]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git/blame - gdb/NEWS
* Makefile.in: Regenerate.
[thirdparty/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
2d450646
JB
4*** Changes since GDB 7.6
5
73869dc2
DE
6* GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
7 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
8
a280dbd1
SDJ
9* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
10 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
11 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
12 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
13 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
14 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
15 "void".
16
52e260a3
DE
17* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
18
9f948660
SDJ
19* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
20
901461f8
PA
21* GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
22 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
23 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
24 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
25
26 (gdb) p $rax
27 $1 = <not saved>
28
29 (gdb) info registers rax
30 rax <not saved>
31
32 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
33 "*value not available*".
34
1e611234
PM
35* Python scripting
36
37 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
f76c27b5 38 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
1e611234 39
a1217d97
SL
40* New targets
41
42Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
43Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
42059f0e 44Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
a1217d97 45
2659903b
JK
46* Removed native configurations
47
48Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
49been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
50
51arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
52i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
53i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
54i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
55m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
56sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
57vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
58
bd712aed 59* New commands:
b340913d
TT
60catch rethrow
61 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
7d0c9981
DE
62maint check-psymtabs
63 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
64maint check-symtabs
65 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
66maint expand-symtabs
67 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 68
dccca75d
EZ
69show configuration
70 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
71
bd712aed
DE
72maint set|show per-command
73maint set|show per-command space
74maint set|show per-command time
75maint set|show per-command symtab
76 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
77
98297bf6
NB
78remove-symbol-file FILENAME
79remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
80 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
81 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
82 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
83
bd3eecc3
PA
84* New options
85
8fb8eb5c
DE
86set debug symfile off|on
87show debug symfile
88 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
89 symbol tables within those files
90
e7045703
DE
91set print raw frame-arguments
92show print raw frame-arguments
93 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
94 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
95
bd3eecc3
PA
96set remote trace-status-packet
97show remote trace-status-packet
98 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
99
a1217d97
SL
100set debug nios2
101show debug nios2
102 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
103
c1e36e3e
PA
104set range-stepping
105show range-stepping
106 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
107
98882a26
PA
108set startup-with-shell
109show startup-with-shell
110 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
111 directly.
112
1c2e4450
PA
113* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
114 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
115 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
116 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
117 "set height 0".
118
dccca75d
EZ
119* New command-line options
120--configuration
121 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
122
d0353e76
YQ
123* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
124 buffer in Common Trace Format.
125
b292c783
JK
126* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
127 GDB command gcore.
128
6e72ca20
TT
129* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
130
b340913d
TT
131* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
132 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
133
134* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
135 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
136
0c557179
SDJ
137* The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
138 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
139 due to an uncaught signal.
140
d0353e76
YQ
141* MI changes
142
143 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
144 Trace Format now.
145
c5867ab6
HZ
146 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
147
c898adb7
YQ
148 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
149 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
150 are displayed.
151
dc673c81
YQ
152 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
153 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
154
6211c335
YQ
155 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
156 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
157 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
158
5713b9b5
JB
159 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
160 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
161 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
162 main subprogram.
163
40555925
JB
164 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
165 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
166
0201faac
JB
167* New system-wide configuration scripts
168 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
169 configuration scripts for the following systems:
170 ** ElinOS
171 ** Wind River Linux
172
c1e36e3e
PA
173* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
174 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
175 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
176 below.
177
28a93511
YQ
178* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
179 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
180
4ac33720
UW
181* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
182 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
183 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
184
c1e36e3e
PA
185* New remote packets
186
187vCont;r
188
189 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
190 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
191 involvemement at each single-step.
192
7f91dbec
GB
193qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
194 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
195 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
196 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
197 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
198 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
199 speedup.
200
c2d6af84
PA
201* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
202
203 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
204 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
205
28a93511
YQ
206 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
207 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
208 trace state variables.
209
7a60ad40
YQ
210 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
211 target.
212
6fbe845e
AB
213* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
214 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
215
9058cc3a
TG
216* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
217
0d12017b
JB
218* The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
219 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
220 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
221 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
222
2d450646 223*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 224
59ea5688
MM
225* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
226 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
227 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
228 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
229
230set|show record full insn-number-max
231set|show record full stop-at-limit
232set|show record full memory-query
233
234* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
235 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
236 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
237 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
238 This new recording method can be enabled using:
239
240record btrace
241
242 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
243 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
244
245* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
246 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
247 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
248
249record instruction-history prints the execution history at
250 instruction granularity
251
252record function-call-history prints the execution history at
253 function granularity
254
543bf33d
AT
255* New native configurations
256
51d66578 257ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 258FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 259x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 260Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 261
249729c4
JB
262* New targets
263
51d66578
MS
264ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
265ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 266Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 267x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 268Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 269
e64e0392
DE
270* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
271 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
272 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
273 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
274 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
275 --data-directory command-line option.
276
07540c15
DE
277* New command line options:
278
279-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
280 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
281
e93a8774
TT
282* Removed command line options
283
284-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
285 Emacs.
286
53342f27
TT
287* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
288 type formatting.
289
451b7c33
TT
290* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
291
a72c3253
DE
292* Python scripting
293
294 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
295
d7de8e3c
TT
296 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
297
18a9fc12
TT
298 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
299
9a27f2c6
PK
300 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
301
bea883fd
SCR
302 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
303 of architecture in the Python API.
304
305 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
306 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
307
a72c3253
DE
308* New Python-based convenience functions:
309
310 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
311 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
312 ** $_strlen(str)
313 ** $_regex(str, regex)
314
f3c8a52a
JK
315* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
316 given an argument.
317
1605ef26
TT
318* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
319 default for GCC since November 2000.
320
504b36fd
YQ
321* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
322
f2a8bc8a
YQ
323* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
324 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
325
23a80689
JB
326* New configure options
327
328--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
329 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
330 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
331 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
332 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
333 options allow the user to override that default.
393fd4c3
YQ
334--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
335 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
336 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 337
d6b28940
TT
338* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
339
ab04a2af
TT
340catch signal
341 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
342 conditions to be attached.
343
d6b28940
TT
344maint info bfds
345 List the BFDs known to GDB.
346
8315665e
YPK
347python-interactive [command]
348pi [command]
349 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
350 and print the result of expressions.
351
352py [command]
353 "py" is a new alias for "python".
354
18a9fc12
TT
355enable type-printer [name]...
356disable type-printer [name]...
357 Enable or disable type printers.
358
aa9259cc
TS
359* Removed commands
360
361 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
362 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
363 instead.
364
53342f27
TT
365* New options
366
367set print type methods (on|off)
368show print type methods
369 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
370 The default is to show them.
371
372set print type typedefs (on|off)
373show print type typedefs
374 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
375 The default is to show them.
376
1b56eb55
JK
377set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
378show filename-display
379 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
380 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
381
e9f1758d
PA
382set trace-buffer-size
383show trace-buffer-size
384 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
385
a46c1e42
PA
386set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
387show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
388 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
389
be9a8770
PA
390set debug aarch64
391show debug aarch64
392 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
393 The default is off.
394
395set debug coff-pe-read
396show debug coff-pe-read
397 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
398 exported symbols.
399
400set debug mach-o
401show debug mach-o
402 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
403 processing.
404
405set debug notification
406show debug notification
407 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
408
5b9afe8a
YQ
409* MI changes
410
411 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
412 "=cmd-param-changed".
201b4506
YQ
413 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
414 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
134a2066
YQ
415 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
416 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
417 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
82a90ccf
YQ
418 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
419 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
8de0566d
YQ
420 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
421 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 422 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 423 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
62747a60
TT
424 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
425 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
3fa7bf06
MG
426 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
427 library load/unload events.
f2a8bc8a
YQ
428 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
429 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
430 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
f5911ea1
HAQ
431 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
432 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
433 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
ec83d211
JK
434 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
435 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 436
608e2dbb
TT
437* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
438 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
439 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
440 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
441
f6f899bf
HAQ
442* New remote packets
443
444QTBuffer:size
445 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
446 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
447
10782d74
MM
448Qbtrace:bts
449 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
450 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
451 qSupported query.
452
453Qbtrace:off
454 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
455 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
456
457qXfer:btrace:read
458 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
459 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
460
80c8d323 461*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 462
1b3371b1
L
463* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
464 for more x32 ABI info.
465
d0e64392
MR
466* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
467
4cc0665f
MR
468* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
469
85d4a676
SS
470* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
471 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
472 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
473 "info os files" lists file descriptors
474 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
475 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
476 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
477 "info os msg" lists message queues
478 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
479
55aa24fb
SDJ
480* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
481 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
482 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
483 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
484 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
485 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
486
72508ac0
PO
487* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
488 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
489 record/replay support.
490
16899756
DE
491* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
492
4795f398
DE
493* Python scripting
494
7d74f244
DE
495 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
496 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
497
4795f398
DE
498 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
499
50897289
TT
500 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
501 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
502
64e7d9dd
TT
503 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
504
505 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
506 the source at which the symbol was defined.
507
f0823d2c
TT
508 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
509 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
510 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
511 symbol's value.
512
7b282c5a
SCR
513 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
514 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
515
a20ee7a4
SCR
516 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
517 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
518 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
519
7efc75aa
SCR
520 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
521 object associated with a PC value.
522
ee0bf529
SCR
523 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
524 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
525
a766d390
DE
526* Go language support.
527 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
528 language.
529
e0f9f062
DE
530* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
531 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
532
217bff3e
JK
533* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
534 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
535
cafec441
TT
536* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
537 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
538 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
539 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
540 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
541 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
542
4aac40c8
TT
543* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
544 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
545 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
546 build/libcpp/expr.c.
547
d99bd577
UW
548* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
549 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
550
53fe1783
GB
551* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
552 since December 2007.
553
e41eec66
JB
554* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
555 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
556 command does. For instance:
557
558 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
559
560 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
561 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
562 created, using the "condition" command.
563
5808517f
YQ
564* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
565 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
566
481860b3
GB
567* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
568
569* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
570 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
571 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
e615022a
DE
572 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
573 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
574 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
575 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
576 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 577
156942c7
DE
578 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
579 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
580 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
581 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
582 the .gdb_index section.
583
927fbba6
JB
584* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
585
20388dd6
YQ
586* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
587 target.
