 current stack frame.
3071
3072
3073 * Minor command changes
3074
3075The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3076command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3077is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3078
3079The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3080at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3081frames without printing.
3082
3083 * New directory command
3084
3085'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3086The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3087about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3088with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3089find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3090
3091 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3092
3093For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3094for more details.
3095
3096GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3097two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3098Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3099where the program that you are debugging will run.