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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.1:
5
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6* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
7
8Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
9GDB to dump core).
10
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11* New ``start'' command.
12
13This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
14
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15* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
16
17Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
18live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
19platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
20
21FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
22FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
23NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
24NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
25NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
26OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
27OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
28OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
29OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
30
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31* Signal trampoline code overhauled
32
33Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
34These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
35of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
36call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
37signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
38
39These fixes were tested on i386 GNU/Linux systems that include a 2.4
40kernel.
41
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42* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
43
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44* New native configurations
45
97dc871c 46GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 47OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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48OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
49OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 50OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 51NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 52OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 53
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54* REMOVED configurations and files
55
56Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
57Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
58Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
59Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
60Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
61AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
62Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
63decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
64riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
65sonymips mips-sony-*
66sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
67
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68*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
69
70* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
71
72The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
73GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
74command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
75program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
76with GDB".
77
78* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
79
80Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
81libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
82cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
83GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
84shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
85the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
86are created.
87
88Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
89
90* Fixed ISO-C build problems
91
92The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
93non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
94compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
95
96* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
97
98Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
99wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
100
101* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
102
103The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
104permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
105systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
106
107* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
108
109Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
110has been updated to use constant array sizes.
111
112* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
113
114GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
115its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
116panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
117
118* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
119
120When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
121by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
122not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
123
faae5abe 124*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 125
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126* Removed --with-mmalloc
127
128Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
129conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
130
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131* Changes in AMD64 configurations
132
133The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
134the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
135and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
136you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
137
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138* Revised SPARC target
139
140The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
141FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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142support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
143from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
144(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 145
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146* New C++ demangler
147
148GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
149names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
150with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
151programs.
152
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153* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
154
155GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
156arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
157encountered these.
158
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159* C++ nested types and namespaces
160
161GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
162improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
163is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
164Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
165namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
166"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
167frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
168if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
169GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
170
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171* New native configurations
172
173NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 174OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 175OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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176OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
177OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 178
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179* New debugging protocols
180
181M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
182
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183* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
184
185The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
186and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
187tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
188
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189* OBSOLETE configurations and files
190
191Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
192been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
193configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
194permanently REMOVED.
195
196Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
197Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
198Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
199Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
200Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
201AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
202Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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203decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
204riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
205sonymips mips-sony-*
206sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 207
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208* REMOVED configurations and files
209
210SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
211SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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212Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
213Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
214H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
215HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
216HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
217HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
218PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 219386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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220Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
221 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
222 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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223SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
224SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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225Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
226Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 227
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228*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
229
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230* Objective-C
231
232Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
233integrated into GDB.
234
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235* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
236
237DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
238information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
239By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
240backtraces.
241
242The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
243have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
244DWARF 2 CFI support.
245
246* Hosted file I/O.
247
248GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
249file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
250remote protocol documentation for details.
251
252* All targets using the new architecture framework.
253
254All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
255architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
256to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
257ppc32 on ppc64).
258
259* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
260
261GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
262per-thread variables.
263
264* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
265
266GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
267GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
268
269* Separate debug info.
270
271GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
272automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
273of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
274system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
275and optional debug files.
276
277* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
278
279DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
280describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
281debugger.
282
283GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
284for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
285
286* Java
287
288A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
289Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
290considered "useable".
291
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292* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
293
294The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
295commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
296kernel.
297
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298* GDB supports logging output to a file
299
300There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
301used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 302
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303* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
304
305The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
306disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
307command.
308
e286caf2 309* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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310
311The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
312registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
313
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314* Profiling support
315
316A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
317be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
318session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
319"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
320data, for more informative profiling results.
321
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322* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
323
324The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
325option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 326"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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327
328Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
329removed.
330
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331Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
332Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
333Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
334 in a subsequent -var-update.
335
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336* New native configurations.
337
338FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
339
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340* Multi-arched targets.
341
b4263afa 342HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 343Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 344
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345* OBSOLETE configurations and files
346
347Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
348been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
349configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
350permanently REMOVED.