588
f3e0e960
SS
589* MI changes
590
591 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
592
37ce89eb
SS
593 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
594
edcc5120
TT
595* New commands
596
e615022a
DE
597 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
598 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
599 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
600
edcc5120
TT
601 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
602 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
603
816338b5
SS
604 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
605 several hits.
606
57651221 607 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
c4aeac85
TT
608 C++ and Java objects.
609
06fc020f
SCR
610 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
611 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
612 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
613 configured with '--with-python'.
614
bf88dd68
JK
615 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
616 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
617 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
618 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
619 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
620 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
621 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
622
623 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
624 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
625 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
626 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
627
e7e0cddf
SS
628 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
629 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
630 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
631 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
632
9cb709b6
TT
633 ** "set print symbol"
634 "show print symbol"
635 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
636 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
637 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
638
2d4c29c5
TS
639* Deprecated commands
640
641 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
642 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
643
a58b110a
KB
644* New targets
645
646Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 647HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
a58b110a 648
72895ff6
LM
649* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
650 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
651 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
652 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
653 evaluates to true.
654
655* New options
656
4cc0665f
MR
657set mips compression
658show mips compression
659 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
660 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
661 mips16
662 micromips
663 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
664
72895ff6
LM
665set breakpoint condition-evaluation
666show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 667 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
5b43fab2
JK
668 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
669 available mode.
72895ff6
LM
670 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
671 target.
672
bf88dd68
JK
673set auto-load off
674 Disable auto-loading globally.
675
676show auto-load
677 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
678
679set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
680show auto-load gdb-scripts
681 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
682
683set auto-load python-scripts on|off
684show auto-load python-scripts
685 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
686
687set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
688show auto-load local-gdbinit
689 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
690
691set auto-load libthread-db on|off
692show auto-load libthread-db
693 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
694
7349ff92 695set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 696show auto-load scripts-directory
7349ff92
JK
697 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
698 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
699 of the directories listed by this option.
700 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
701
bccbefd2
JK
702set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
703show auto-load safe-path
704 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
705 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
706
4dc84fd1
JK
707set debug auto-load on|off
708show debug auto-load
709 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
710
d3ce09f5 711set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 712show dprintf-style
d3ce09f5
SS
713 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
714 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
715 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
716 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
e7e0cddf
SS
717
718set dprintf-function <expr>
719show dprintf-function
720set dprintf-channel <expr>
721show dprintf-channel
722 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
723 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
724
d3ce09f5
SS
725set disconnected-dprintf on|off
726show disconnected-dprintf
727 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
728 after GDB disconnects.
729
6dea1fbd
JK
730* New configure options
731
7349ff92
JK
732--with-auto-load-dir
733 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
1564a261
JK
734 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
735 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
736 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
737 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 738
6dea1fbd
JK
739--with-auto-load-safe-path
740 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 741 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
6dea1fbd
JK
742
743--without-auto-load-safe-path
744 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
745 security feature.
746
72895ff6
LM
747* New remote packets
748
74c48cbb
PA
749z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
750
72895ff6
LM
751 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
752 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
753 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
754 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
755
9b224c5e
PA
756QProgramSignals:
757
758 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
759 program without GDB involvement.
760
8320cc4f
JK
761* New command line options
762
763--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
764 before loading inferior.
765--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
766 execute it before loading inferior.
767
8837a20f
JB
768*** Changes in GDB 7.4
769
f8eba3c6
TT
770* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
771 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
772 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
773 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
774 inferior changes.
775
1bfeeb0f
JL
776* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
777 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
778
480a3f21
PW
779* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
780 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
781 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
782 target hardware watchpoint.
783
784 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
785 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
786 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
787 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
788
3a7bf607
PM
789* Python scripting
790
32d1c362 791 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 792 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
793 existing one.
794
3a7bf607 795 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
4795f398
DE
796 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
797 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
798 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
799 now "message", which just prints the error message without
800 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 801
baacfb07 802 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 803 Python API.
713389e0 804
fa3a4f15
PM
805 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
806 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 807 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
fa3a4f15
PM
808 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
809 corresponding value.
810
5e239b84
PM
811 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
812 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
813 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
814 on GDB start-up.
815
9df2fbc4
PM
816 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
817 static_block will return the global and static blocks
818 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
819 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
820
457e09f0
DE
821 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
822
6839b47f
KP
823 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
824 "gdb.breakpoints".
825
cc72b2a2
KP
826 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
827 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
828 available in the CLI.
829
84ad80e6
PK
830 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
831 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
832 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
833 "some_type.items()".
834
20c168b5
KP
835 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
836 new object file.
837
03c3051a
PK
838 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
839 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
840 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
841 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
842 any anonymous fields.
843
7376e450
TT
844* MI changes
845
846 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
847 "solib-event".
848
849 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
850 "=breakpoint-modified".
851
852 ** New command -ada-task-info.
853
98a5dd13
DE
854* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
855 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
856 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
857 lives.
858
859 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
860 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
861 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
862 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
863 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
864
865 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
866 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
867
478aac75
DE
868* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
869 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
870 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
871 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
872 use this option to specify where to find it.
873
9c06b0b4
TJB
874* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
875 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
876 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
877 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
878 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
879 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
880 section in the user manual for more details.
881
03f2bd59
JK
882* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
883 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
884 become available after that.
885
71eba9c2 886* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 887
2bda9cc5
JK
888* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
889 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
890 gcc version 4.7.
891
ed59ded5
DE
892* New commands
893
894!SHELL COMMAND
895 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
896 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
897
9c06b0b4
TJB
898* Changed commands
899
900watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
901 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
902 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
903
dbaefcf7
DE
904info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
905 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
906 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
907
71eba9c2 908info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
909 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
910 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
911 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
912 name starts with a hyphen.
913
3065dfb6
SS
914collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
915 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
916 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
917 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
918 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
919 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
920 number of bytes that will be collected.
921
f196051f
SS
922tstart [NOTES]
923 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
924 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
925 setting the variable trace-notes.
926
927tstop [NOTES]
928 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
929 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
930 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
931 trace-stop-notes.
932
d248b706
KY
933* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
934 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
935 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
936 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
937 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
938 is running.
939
405f8e94
SS
940* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
941 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
942 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
943
2bda9cc5
JK
944* New options
945
45cfd468
DE
946set debug dwarf2-read
947show debug dwarf2-read
948 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
949 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
950
951set debug symtab-create
952show debug symtab-create
953 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
954 creation. The default is off.
955
baacfb07
PM
956set extended-prompt
957show extended-prompt
958 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
959 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
960 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
961 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
962 prompt is displayed.
963
2bda9cc5
JK
964set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
965show print entry-values
966 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
967 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
968 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
969
970set debug entry-values
971show debug entry-values
972 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
973 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
974
c011a4f4
DE
975set basenames-may-differ
976show basenames-may-differ
977 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
978 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
979 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
980 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
981 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
982 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
983 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
984 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
985
f196051f
SS
986set trace-user
987show trace-user
988set trace-notes
989show trace-notes
990 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
991 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
992 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
993 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
994
995set trace-stop-notes
996show trace-stop-notes
997 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
998 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
999 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1000 started by someone else.
1001
d248b706
KY
1002* New remote packets
1003
1004QTEnable
1005
1006 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1007
1008QTDisable
1009
1010 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1011
f196051f
SS
1012QTNotes
1013
1014 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1015
1016qTP
1017
1018 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1019
405f8e94
SS
1020qTMinFTPILen
1021
1022 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1023 be placed.
1024
1a532630
PP
1025* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1026 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1027
11315641
YQ
1028* New targets
1029
1030Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1031
87326c78
DD
1032* New Simulators
1033
1034Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1035
e8d56f18
JB
1036*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1037
1038* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1039
d6e00af6 1040*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 1041
60f98dde
MS
1042* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1043 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1044 matches the given regular expression.
1045
eee5b35e
DD
1046* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1047
b716877b
AB
1048* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1049 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1050
aae1c79a
DE
1051* New command line options
1052
1053-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1054 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1055
a86caf66
DE
1056* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1057 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1058
99e7ae30
DE
1059* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1060 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1061 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1062
4694da01
TT
1063* GDB now understands thread names.
1064
1065 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1066 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1067
1068 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1069 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1070
f4b8a18d
KW
1071* OpenCL C
1072 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1073 has been integrated into GDB.
1074
585d1eb8
PM
1075* Python scripting
1076
da5d4055
PM
1077 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1078 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1079 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1080
9a6f1302
PM
1081 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1082 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1083 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1084 and allows for more dynamic content.
1085
29703da4
PM
1086 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1087 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1088 have an is_valid method.
1089
350c6c65
PM
1090 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1091 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1092 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1093
6e6fbe60
DE
1094 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1095
585d1eb8
PM
1096 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1097 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1098 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1099 that function like so:
1100
1101 result = some_value (10,20)
1102
0e3509db
DE
1103 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1104 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1105 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1106
7b51bc51
DE
1107 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1108 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1109 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1110 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1111 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1112
1113 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1114 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1115
99e7ae30
DE
1116 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1117
d8e22779
TT
1118 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1119 selected thread.
1120
4694da01
TT
1121 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1122 holds the thread's name.
1123
505500db
SW
1124 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1125 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1126 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1127 The following events are currently supported:
1128 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1129 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1130 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1131
def98928
TT
1132* C++ Improvements:
1133
1134 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1135 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1136
1137 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1138
1139 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1140 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1141 was added to GCC 4.5.
1142
66cb8159
TT
1143 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1144 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1145 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1146 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1147 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1148 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1149
4aac0db7
UW
1150* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1151 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1152 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1153 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1154 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1155
283e6a52
TT
1156* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1157 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1158 execution to a label.
1159
1160* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1161 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1162 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1163 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1164
b56df873 1165* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1166 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1167 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1168 of scope.
1169
ae53ffa4
PA
1170* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1171
1172 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1173 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1174 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1175 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1176 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1177 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1178
1179 (gdb) info threads
1180 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1181
1182 While now you see this:
1183
1184 (gdb) info threads
1185 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1186
1187 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1188 dumps.
1189
1190 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1191 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1192 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1193 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1194
f1310107
TJB
1195* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1196 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1197 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1198 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1199 section in the user manual for more details.
1200
248c9dbc
JB
1201* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1202
1aee7009
JB
1203 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1204 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1205
eb826dc6
MF
1206 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1207
44603653
JB
1208* New native configurations
1209
1210ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1211
91021223
MF
1212* New targets:
1213
1214Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1215
6e1bb179
JB
1216* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1217 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1218 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1219 in the GDB user manual.
1220
50c97f38
TT
1221* Guile support was removed.
1222
448a92bf
MF
1223* New features in the GNU simulator
1224
1225 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1226
66ee2731
MF
1227 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1228
76b8507d 1229*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1230
ba25b921
PA
1231* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1232
1233 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1234 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1235 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1236 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1237 was always disabled for such configurations.
1238
4656f5c6
SW
1239* C++ Improvements:
1240
1241 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1242
1243 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1244 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1245 For example:
1246 namespace A
1247 {
1248 class B { };
1249 void foo (B) { }
1250 }
1251 ...
1252 A::B b
1253 foo(b)
1254 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1255 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1256 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1257
1258 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1259
1260 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1261 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1262 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1263 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1264 entry.
1265 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1266 mentioned flavors of operators.
1267
254e6b9e
DE
1268 ** static const class members
1269
1270 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1271 class definition has been fixed.
1272
711e434b
PM
1273* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1274
1275 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1276 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1277 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1278 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1279 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1280 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1281
0fb4aa4b
PA
1282* Static tracepoints
1283
1284 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1285 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1286 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1287 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1288 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1289 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1290 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1291 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1292 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1293 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1294 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1295 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1296 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1297 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1298 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1299 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1300 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1301 the "New remote packets" section below.
1302
ca11e899
SS
1303* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1304
1305 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1306 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1307 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1308 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1309
1310* Observer mode
1311
1312 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1313 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1314 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1315 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1316 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1317 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1318 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1319
1320* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1321 current thread.
1322
711e434b
PM
1323* New remote packets
1324
1325qGetTIBAddr
1326
1327 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1328
dde08ee1
PA
1329qRelocInsn
1330
1331 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1332 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1333 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1334 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1335 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1336 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1337
0fb4aa4b
PA
1338qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1339
1340 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1341
1342qTSTMat
1343
1344 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1345 program.
1346
1347qXfer:statictrace:read
1348
1349 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1350 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1351 to gdb's qSupported query.
1352
ca11e899
SS
1353QAllow
1354
1355 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1356
1357QTDPsrc
1358
1359 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1360 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1361
3f7b2faa
DE
1362* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1363 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1364 a directory.
1365
d337e9f0
PA
1366* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1367
0fb4aa4b
PA
1368 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1369 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1370 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1371 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1372
1373 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1374 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1375 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1376 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1377 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1378 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1379 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1380
1381 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1382 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1383
c24d0242
PM
1384 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1385
c8d5aac9
L
1386* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1387 it understands register description.
1388
7c953934
TT
1389* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1390
8685c86f
L
1391* X86 general purpose registers
1392
1393 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1394 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1395 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1396 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1397 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1398
95a42b64 1399* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1400 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1401 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1402 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1403 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1404 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1405
8bd10a10
CM
1406* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1407 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1408 in the specified file.
1409
ab38a727
PA
1410* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1411 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1412 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1413 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1414 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1415 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1416 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1417 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1418 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1419 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1420
6149aea9
PA
1421* New commands
1422
f1421989
HZ
1423eval template, expressions...
1424 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1425 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1426
ab38a727
PA
1427set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1428show target-file-system-kind
1429 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1430 names.
1431
6149aea9
PA
1432save breakpoints <filename>
1433 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1434 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1435 definitions, use the `source' command.
1436
1437`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1438is now deprecated.
1439
0fb4aa4b
PA
1440info static-tracepoint-markers
1441 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1442
1443strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1444 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1445 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1446
ca11e899
SS
1447set observer on|off
1448show observer
1449 Enable and disable observer mode.
1450
1451set may-write-registers on|off
1452set may-write-memory on|off
1453set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1454set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1455set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1456set may-interrupt on|off
1457 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1458 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1459 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1460 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1461 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1462 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1463 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1464
1465set record memory-query on|off
1466show record memory-query
1467 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1468 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1469
53a71c06
CR
1470* Changed commands
1471
1472disassemble
1473 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1474
f3e9a817
PM
1475* Python scripting
1476
9279c692
JB
1477** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1478 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1479 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1480 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1481 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1482
adc36818 1483** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1484 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1485 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1486 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1487
fa33c3cd 1488** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1489 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1490
1491** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1492
1493** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1494
967cf477
DE
1495** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1496
8a1ea21f
DE
1497** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1498 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1499 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1500
a7bdde9e
VP
1501* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1502there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1503tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1504regular breakpoints.
1505
05071a4d
PA
1506* New targets
1507
1508ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1509
6aecb9c2
JB
1510* D language support.
1511 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1512 language.
1513
431e49aa
TJB
1514* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1515 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1516 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1517 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1518 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1519
1520* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1521 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1522 conditions of the form:
1523
1524 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1525
1526 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1527 interface mentioned above.
1528
bfbf3774 1529*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1530
4eef138c
TT
1531* C++ Improvements
1532
1533 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1534
1535 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1536 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1537 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1538 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1539 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1540
4eef138c
TT
1541 ** Bug Fixes
1542
1543 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1544 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1545 qualified name.
1546
1547 ** Cast Operators
1548
1549 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1550 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1551
2d1c1221
ME
1552* New targets
1553
1554Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1555Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1556
1557* New Simulators
1558
1559Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1560Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1561
6c95b8df
PA
1562* Multi-program debugging.
1563
1564 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1565 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1566 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1567 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1568 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1569 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1570 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1571 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1572
d5551862
SS
1573* New tracing features
1574
1575 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1576
1577 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1578
1579 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1580 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1581 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1582 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1583 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1584 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1585 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1586 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1587 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1588 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1589
d5551862 1590 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1591
1592 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1593 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1594 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1595 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1596 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1597 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1598 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1599 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1600 the regular trace command.
1601
d5551862
SS
1602 ** Disconnected tracing
1603
1604 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1605 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1606 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1607 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1608 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1609
00bf0b85
SS
1610 ** Trace files
1611
1612 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1613 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1614 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1615 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1616 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1617 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1618 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1619
1620 ** Circular trace buffer
1621
1622 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1623 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1624 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1625 not be available for all target agents.
1626
21a0512e
PP
1627* Changed commands
1628
1629disassemble
1630 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1631 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1632
0fe7935b
DJ
1633info variables
1634 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1635 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1636
fb2e7cb4
JB
1637source
1638 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1639 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1640 support.
1641
1642 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1643 "set script-extension" (see below).
1644
6c95b8df
PA
1645* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1646
399cd161
MS
1647record save [<FILENAME>]
1648 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1649 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1650
1651record restore <FILENAME>
1652 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1653 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1654
6c95b8df
PA
1655add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1656 Add a new inferior.
1657
1658clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1659 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1660 inferior has loaded.
1661
1662remove-inferior ID
1663 Remove an inferior.
1664
1665maint info program-spaces
1666 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1667
9a7071a8
JB
1668set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1669show remote interrupt-sequence
1670 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1671 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1672 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1673 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1674 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1675
1676set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1677show remote interrupt-on-connect
1678 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1679 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1680 Linux kernel.
1681
1682set remotebreak [on | off]
1683show remotebreak
1684Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1685
f61e138d
SS
1686tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1687 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1688
1689info tvariables
1690 List trace state variables and their values.
1691
1692delete tvariable $NAME ...
1693 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1694
6da95a67
SS
1695teval EXPR, ...
1696 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1697 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1698
7a697b8d
SS
1699ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1700 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1701
b0f02ee9
JK
1702* New expression syntax
1703
1704 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1705 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1706
6c95b8df
PA
1707* New options
1708
1709set follow-exec-mode new|same
1710show follow-exec-mode
1711 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1712 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1713 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1714
236f1d4d
SS
1715set default-collect EXPR, ...
1716show default-collect
1717 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1718 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1719 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1720
d5551862
SS
1721set disconnected-tracing
1722show disconnected-tracing
1723 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1724 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1725 upon disconnection.
1726
4daf5ac0
SS
1727set circular-trace-buffer
1728show circular-trace-buffer
1729 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1730 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1731 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1732 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1733
fb2e7cb4
JB
1734set script-extension off|soft|strict
1735show script-extension
1736 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1737 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1738 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1739 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1740 evaluation failed.
1741 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1742
2b71fc8e
JB
1743set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1744show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1745 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1746 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1747 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1748 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1749 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1750 is on.
1751
de2e5182
TT
1752* Python API Improvements
1753
1754 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1755 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1756 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1757
1758 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1759 `is_base_class' attribute.
1760
1761 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1762
1763 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1764 evaluate an expression.
1765
f61e138d
SS
1766* New remote packets
1767
1768QTDV
1769 Define a trace state variable.
1770
1771qTV
1772 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1773
d5551862
SS
1774QTDisconnected
1775 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1776
4daf5ac0
SS
1777QTBuffer:circular
1778 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1779
d5551862
SS
1780qTfP, qTsP
1781 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1782
2d483d34
MS
1783* Bug fixes
1784
1785Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1786
6e0e5977
JB
1787Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1788much more reliable. In particular:
1789 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1790 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1791 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1792 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1793 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1794 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1795 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1796 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1797 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1798 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1799 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1800 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1801 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1802 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1803 non-threaded programs.
1804
93c26624
JK
1805PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1806This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1807libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1808executable program.
1809
abc7453d 1810*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1811
4efc6507
DE
1812* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1813dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1814them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1815for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1816"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1817
782b2b07
SS
1818* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1819breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1820or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1821the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1822for tracepoint actions.
1823
53a71c06
CR
1824* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1825raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1826modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1827
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1828* Process record and replay
1829
1830 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1831 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1832 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1833 execute commands.
1834
64644d9b
MS
1835* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1836step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1837set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1838reverse execution.
1839
b9412953
DD
1840* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1841feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
18422.6.28 or later.
1843
6c7a06a3
TT
1844* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1845target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1846char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1847literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1848U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1849`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1850system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1851the installation instructions for more information.
1852
f1838a98
UW
1853* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1854remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1855with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1856the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1857
55333a84
DE
1858* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1859and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1860
7f6a6314
PM
1861* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1862now complete on file names.