351
8b0e5691 352Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 353Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 354H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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355HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
356HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
357HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 358PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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359Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
360 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
361 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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362Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
363Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 364
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365* REMOVED configurations and files
366
367V850EA ISA
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368Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
369IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
370i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
371i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
372i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
373HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
374 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
375 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
376Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
377Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
378Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
379OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
380I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 381
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382* MIPS $fp behavior changed
383
384The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
385the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
386context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
387address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
388The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
389
299ffc64 390*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 391
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392* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
393
394When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
395`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
396in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
397library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
398shared libs like mad''.
399
b9d14705 400* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 401
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402Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
403the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
404arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
405powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 406
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407* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
408
409GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
410and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
411they expand.
412
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413The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
414invocations in expression, and shows the result.
415
416The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
417macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
418
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419Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
420information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
421your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
422information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
423
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424* Multi-arched targets.
425
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426DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
427DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 428NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 429National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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430Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
431Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 432
cd9bfe15 433* New targets.
e33ce519 434
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435Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
436
e33ce519 437
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438* New native configurations
439
440Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 441SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 442MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 443UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 444
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445* OBSOLETE configurations and files
446
447Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
448been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
449configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
450permanently REMOVED.
451
92eb23c5 452Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 453OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 454IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 455Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 456Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 457Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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458i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
459i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
460i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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461HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
462 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
463 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 464I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 465
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466* OBSOLETE languages
467
468CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
469
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470* REMOVED configurations and files
471
472AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
473A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
474AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
475AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
476AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
477
478testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
479
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480* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
481
482This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
483commands. The default is 1024.
484
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485* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
486
487Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
488
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489* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
490
491These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
492to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
493from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 494
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495* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
496
497The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
498including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
499of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
500
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501*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
502
503* New targets.
504
505Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
506
507* Bug fixes
508
509gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
510mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
511Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
512
513gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
514dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
515Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
516
517Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
518Surprisingly enough, it works now.
519By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
520
521i386 hardware watchpoint support:
522avoid misses on second run for some targets.
523By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
524
37057839 525*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 526
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527* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
528
529This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
530really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
531In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
532target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
533This can be a significant performance improvement on some
534(notably embedded) targets.
535
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536* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
537
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538This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
539process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
540GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
541hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 542
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543* New command line option
544
545GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
546
547* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
548
549There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
550command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
551a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
552be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
553open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
554issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
555a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
556it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
557GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
558is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
559
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560* Changes in ARM configurations.
561
562Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
563configuration is fully multi-arch.
564
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565* New native configurations
566
fe419ffc 567ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 568x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 569AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 570Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 571
c9f63e6b
CV
572* New targets
573
574Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
575
9b4ff276
AC
576* OBSOLETE configurations and files
577
578Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
579been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
580configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
581permanently REMOVED.
582
583AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
584A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
585AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
586AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
587AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
588
b4ceaee6 589testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 590
e2caac18
AC
591* REMOVED configurations and files
592
593TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 594WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
595PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
596PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
597PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 598Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
599Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
600 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 601SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 602Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
603Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
604ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 605Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 606
c2a727fa
TT
607* Changes to command line processing
608
609The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
610for the inferior from gdb's command line.
611
467d8519
TT
612* Changes to key bindings
613
614There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
615
7072a954
AC
616*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
617
618Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
619
620Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
621corrupted.
622
623Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
624
625Numerous documentation fixes.
626
627Numerous testsuite fixes.
628
34f47bc4 629*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
630
631* New native configurations
632
633Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
634x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 635MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
636MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
637ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 638s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 639
bf64bfd6
AC
640* New targets
641
def90278 642Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 643CRIS cris-axis
55241689 644UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 645
17e78a56 646* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
647
648x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 649Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
650Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
651 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
652TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
653WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 654Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
655PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
656PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
657PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 658SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
659Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
660ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 661Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 662
17e78a56
AC
663stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
664kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
665
7fcca85b
AC
666Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
667been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
668configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
669permanently REMOVED.