1863
65d12d83
TT
1864* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1865completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1866For instance, consider:
1867
1868 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1869 # struct example variable;
1870 (gdb) p variable.
1871
1872If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1873completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1874
edb3359d
DJ
1875* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1876the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1877
2fae03e8
TT
1878* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1879operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1880macros.
1881
47a3467a 1882* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1883the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1884implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1885
1886* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1887registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1888can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1889and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1890
08388c79
DE
1891* New remote packets
1892
1893qSearch:memory:
1894 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1895
a6f3e723
SL
1896QStartNoAckMode
1897 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1898 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1899 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1900
d7713ae0
EZ
1901vKill
1902 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1903 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1904
07e059b5
VP
1905qXfer:osdata:read
1906 Obtains additional operating system information
1907
47a3467a
PA
1908qXfer:siginfo:read
1909qXfer:siginfo:write
1910 Read or write additional signal information.
1911
060871df
PA
1912* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1913
1914 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1915 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1916 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1917
c055b101 1918* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1919DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1920
1921* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1922and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1923`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1924
31fffb02
CS
1925* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1926with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1927
88d8a8e0
JB
1928* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1929
7f99b190
JB
1930* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1931
ccd213ac
DJ
1932* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1933which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1934
1fddbabb 1935* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1936list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1937
a0ef4274
DJ
1938* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1939conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1940have also been fixed.
1941
bfb8797a 1942* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1943From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1944are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1945
71c25dea
TT
1946* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1947example, given:
1948
1949 template<typename T> class C { };
1950 C<char const *> c;
1951
1952GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1953
1954 ptype C<char const *>
1955 ptype C<char const*>
1956 ptype C<const char *>
1957 ptype C<const char*>
1958
ccd213ac
DJ
1959* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1960
1961 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1962 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1963
7ae0e2a2
UW
1964 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1965 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1966 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1967
a6f3e723
SL
1968 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1969 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1970
da8bd9a3
DJ
1971 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1972 gdbserver.
1973
d70e31dd
DE
1974 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1975 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1976
1977 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1978 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1979 as appropriate.
1980
d57a3c85
TJB
1981* Python scripting
1982
1983 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1984 available is determined at configure time.
1985
d8906c6f
TJB
1986 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1987
aadc346a
JB
1988* Ada tasking support
1989
1990 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1991 been introduced:
1992
1993 info tasks
1994 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1995 info task N
1996 Print detailed information about task number N.
1997 task
1998 Print the task number of the current task.
1999 task N
2000 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2001
adb483fe
DJ
2002* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2003add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2004
2277426b
PA
2005* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2006
2007 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2008 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2009 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2010 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2011 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2012 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2013 below.
2014
08d16641
PA
2015* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2016"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2017information.
2018
e35359c5
UW
2019* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2020to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2021architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2022See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2023more information.
2024
85e747d2
UW
2025* Multi-architecture debugging.
2026
2027 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2028 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2029 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2030 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2031 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2032
2033* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2034use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2035Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2036powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2037--enable-targets configure option.
2038
11ade57a
PA
2039* Non-stop mode debugging.
2040
2041 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2042 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2043 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2044 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2045 section in the user manual for more information.
2046
2047 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2048 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2049 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2050 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2051 extensions on linux targets.
2052
d7713ae0 2053* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 2054
a96d9b2e
SDJ
2055catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2056 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2057 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2058 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2059 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2060 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2061 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2062 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2063 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2064
08388c79
DE
2065find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2066 val1 [, val2, ...]
2067 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2068
d57a3c85
TJB
2069maint set python print-stack
2070maint show python print-stack
2071 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2072
2073python [CODE]
2074 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2075
d7713ae0
EZ
2076macro define
2077macro list
2078macro undef
2079 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2080 interactively.
2081
2082info os processes
2083 Show operating system information about processes.
2084
2277426b
PA
2085info inferiors
2086 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2087
2088inferior NUM
2089 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2090
2091detach inferior NUM
2092 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2093
2094kill inferior NUM
2095 Kill inferior number NUM.
2096
d7713ae0
EZ
2097* New options
2098
3285f3fe
UW
2099set spu stop-on-load
2100show spu stop-on-load
2101 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2102
ff1a52c6
UW
2103set spu auto-flush-cache
2104show spu auto-flush-cache
2105 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2106 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2107
d7713ae0
EZ
2108set sh calling-convention
2109show sh calling-convention
2110 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2111
e0a3ce09 2112set debug timestamp
75feb17d 2113show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
2114 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2115
2116set disassemble-next-line
2117show disassemble-next-line
2118 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2119 the debuggee stops.
2120
2121set remote noack-packet
2122show remote noack-packet
2123 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2124 under "New remote packets."
2125
2126set remote query-attached-packet
2127show remote query-attached-packet
2128 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2129
2130set remote read-siginfo-object
2131show remote read-siginfo-object
2132 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2133 packet.
2134
2135set remote write-siginfo-object
2136show remote write-siginfo-object
2137 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2138 packet.
2139
40ab02ce
MS
2140set remote reverse-continue
2141show remote reverse-continue
2142 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2143
2144set remote reverse-step
2145show remote reverse-step
2146 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2147
d7713ae0
EZ
2148set displaced-stepping
2149show displaced-stepping
2150 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2151 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2152 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2153
2154set debug displaced
2155show debug displaced
2156 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2157
2158maint set internal-error
2159maint show internal-error
2160 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2161
2162maint set internal-warning
2163maint show internal-warning
2164 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2165
ccd213ac
DJ
2166set exec-wrapper
2167show exec-wrapper
2168unset exec-wrapper
2169 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2170
aad4b048
JB
2171set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2172show multiple-symbols
2173 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2174 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2175 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2176
74960c60
VP
2177set breakpoint always-inserted
2178show breakpoint always-inserted
2179 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2180 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2181 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2182
0428b8f5
DJ
2183set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2184show arm fallback-mode
2185set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2186show arm force-mode
2187 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2188 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2189 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2190 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2191
10568435
JK
2192set disable-randomization
2193show disable-randomization
2194 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2195 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2196 multiple debugging sessions.
2197
d7713ae0
EZ
2198set non-stop
2199show non-stop
2200 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2201 a breakpoint.
2202
b3eb342c 2203set target-async
d7713ae0 2204show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2205 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2206 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2207 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2208 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2209
6c7a06a3
TT
2210set target-wide-charset
2211show target-wide-charset
2212 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2213 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2214
84603566
SL
2215set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2216show tcp auto-retry
2217set tcp connect-timeout
2218show tcp connect-timeout
2219 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2220 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2221 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2222
17a37d48
PP
2223set libthread-db-search-path
2224show libthread-db-search-path
2225 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2226 libthread_db.
2227
d4db2f36
PA
2228set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2229show schedule-multiple
2230 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2231 the current process.
2232
4e5d721f
DE
2233set stack-cache
2234show stack-cache
2235 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2236 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2237 affecting correctness.
2238
910c5da8
JB
2239set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2240show interactive-mode
2241 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2242 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2243 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2244 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2245 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2246
2277426b
PA
2247* Removed commands
2248
2249info forks
2250 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2251 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2252 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2253 command.
2254
2255fork NUM
2256 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2257 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2258 alias for the `fork' command.
2259
2260process PID
2261 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2262 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2263 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2264
2265delete fork NUM
2266 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2267 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2268 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2269 fork' command.
2270
2271detach fork NUM
2272 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2273 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2274 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2275 fork' command.
2276
a80b95ba
TG
2277* New native configurations
2278
2279x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2280
b8bfd3ed
JB
2281x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2282
75a2d5e7
TT
2283* New targets
2284
c28c63d8 2285Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2286x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2287x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2288S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2289
6de3146c
PA
2290* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2291 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2292
d5cbbe6e
JB
2293* Removed commands
2294
2295catch load
2296catch unload
2297 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2298
75feb17d 2299*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2300
af5ca30d
NH
2301* New native configurations
2302
2303NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2304Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2305
2306* New targets
2307
2308NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2309Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2310
7a404eba
PA
2311* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2312
2313 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2314 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2315 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2316 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2317
430ebac9
PA
2318* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2319(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2320
fe6fbf8b 2321* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2322is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2323
2324* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2325including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2326and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2327
10665d76
JB
2328* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2329accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2330more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2331
7cc46491
DJ
2332* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2333
d71340b8
DJ
2334* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2335registers on PowerPC targets.
2336
523c4513
DJ
2337* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2338targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2339
a6b151f1
DJ
2340* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2341commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2342
2d717e4f
DJ
2343* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2344extended-remote mode.
2345
24a836bd 2346* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2347The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2348error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2349The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2350
d0c678e6
UW
2351* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2352building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2353target architectures.
2354
d64a946d
TJB
2355* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2356Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2357now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2358stored in two consecutive float registers.
2359
ee163bf5
VP
2360* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2361breakpoints now.
2362
b93b6ca7 2363* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2364Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2365include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2366 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2367 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2368 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2369 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2370 of an assignment
2371 - Improved command completion in Ada
2372 - Several bug fixes
2373
d001be7a
DJ
2374* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2375process.
2376
a6b151f1
DJ
2377* New commands
2378
6d53d0af
JB
2379set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2380show print frame-arguments
2381 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2382 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2383
a6b151f1
DJ
2384remote put
2385remote get
2386remote delete
2387 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2388
2389* New MI commands
2390
2391-target-file-put
2392-target-file-get
2393-target-file-delete
2394 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2395
2396* New remote packets
2397
2398vFile:open:
2399vFile:close:
2400vFile:pread:
2401vFile:pwrite:
2402vFile:unlink:
2403 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2404
2d717e4f
DJ
2405vAttach
2406 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2407 mode.
2408
2409vRun
2410 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2411
8d5f9c6f 2412*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2413
19d378fc
MS
2414* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2415bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2416Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2417
3a40aaa0
UW
2418* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2419symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2420-Bsymbolic linker option.
2421
a6ec25f2
BW
2422* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2423recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2424is not supported.
2425
6dd09645
JB
2426* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2427frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2428
c9bb8148
DJ
2429* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
243032-bit or 64-bit register values.
2431
0d5de010
DJ
2432* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2433
23181151
DJ
2434* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2435target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2436a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2437
ea37ba09
DJ
2438* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2439automatically displayed as character or string data.
2440
2441* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2442arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2443as strings.
e1f48ead 2444
123dc839
DJ
2445* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2446for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2447only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2448
05a4558a
DJ
2449* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2450iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2451
7c963485
PA
2452* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2453ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2454has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2455
b18be20d
DJ
2456* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2457
0ca420ce
UW
2458* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2459
31d99776
DJ
2460* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2461layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2462segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2463
a4642986
MR
2464* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2465immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2466
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2467* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2468"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2469packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2470where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2471Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2472
2473* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2474(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2475
2476* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2477according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2478
c9bb8148
DJ
2479* New commands
2480
23776285
MR
2481set remoteflow
2482show remoteflow
2483 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2484 when debugging using remote targets.
2485
c9bb8148
DJ
2486set mem inaccessible-by-default
2487show mem inaccessible-by-default
2488 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2489 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2490 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2491 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2492 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2493
2494set breakpoint auto-hw
2495show breakpoint auto-hw
2496 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2497 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2498 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2499 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2500 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2501 including "next" and "finish".
2502
0e420bd8
JB
2503catch exception
2504catch exception unhandled
2505 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2506
2507catch assert
2508 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2509
f822c95b
DJ
2510set sysroot
2511show sysroot
2512 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2513 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2514 an alias to "set sysroot".
2515
83cc5c53
UW
2516info spu
2517 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2518 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2519 architecture.
2520
bd372731
MK
2521* New native configurations
2522
2523OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2524
23181151
DJ
2525set tdesc filename
2526unset tdesc filename
2527show tdesc filename
2528 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2529 not query the target for its built-in description.
2530
c9bb8148
DJ
2531* New targets
2532
54fe9172 2533OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2534MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2535Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2536
6dd09645
JB
2537* New remote packets
2538
2539QPassSignals:
2540 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2541 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2542
23181151
DJ
2543qXfer:features:read:
2544 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2545 features.
6dd09645 2546
83cc5c53
UW
2547qXfer:spu:read:
2548qXfer:spu:write:
2549 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2550 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2551
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2552qXfer:libraries:read:
2553 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2554 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2555 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2556 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2557
483367ee
DJ
2558* Removed targets
2559
2560Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2561
d08950c4
UW
2562alpha*-*-osf1*
2563alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2564d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2565hppa*-*-hiux*
2566i[34567]86-ncr-*
2567i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2568i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2569i[34567]86-*-netware*
2570i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2571i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2572i[34567]86-*-sco*
2573i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2574i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2575i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2576i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2577i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2578i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2579i[34567]86-*-isc*
2580m68*-cisco*-*
2581m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2582mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2583rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2584sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2585
7ce59000
DJ
2586* Other removed features
2587
2588target abug
2589target cpu32bug
2590target est
2591target rom68k
2592
2593 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2594
ea35711c
DJ
2595target hms
2596target e7000
2597target sh3
2598target sh3e
2599
2600 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2601 H8/300.
2602
2603target ocd
2604
2605 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2606 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2607 interfaces.
2608
7ce59000
DJ
2609DWARF 1 support
2610
2611 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2612 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2613
54d61198
DJ
2614Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2615
2616 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2617 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2618 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2619 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2620
ea35711c
DJ
2621MIPS ".pdr" sections
2622
2623 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2624 in debugging information.
2625
2626Scheme support
2627
2628 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2629 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2630
1a69e1e4
DJ
2631set mips stack-arg-size
2632set mips saved-gpreg-size
2633
2634 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2635
6dd09645 2636*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2637
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2638* New targets
2639
2640Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2641Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2642
6aec2e11
DJ
2643* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2644(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2645running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2646
2647* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2648Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2649supported.
2650
17218d91
DJ
2651* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2652broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2653
9ebce043
DJ
2654* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2655stub provides the required support.
2656
7d3d3ece
DJ
2657* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2658longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2659
4f8253f3
JB
2660* New commands
2661
2662set substitute-path
2663unset substitute-path
2664show substitute-path
2665 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2666 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2667 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2668 between compilation and debugging.
2669
9fa66fd7
AS
2670set trace-commands
2671show trace-commands
2672 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2673 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2674 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2675
1f5befc1
DJ
2676* REMOVED features
2677
2678The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2679
2ec3381a
DJ
2680Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2681an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2682
3d00d119
DJ
2683The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2684
be2a5f71
DJ
2685* New remote packets
2686
2687qSupported:
2688 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2689 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2690 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2691 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2692 target.
2693
0876f84a
DJ
2694qXfer:auxv:read:
2695 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2696 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2697
9ebce043
DJ
2698qXfer:memory-map:read:
2699 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2700 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2701
2702vFlashErase:
2703vFlashWrite:
2704vFlashDone:
2705 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2706
0876f84a
DJ
2707* Removed remote packets
2708
2709qPart:auxv:read:
2710 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2711 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2712
e374b601 2713*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2714
96309189
MS
2715* New targets
2716
2717Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2718
2719Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2720
53e5f3cf
AS
2721* New commands
2722
2723init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2724 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2725
ac264b3b
MS
2726The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2727
2728checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2729
2730restart <n> Return the program state to a
2731 previously saved state.
2732
2733info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2734
2735delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2736
2737set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2738 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2739
2740info forks List forks of the user program that
2741 are available to be debugged.
2742
2743fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2744 forks of the user program that are
2745 available to be debugged.
2746
2747delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2748 that are available to be debugged (and
2749 kill the forked process).
2750
2751detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2752 that are available to be debugged (and
2753 allow the process to continue).
2754
3950dc3f
NS
2755* New architecture
2756
2757Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2758
0ea3f30e
DJ
2759* Improved Windows host support
2760
2761GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2762native console support, and remote communications using either
2763network sockets or serial ports.
2764
f79daebb
GM
2765* Improved Modula-2 language support
2766
2767GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2768basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2769pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2770printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2771written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2772GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2773
acab6ab2
MM
2774* REMOVED features
2775
2776The ARM rdi-share module.
2777
f4267320
DJ
2778The Netware NLM debug server.
2779
53e5f3cf 2780*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2781
e0ecbda1
MK
2782* New native configurations
2783
02a677ac 2784OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2785OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2786
d64a6579
KB
2787* New targets
2788
2789Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2790
b33a6190
AS
2791* New command line options
2792
2793--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2794--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2795 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2796--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2797 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2798 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2799 with the --command (-x) option.
2800
11dced61
AC
2801* Deprecated commands removed
2802
2803The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2804removed:
2805
2806 Command Replacement
2807 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2808 othernames set arm disassembler
2809 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2810 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2811 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2812 regs info registers
2813
6fe85783
MK
2814* New BSD user-level threads support
2815
2816It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2817library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2818configurations are:
2819
2820FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2821FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2822OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2823
2824Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2825are not yet supported.
2826
5260ca71
MS
2827* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2828(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2829
e84ecc99
AC
2830* REMOVED configurations and files
2831
2832VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2833Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2834National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2835
31e35378
JB
2836* New "set print array-indexes" command
2837
2838After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2839when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2840behavior.
2841
e85e5c83
MK
2842* VAX floating point support
2843
2844GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2845
d91e9901
AS
2846* User-defined command support
2847
2848In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2849to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2850section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2851
f2cb65ca
MC
2852*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2853
f47b1503
AS
2854* New command line option
2855
2856GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2857debugging.
2858
f2cb65ca
MC
2859* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2860
2861GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2862information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2863by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2864proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2865to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2866
d08c0230
AC
2867* Internationalization
2868
2869When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2870internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2871continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2872
117ea3cf
PH
2873* Ada
2874
2875Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2876implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2877into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2878
d08c0230
AC
2879* New native configurations
2880
2881GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2882
2883* Remote 'p' packet
2884
2885GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2886packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2887
2888* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2889
2890GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2891The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2892features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2893i386 application).
2894
2895GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2896compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2897continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2898configurations:
2899
2900hppa-*-hpux
2901ia64-*-aix
2902mips-*-irix*
2903*-*-lynx
2904mips-*-linux-gnu
2905sds protocol
2906xdr protocol
2907powerpc bdm protocol
2908
2909Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2910made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2911
2912* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2913
2914Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2915been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2916configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2917permanently REMOVED.
2918
2919h8300-*-*
2920mcore-*-*
2921mn10300-*-*
2922ns32k-*-*
2923sh64-*-*
2924v850-*-*
2925
ebb7c577
AC
2926*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2927
2928* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2929
2930When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2931heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2932been fixed.
2933
2934* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2935
2936When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2937fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2938IRIX long double values).
2939
2940* VAX and "next"
2941
2942A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2943command. This problem has been fixed.
2944
860660cb 2945*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2946
0dea2468
AC
2947* Fix for ``many threads''
2948
2949On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2950rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2951error message:
2952
2953 ptrace: No such process.
2954 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2955
2956This problem has been fixed.
2957
2c07db7a
AC
2958* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2959
2960Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2961GDB to dump core).
2962
c23968a2
JB
2963* New ``start'' command.
2964
2965This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2966
71009278
MK
2967* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2968
2969Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2970live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2971platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2972
2973FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2974FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2975NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2976NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2977NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2978OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2979OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2980OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2981OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2982
3c0b7db2
AC
2983* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2984
2985Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2986These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2987of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2988call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2989signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2990
73cc75f3
AC
2991Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2992features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2993include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2994
7243600a
BF
2995* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2996
6f606e1c
MK
2997* New native configurations
2998
97dc871c 2999GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 3000OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
3001OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3002OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 3003OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3004NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 3005OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 3006
a1b461bf
AC
3007* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3008
3009GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3010The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3011including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3012migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3013compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3014work, was also included.
3015
3016GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3017module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3018
3019h8300-*-*
3020mcore-*-*
3021mn10300-*-*
3022ns32k-*-*
3023sh64-*-*
3024v850-*-*
3025xstormy16-*-*
3026
3027Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3028made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3029
3c7012f5
AC
3030* REMOVED configurations and files
3031
3032Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3033Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3034Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3035Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3036Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3037AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3038Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3039decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3040riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3041sonymips mips-sony-*
3042sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3043
e5fe55f7
AC
3044*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3045
3046* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3047
3048The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3049GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3050command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3051program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3052with GDB".
3053
3054* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3055
3056Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3057libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3058cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3059GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3060shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3061the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3062are created.
3063
3064Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3065
3066* Fixed ISO-C build problems
3067
3068The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3069non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3070compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3071
3072* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3073
3074Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3075wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3076
3077* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3078
3079The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3080permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3081systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3082
3083* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3084
3085Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3086has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3087
3088* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3089
3090GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3091its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3092panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3093
3094* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3095
3096When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3097by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3098not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3099
faae5abe 3100*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 3101
9175c9a3
MC
3102* Removed --with-mmalloc
3103
3104Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3105conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3106
3cc87ec0
MK
3107* Changes in AMD64 configurations
3108
3109The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3110the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3111and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3112you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3113
f0424ef6
MK
3114* Revised SPARC target
3115
3116The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3117FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
3118support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3119from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3120(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3121
59659be2
ILT
3122* New C++ demangler
3123
3124GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3125names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3126with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3127programs.
3128
9e08b29b
DJ
3129* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3130
3131GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3132arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3133encountered these.
3134
8dfe8985
DC
3135* C++ nested types and namespaces
3136
3137GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3138improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3139is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3140Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3141namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3142"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3143frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3144if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3145GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3146
cced5e27
MK
3147* New native configurations
3148
3149NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3150OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3151OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3152OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3153OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3154
b4b4b794
KI
3155* New debugging protocols
3156
3157M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3158
7989c619
AC
3159* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3160
3161The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3162and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3163tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3164
5994185b
AC
3165* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3166
3167Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3168been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3169configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3170permanently REMOVED.
3171
3172Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3173Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3174Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3175Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3176Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3177AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3178Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3179decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3180riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3181sonymips mips-sony-*
3182sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3183
0ddabb4c
AC
3184* REMOVED configurations and files
3185
3186SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3187SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3188Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3189Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3190H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3191HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3192HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3193HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3194PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3195386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3196Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3197 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3198 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3199SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3200SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3201Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3202Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3203
c7f1390e
DJ
3204*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3205
1fe43d45
AC
3206* Objective-C
3207
3208Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3209integrated into GDB.
3210
e6beb428
AC
3211* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3212
3213DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3214information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3215By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3216backtraces.
3217
3218The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3219have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3220DWARF 2 CFI support.
3221
3222* Hosted file I/O.
3223
3224GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3225file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3226remote protocol documentation for details.
3227
3228* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3229
3230All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3231architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3232to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3233ppc32 on ppc64).
3234
3235* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3236
3237GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3238per-thread variables.
3239
3240* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3241
3242GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3243GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3244
3245* Separate debug info.
3246
3247GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3248automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3249of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3250system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3251and optional debug files.
3252
3253* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3254
3255DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3256describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3257debugger.
3258
3259GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3260for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3261
3262* Java
3263
3264A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3265Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3266considered "useable".
3267
85f8f974
DJ
3268* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3269
3270The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3271commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3272kernel.
3273
0fac0b41
DJ
3274* GDB supports logging output to a file
3275
3276There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3277used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3278
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3279* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3280
3281The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3282disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3283command.
3284
e286caf2 3285* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3286
3287The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3288registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3289
d28f9cdf
DJ
3290* Profiling support
3291
3292A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3293be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3294session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3295"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3296data, for more informative profiling results.
3297
da0f9dcd
AC
3298* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3299
3300The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3301option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3302"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3303
3304Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3305removed.
3306
fb9b6b35
JJ
3307Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3308Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3309Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3310 in a subsequent -var-update.
3311
954a4db8
MK
3312* New native configurations.
3313
3314FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3315
6760f9e6
JB
3316* Multi-arched targets.
3317
b4263afa 3318HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3319Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3320
1b831c93
AC
3321* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3322
3323Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3324been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3325configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3326permanently REMOVED.
3327
8b0e5691 3328Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3329Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3330H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3331HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3332HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3333HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3334PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3335Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3336 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3337 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3338Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3339Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3340
5835abe7
NC
3341* REMOVED configurations and files
3342
3343V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3344Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3345IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3346i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3347i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3348i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3349HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3350 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3351 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3352Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3353Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3354Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3355OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3356I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3357
a094c6fb
AC
3358* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3359
3360The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3361the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3362context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3363address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3364The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3365
299ffc64 3366*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3367
46248966
AC
3368* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3369
3370When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3371`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3372in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3373library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3374shared libs like mad''.
3375
b9d14705 3376* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3377
b9d14705
DJ
3378Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3379the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3380arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3381powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3382
e0e9281e
JB
3383* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3384
3385GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3386and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3387they expand.
3388
dd73b9bb
AC
3389The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3390invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3391
3392The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3393macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3394
e0e9281e
JB
3395Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3396information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3397your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3398information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3399
2250ee0c
CV
3400* Multi-arched targets.
3401
6e3ba3b8
JT
3402DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3403DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3404NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3405National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3406Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3407Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3408
cd9bfe15 3409* New targets.
e33ce519 3410
456f8b9d
DB
3411Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3412
e33ce519 3413
da8ca43d
JT
3414* New native configurations
3415
3416Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3417SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3418MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3419UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3420
cd9bfe15
AC
3421* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3422
3423Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3424been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3425configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3426permanently REMOVED.
3427
92eb23c5 3428Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3429OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3430IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3431Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3432Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3433Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3434i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3435i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3436i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3437HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3438 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3439 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3440I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3441
db034ac5
AC
3442* OBSOLETE languages
3443
3444CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3445
cd9bfe15
AC
3446* REMOVED configurations and files
3447
3448AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3449A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3450AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3451AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3452AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3453
3454testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3455
20f01a46
DH
3456* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3457
3458This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3459commands. The default is 1024.
3460
a5941fbf
MK
3461* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3462
3463Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3464
89743e04
MS
3465* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3466
3467These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3468to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3469from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3470
9fb14e79
JB
3471* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3472
3473The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3474including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3475of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3476
2037aebb
AC
3477*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3478
3479* New targets.
3480
3481Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3482
3483* Bug fixes
3484
3485gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3486mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3487Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3488
3489gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3490dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3491Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3492
3493Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3494Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3495By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3496
3497i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3498avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3499By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3500
37057839 3501*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3502
1a703748
MS
3503* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3504
3505This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3506really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3507In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3508target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3509This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3510(notably embedded) targets.
3511
cefd4ef5
MS
3512* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3513
55241689
AC
3514This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3515process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3516GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3517hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3518
352ed7b4
MS
3519* New command line option
3520
3521GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3522
3523* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3524
3525There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3526command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3527a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3528be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3529open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3530issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3531a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3532it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3533GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3534is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3535
fe419ffc
RE
3536* Changes in ARM configurations.
3537
3538Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3539configuration is fully multi-arch.
3540
eb7cedd9
MK
3541* New native configurations
3542
fe419ffc 3543ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3544x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3545AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3546Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3547
c9f63e6b
CV
3548* New targets
3549
3550Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3551
9b4ff276
AC
3552* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3553
3554Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3555been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3556configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3557permanently REMOVED.
3558
3559AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3560A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3561AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3562AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3563AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3564
b4ceaee6 3565testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3566
e2caac18
AC
3567* REMOVED configurations and files
3568
3569TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3570WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3571PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3572PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3573PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3574Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3575Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3576 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3577SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3578Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3579Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3580ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3581Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3582
c2a727fa
TT
3583* Changes to command line processing
3584
3585The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3586for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3587
467d8519
TT
3588* Changes to key bindings
3589
3590There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3591
7072a954
AC
3592*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3593
3594Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3595
3596Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3597corrupted.
3598
3599Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3600
3601Numerous documentation fixes.
3602
3603Numerous testsuite fixes.
3604
34f47bc4 3605*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3606
3607* New native configurations
3608
3609Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3610x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3611MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3612MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3613ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3614s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3615
bf64bfd6
AC
3616* New targets
3617
def90278 3618Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3619CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3620UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3621
17e78a56 3622* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3623
3624x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3625Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3626Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3627 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3628TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3629WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3630Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3631PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3632PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3633PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3634SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3635Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3636ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3637Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3638
17e78a56
AC
3639stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3640kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3641
7fcca85b
AC
3642Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3643been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3644configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3645permanently REMOVED.
3646
a196c81c 3647* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3648
3649Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3650Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3651Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3652ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3653Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3654ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3655
6d6b80e5 3656* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3657
6d6b80e5 3658GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3659sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3660present.
3661
bf64bfd6
AC
3662* Other news:
3663
e23194cb
EZ
3664* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3665
3666* The MI enabled by default.
3667
3668The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3669revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3670engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3671using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3672which is now deprecated.
3673
3674* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3675
3676GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3677main features are supported:
3678
3679 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3680
3681 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3682 extension;
3683
3684 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3685
3686 - a Pascal expression parser.
3687
3688However, some important features are not yet supported.
3689
3690 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3691
3692 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3693
3694 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3695 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3696
3697 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3698
3699 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3700
3701* Changes in completion.
3702
3703Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3704to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3705users expect at the shell prompt.
3706
3707Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3708`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3709program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3710files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3711be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3712considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3713name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3714
3715`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3716
3717* New platform-independent commands:
3718
3719It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3720hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3721documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3722
3723* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3724
d7275149
MK
3725Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3726revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3727many threads as your system allows you to have.
3728
e23194cb
EZ
3729Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3730
d7275149
MK
3731Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3732multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3733
3734* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3735
3736Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3737
e23194cb
EZ
3738GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3739debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3740supported.)
3741
3742* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3743
3744Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3745breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3746implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3747put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3748and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3749registers.
3750
3751The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3752debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3753watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3754
3755* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3756
3757New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3758the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3759
3760New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3761display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3762IDT.
3763
3764New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3765from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3766New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3767a given linear address.
3768
3769GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3770program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3771which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3772
3773DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3774
6c56c069
EZ
3775It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3776
e23194cb
EZ
3777* Changes in documentation.
3778
3779All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3780Documentation License.
3781
3782Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3783manual.
3784
3785TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3786
3787Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3788manual.
3789
3790The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3791documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3792hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3793
5d6640b1
AC
3794* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3795
3796The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3797``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3798contents of this file.
3799
1a1d8446
AC
3800* gdba.el deleted
3801
3802GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3803
9debab2f 3804*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3805
c63ce875
EZ
3806* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3807
3808Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3809programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3810displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3811greater level of detail.
3812
3813* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3814
3815It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3816bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3817on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3818written.
3819
3820* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3821
3822The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3823necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3824machines ``out of the box''.
3825
3826The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3827possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3828signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3829would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3830interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3831
3832It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3833standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3834even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3835and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3836terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3837
3838The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3839enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3840also works.
3841
3842DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3843GDB.
3844
3845It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3846directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3847times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3848breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3849
ed9a39eb
JM
3850* New native configurations
3851
3852ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3853PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3854
7a292a7a
SS
3855* New targets
3856
96baa820 3857Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3858x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3859PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3860TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3861
085dd6e6
JM
3862* OBSOLETE configurations
3863
3864Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3865Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3866Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3867ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3868Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3869
9debab2f
AC
3870Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3871but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3872these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3873be permanently REMOVED.
3874
5330533d
SS
3875* Gould support removed
3876
3877Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3878
bc9e5bbf
AC
3879* New features for SVR4
3880
3881On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3882without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3883load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3884
3885* Many C++ enhancements
3886
3887C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3888in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3889
adf40b2e
JM
3890* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3891
3892A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3893sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3894with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3895``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3896
3897 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3898 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3899
43e526b9
JM
3900* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3901
3902A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3903expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3904instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3905
3906The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3907added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3908
96baa820
JM
3909* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3910
3911The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3912``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3913include ``set remote P-packet''.
3914
11cf8741
JM
3915* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3916
3917The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3918accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3919``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3920
7876dd43
DB
3921* ``apropos'' command added.
3922
3923The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3924documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3925try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3926
bc9e5bbf
AC
3927* New MI interface
3928
3929A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3930interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3931process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3932"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3933enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3934
3935 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3936
c906108c
SS
3937*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3938
3939* New native configurations
3940
3941HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3942HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3943M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3944
3945* New targets
3946
3947Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3948Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3949Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3950
3951* OBSOLETE configurations
3952
3953Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3954
3955Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3956but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3957these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3958be permanently REMOVED.
3959
3960* ANSI/ISO C
3961
3962As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3963buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3964containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3965use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3966available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3967configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3968information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3969already.
3970
3971* Readline 2.2
3972
3973GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3974
3975* set extension-language
3976
3977You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3978languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3979you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3980 set extension-language .c c++
3981The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3982and their associated languages.
3983
3984* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3985
3986When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3987you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3988PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3989
3990 set processor NAME
3991
3992sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3993following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3994
3995 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3996 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3997 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3998 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3999 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4000 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4001 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4002 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4003 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4004 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4005 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4006
4007At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4008special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4009registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4010only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4011
4012* HP-UX support
4013
4014Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4015more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4016library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4017support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4018for xdb and dbx commands.
4019
4020* Catchpoints
4021
4022HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4023generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4024to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4025
4026This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4027argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4028output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4029
4030* Debugging across forks
4031
4032On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4033in the inferior.
4034
4035* TUI
4036
4037HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4038it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4039configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4040
4041* GDB remote protocol additions
4042
4043A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4044Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4045fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4046allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4047
4048For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4049full 64-bit address. The command
4050
4051 set remoteaddresssize 32
4052
4053can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4054the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4055will be discarded.
4056
4057In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4058command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4059
4060 maint packet heythere
4061
4062sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4063disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4064time.
4065
4066The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4067target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4068downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4069
4070* Tracing can collect general expressions
4071
4072You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4073further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4074doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4075
4076* mask-address variable for Mips
4077
4078For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4079a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4080of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4081
4082* Higher serial baud rates
4083
4084GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4085230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4086to achieve all of these rates.)
4087
4088* i960 simulator
4089
4090The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4091builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4092
4093
4094*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4095
4096* New native configurations
4097
4098Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4099Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4100Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4101PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4102PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4103Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4104Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4105
4106* New targets
4107
4108Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4109Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4110Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4111Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4112MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4113MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4114MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4115Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4116Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4117Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4118NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4119
4120* New debugging protocols
4121
4122ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4123M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4124DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4125PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4126PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4127Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4128
4129* DWARF 2
4130
4131All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4132format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4133information.
4134
4135* Java frontend
4136
4137GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4138only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4139
4140* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4141
4142For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4143loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4144locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4145
4146* Live range splitting
4147
4148GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4149range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4150more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4151
4152* Hurd support
4153
4154GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4155updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4156
4157* ARM Thumb support
4158
4159GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4160instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4161instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4162accordingly.
4163
4164* MIPS16 support
4165
4166GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4167instruction set.
4168
4169* Overlay support
4170
4171GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4172linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4173will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4174control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4175additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4176in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4177
4178* info symbol
4179
4180The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4181the symbol at the specified address.
4182
4183* Trace support
4184
4185The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4186asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4187extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4188includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4189file tracepoint.c for more details.
4190
4191* MIPS simulator
4192
4193Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4194by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4195of most MIPS variants.
4196
4197* Sparc simulator
4198
4199Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4200by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4201Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4202
4203* set architecture
4204
4205For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4206basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4207architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4208the possible architectures.
4209
4210*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4211
4212* New native configurations
4213
4214Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4215M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4216PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4217PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4218PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4219RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4220
4221* New targets
4222
4223ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4224I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4225MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4226MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4227PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4228Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4229Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4230
4231* PowerPC simulator
4232
4233The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4234contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4235PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4236basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4237performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4238
4239* Solaris 2.5
4240
4241GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4242
4243* Windows 95/NT native
4244
4245GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4246To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4247which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4248Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4249ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4250
4251* dont-repeat command
4252
4253If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4254command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4255useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4256extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4257
4258* Send break instead of ^C
4259
4260The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4261rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4262GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4263
4264* Remote protocol timeout
4265
4266The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4267that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4268to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4269
4270* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4271
4272By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4273loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4274stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4275when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4276in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4277
4278Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4279/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4280automatically on hpux10.
4281
4282* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4283
4284Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4285
4286* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4287
4288When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4289may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4290the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4291every character. The default value is 1050.
4292
4293* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4294
4295If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4296a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4297replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4298details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4299remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4300to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4301
4302* Speedups for remote debugging
4303
4304GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4305the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4306and more efficient S-record downloading.
4307
4308* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4309
4310GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4311Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4312
4313*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4314
4315* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4316
4317The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4318can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4319
4320* Remote targets use caching
4321
4322Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4323remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4324it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4325debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4326off' turns the the data cache off.
4327
4328* Remote targets may have threads
4329
4330The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4331in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4332gdb/remote.c for details.
4333
4334* NetROM support
4335
4336If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4337support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4338acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4339write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4340support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4341another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4342sequence is something like
4343
4344 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4345 load <prog>
4346 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4347
4348* Macintosh host
4349
4350GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4351may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4352it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4353available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4354device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4355directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4356scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4357mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4358
4359* Autoconf
4360
4361GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4362but does simplify configuration and building.
4363
4364* hpux10
4365
4366GDB now supports hpux10.
4367
4368*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4369
4370* New native configurations
4371
4372x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4373x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4374NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4375Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4376
4377* New targets
4378
4379A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4380HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4381CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4382PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4383WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4384
4385* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4386
4387GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4388possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4389filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4390the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4391if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4392
4393* Arguments to user-defined commands
4394
4395User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4396Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4397trivial example:
4398define adder
4399 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4400
4401To execute the command use:
4402adder 1 2 3
4403
4404Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4405Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4406use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4407
4408* New `if' and `while' commands
4409
4410This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4411commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4412expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4413execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4414terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4415`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4416if the expression is zero.
4417
4418* Fortran source language mode
4419
4420GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4421Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4422variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4423with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4424Fortran compilers.
4425
4426* Better HPUX support
4427
4428Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4429running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4430processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4431for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4432that behavior do the following before running the program:
4433
4434 adb -w a.out
4435 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4436 control-d
4437
4438This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4439To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4440
4441 adb -w a.out
4442 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4443 control-d
4444
4445You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4446the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4447external linkage.
4448
4449GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4450HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4451
4452* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4453
4454You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4455commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4456current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4457"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4458associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4459configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4460
4461* New DOS host serial code
4462
4463This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4464no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4465a PC's serial port.
4466
4467*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4468
4469* New "complete" command
4470
4471This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4472were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4473
4474* Trailing space optional in prompt
4475
4476"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4477allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4478
4479* Breakpoint hit counts
4480
4481"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4482has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4483can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4484to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4485less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4486that breakpoint.
4487
4488* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4489
4490"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4491an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4492arrays actually contain only short strings.
4493
4494* Shared library breakpoints
4495
4496In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4497breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4498
4499* Hardware watchpoints
4500
4501There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4502targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4503
55241689 4504Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4505
4506* Annotations
4507
4508Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4509and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4510
4511* Improved Irix 5 support
4512
4513GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4514
4515* Improved HPPA support
4516
4517GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4518
4519* New native configurations
4520
4521Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4522HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4523Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4524RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4525
4526* New targets
4527
4528OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4529MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4530Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4531
4532* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4533
4534There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4535This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4536
4537* Fixes
4538
4539As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4540and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4541
4542*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4543
4544* Irix 5 is now supported
4545
4546* HPPA support
4547
4548GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4549to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4550GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4551of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4552can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4553
4554
4555*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4556
4557* User visible changes:
4558
4559* Remote Debugging
4560
4561The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4562target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4563debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4564integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4565debugging info for the mips target).
4566
4567* DEC Alpha native support
4568
4569GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4570debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4571work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4572Alpha-specific notes.
4573
4574* Preliminary thread implementation
4575
4576GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4577
4578* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4579
4580This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4581to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4582for details).
4583
4584* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4585
4586This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4587mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4588call methods, ...etc.
4589
4590*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4591
4592 * User visible changes:
4593
4594Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4595supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4596other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4597somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4598
4599Filename completion now works.
4600
4601When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4602arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4603addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4604
4605All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4606vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4607should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4608your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4609to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4610
4611 * DEC alpha support
4612
4613This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4614cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4615
4616
4617*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4618
4619 * Testsuite
4620
4621This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4622The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4623via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4624
4625 * C++ demangling
4626
4627'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4628emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4629Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4630disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4631use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4632
4633 * Simulators
4634
4635GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4636So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4637Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4638
4639 * New targets supported
4640
4641H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4642H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4643SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4644Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4645IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4646
4647Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4648version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4649GO32 memory extender.
4650
4651 * New remote protocols
4652
4653MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4654
4655 * New source languages supported
4656
4657This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4658used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4659into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4660
4661
4662*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4663
4664 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4665
4666GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4667version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4668University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4669compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4670format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4671(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4672
4673Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4674
4675 * Faster and better demangling
4676
4677We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4678demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4679character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4680only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4681This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4682increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4683symbol lookups.
4684
4685`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4686from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4687compiler does not actually implement.
4688
4689 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4690
4691In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4692inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4693recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4694very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4695The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4696circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4697fix.
4698
4699The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4700release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4701
4702 * Improved configure script
4703
4704The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4705you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4706host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4707done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4708
4709We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4710version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4711`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4712The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4713only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4714We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4715
4716 * Documentation improvements
4717
4718There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4719produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4720before submitting changes.
4721
4722The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4723M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4724`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4725you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4726a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4727
4728*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4729We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4730been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4731or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4732`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4733around this problem.
4734
4735 * New features
4736
4737GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4738the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4739`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4740the target program.
4741
4742The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4743how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4744
4745 * New native hosts supported
4746
4747HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4748386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4749
4750 * New targets supported
4751
4752AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4753
4754 * New file formats supported
4755
4756BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4757HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4758
4759 * Major bug fixes
4760
4761Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4762
4763We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4764printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4765
4766We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4767for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4768release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4769
4770You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4771will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4772
4773We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4774for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4775especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4776libraries.
4777
4778The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4779information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4780command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4781any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4782when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4783
4784 * Internal improvements
4785
4786GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4787debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4788
4789GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4790Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4791symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4792contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4793shared code that handles any of them.
4794
4795 * New command line options
4796
4797We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4798
4799 * Mmalloc licensing
4800
4801The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4802General Public License.
4803
4804*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4805
4806 * Host/native/target split
4807
4808GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4809hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4810target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4811local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4812ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4813
4814The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4815GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4816is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4817code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4818any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4819built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4820handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4821
4822GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4823It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4824plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4825
4826 * New hosts supported
4827
4828HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4829386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4830386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4831
4832 * New targets supported
4833
4834Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
483568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4836
4837 * New native hosts supported
4838
4839386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4840 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4841386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4842
4843 * New file formats supported
4844
4845BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4846supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4847format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4848
4849 * New commands
4850
4851`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4852`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4853These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4854
4855`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4856
4857You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4858scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4859prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4860executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4861
4862 * C++ improvements
4863
4864We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4865info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4866symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4867
4868Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4869
4870 * Major bug fixes
4871
4872The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4873fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4874by the compiler.
4875
4876We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4877support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4878
4879John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4880slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4881that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4882purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4883the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4884mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4885
4886Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4887about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4888completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4889we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4890
4891 * AMD 29k support
4892
4893A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4894specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4895calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4896usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4897in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4898
4899We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4900Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4901of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4902resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4903
4904 * Remote interfaces
4905
4906We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4907with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4908message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4909This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4910needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4911breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4912each instruction being stepped through.
4913
4914The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4915registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4916
4917There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4918find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4919Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4920processor with a serial port.
4921
4922 * Configuration
4923
4924Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4925`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4926supported, and what files each one uses.
4927
4928 * Library changes
4929
4930There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4931disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4932Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4933disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4934
4935The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4936Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4937can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4938grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4939
4940 * Documentation
4941
4942The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4943reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4944as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4945encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4946system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4947bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4948
4949And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4950
4951
4952*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4953
4954 * Better support for C++ function names
4955
4956GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4957names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4958(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4959single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4960Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4961
4962GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4963the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4964You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4965lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4966for the list of formats.
4967
4968 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4969
4970Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4971C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4972directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4973can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4974usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4975about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4976this problem.)
4977
4978 * New 'maintenance' command
4979
4980All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4981the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4982can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4983
4984 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4985 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4986 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4987 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4988 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4989 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4990
4991The following commands are new:
4992
4993 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4994 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4995 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4996
4997 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4998
4999We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5000(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5001be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5002read after argv processing.
5003
5004 * New hosts supported
5005
5006Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5007
55241689 5008GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
5009
5010We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5011is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5012for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5013masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5014fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5015It costs extra.
5016
5017 * New targets supported
5018
5019Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5020
5021 * More smarts about finding #include files
5022
5023GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5024all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5025greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5026especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5027the one that contains your sources.
5028
5029We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5030breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5031try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5032
5033 * Interesting infernals change
5034
5035GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5036section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5037target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5038stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5039
5040 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5041
5042There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5043 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5044 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5045
5046See the ChangeLog for details.
5047
5048*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5049
5050 * New machines supported (host and target)
5051
5052IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5053
5054SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5055
5056 * New malloc package
5057
5058GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5059Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5060capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5061This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5062pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5063more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5064
5065 * info proc
5066
5067The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5068'help info proc' for details.
5069
5070 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5071
5072The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5073Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5074possible.
5075
5076 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5077
5078Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5079support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5080conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5081environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5082that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5083in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5084
5085 * Cross byte order fixes
5086
5087Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5088targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5089
5090 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5091
5092If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5093system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5094`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5095program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5096called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5097Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5098and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5099the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5100option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5101starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5102
5103You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5104the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5105information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5106slower, but makes future operations faster.
5107
5108The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5109build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5110A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5111use is:
5112
5113 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5114
5115The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5116It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5117shared across multiple host platforms.
5118
5119 * longjmp() handling
5120
5121GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5122siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5123all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5124platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5125
5126 * Solaris 2.0
5127
5128Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5129this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5130reading symbols.
5131
5132 * Bug fixes
5133
5134As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5135People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5136crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5137
5138*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5139
5140 * New machines supported (host and target)
5141
5142SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5143 (except core files)
5144BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5145Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5146
5147 * New machines supported (target)
5148
5149AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5150
5151 * C++ support
5152
5153GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5154The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5155per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5156
5157GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5158`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5159extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5160good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5161will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5162released.
5163
5164 * New features for SVR4
5165
5166GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5167shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5168only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5169
5170The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5171on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5172it prints the address mappings of the process.
5173
5174If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5175bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5176
5177 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5178
5179Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5180now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5181skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5182make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5183same code linked statically.
5184
5185 * New Getopt
5186
5187GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5188version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5189continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5190Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5191added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5192future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5193
5194 * Bugs fixed
5195
5196The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5197Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5198See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5199
5200
5201*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5202
5203 * New machines supported (host and target)
5204
5205Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5206NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5207Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5208
5209 * Almost SCO Unix support
5210
5211We had hoped to support:
5212SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5213(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5214that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5215about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5216
5217 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5218
5219GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5220debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5221is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5222send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5223reqired (if any).
5224
5225 * New Readline
5226
5227GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5228is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5229required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5230
5231 * Bugs fixed
5232
5233The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5234Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5235See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5236
5237 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5238
5239GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5240supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5241symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5242
5243Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5244mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5245debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5246mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5247version 2.
5248
5249Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5250really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5251line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5252variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5253situation somewhat.
5254
5255When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5256However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5257methods.
5258
5259We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5260DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5261encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5262
5263
5264*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5265
5266 * Improved configuration
5267
5268Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5269Porting BFD is simpler.
5270
5271 * Stepping improved
5272
5273The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5274of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5275in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5276function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5277
5278 * Bug fixing
5279
5280Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5281
5282 * New host supported (not target)
5283
5284Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5285
5286
5287*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5288
5289 * Multiple source language support
5290
5291GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5292It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5293and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5294language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5295You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5296`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5297
5298 * GDB and Modula-2
5299
5300GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5301currently under development at the State University of New York at
5302Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5303continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5304
5305Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5306debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5307symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5308
5309There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5310in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5311
5312 * set write on/off
5313
5314GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5315a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5316the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5317by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5318effect immediately.
5319
5320 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5321
5322When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5323shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5324The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5325examining core files.
5326
5327 * set listsize
5328
5329You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5330The default is 10.
5331
5332 * New machines supported (host and target)
5333
5334SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5335Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5336Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5337
5338 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5339
5340IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5341
5342 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5343
5344AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5345AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5346Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5347
5348 * New remote interfaces
5349
5350AMD 29000 Adapt
5351AMD 29000 Minimon
5352
5353
5354*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5355
5356 * New Facilities
5357
5358Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5359
5360Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5361target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5362is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5363remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5364remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5365also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5366using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5367stub on the target system.
5368
5369New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5370
5371GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5372library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5373object file types such as a.out and coff.
5374
5375There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5376refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5377
5378
5379 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5380
5381All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5382by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5383
5384For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5385``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5386Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5387
5388What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5389print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5390will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5391all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5392
5393confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5394 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5395 it is already running. Default is ON.
5396
5397editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5398 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5399 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5400 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5401 Default is ON.
5402
5403history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5404 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5405 or the value of the environment variable
5406 GDBHISTFILE.
5407
5408history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5409 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5410 HISTSIZE.
5411
5412history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5413 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5414 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5415
5416history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5417 history expansion will be performed on
5418 command line input. The default is OFF.
5419
5420radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5421 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5422 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5423
5424height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5425 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5426 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5427 variable TERM.
5428
5429width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5430 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5431 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5432 variable TERM.
5433
5434Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5435``set width'' instead.
5436
5437print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5438 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5439 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5440 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5441
5442print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5443 is OFF.
5444
5445print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5446 "raw" form if off.
5447
5448print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5449 like instructions.
5450
5451print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5452
5453
5454 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5455
5456The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5457new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5458are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5459window.
5460
5461
5462 * Support for Shared Libraries
5463
5464GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5465Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5466before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5467happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5468At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5469from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5470shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5471It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5472
5473sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5474 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5475 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5476
5477info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5478
5479
5480 * Watchpoints
5481
5482A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5483expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5484tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5485quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5486problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5487more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5488
5489watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5490
5491info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5492
5493delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5494disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5495enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5496
5497
5498 * C++ multiple inheritance
5499
5500When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5501for C++ programs.
5502
5503 * C++ exception handling
5504
5505Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5506ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5507the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5508handler's context).
5509
5510catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5511 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5512 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5513
5514info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5515 current stack frame.
5516
5517
5518 * Minor command changes
5519
5520The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5521command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5522is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5523
5524The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5525at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5526frames without printing.
5527
5528 * New directory command
5529
5530'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5531The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5532about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5533with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5534find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5535
5536 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5537
5538For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5539for more details.
5540
5541GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5542two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5543Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5544where the program that you are debugging will run.