670
a196c81c 671* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
672
673Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
674Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
675Pyramid pyramid-*-*
676ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
677Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 678ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 679
6d6b80e5 680* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 681
6d6b80e5 682GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
683sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
684present.
685
bf64bfd6
AC
686* Other news:
687
e23194cb
EZ
688* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
689
690* The MI enabled by default.
691
692The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
693revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
694engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
695using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
696which is now deprecated.
697
698* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
699
700GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
701main features are supported:
702
703 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
704
705 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
706 extension;
707
708 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
709
710 - a Pascal expression parser.
711
712However, some important features are not yet supported.
713
714 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
715
716 - there are some problems with boolean types;
717
718 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
719 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
720
721 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
722
723 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
724
725* Changes in completion.
726
727Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
728to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
729users expect at the shell prompt.
730
731Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
732`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
733program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
734files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
735be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
736considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
737name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
738
739`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
740
741* New platform-independent commands:
742
743It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
744hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
745documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
746
747* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
748
d7275149
MK
749Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
750revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
751many threads as your system allows you to have.
752
e23194cb
EZ
753Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
754
d7275149
MK
755Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
756multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
757
758* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
759
760Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
761
e23194cb
EZ
762GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
763debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
764supported.)
765
766* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
767
768Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
769breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
770implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
771put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
772and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
773registers.
774
775The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
776debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
777watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
778
779* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
780
781New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
782the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
783
784New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
785display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
786IDT.
787
788New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
789from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
790New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
791a given linear address.
792
793GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
794program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
795which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
796
797DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
798
6c56c069
EZ
799It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
800
e23194cb
EZ
801* Changes in documentation.
802
803All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
804Documentation License.
805
806Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
807manual.
808
809TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
810
811Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
812manual.
813
814The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
815documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
816hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
817
5d6640b1
AC
818* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
819
820The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
821``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
822contents of this file.
823
1a1d8446
AC
824* gdba.el deleted
825
826GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 827
9debab2f 828*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 829
c63ce875
EZ
830* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
831
832Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
833programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
834displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
835greater level of detail.
836
837* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
838
839It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
840bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
841on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
842written.
843
844* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
845
846The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
847necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
848machines ``out of the box''.
849
850The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
851possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
852signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
853would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
854interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
855
856It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
857standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
858even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
859and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
860terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
861
862The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
863enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
864also works.
865
866DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
867GDB.
868
869It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
870directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
871times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
872breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
873
ed9a39eb
JM
874* New native configurations
875
876ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 877PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 878
7a292a7a
SS
879* New targets
880
96baa820 881Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
882x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
883PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
884TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
885
085dd6e6
JM
886* OBSOLETE configurations
887
888Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
889Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 890Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 891ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 892Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 893
9debab2f
AC
894Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
895but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
896these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
897be permanently REMOVED.
898
5330533d
SS
899* Gould support removed
900
901Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
902
bc9e5bbf
AC
903* New features for SVR4
904
905On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
906without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
907load symbols from the running process's executable file.
908
909* Many C++ enhancements
910
911C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
912in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
913
adf40b2e
JM
914* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
915
916A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
917sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
918with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
919``|<program> <args>'' vis:
920
921 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
922 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
923
43e526b9
JM
924* MIPS 64 remote protocol
925
926A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
927expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
928instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
929
930The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
931added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
932
96baa820
JM
933* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
934
935The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
936``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
937include ``set remote P-packet''.
938
11cf8741
JM
939* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
940
941The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
942accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
943``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
944
7876dd43
DB
945* ``apropos'' command added.
946
947The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
948documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
949try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
950
bc9e5bbf
AC
951* New MI interface
952
953A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
954interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
955process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
956"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
957enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
958
959 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
960
c906108c
SS
961*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
962
963* New native configurations
964
965HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
966HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 967M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
968
969* New targets
970
971Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
972Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
973Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
974
975* OBSOLETE configurations
976
977Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
978
979Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
980but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
981these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
982be permanently REMOVED.
983
984* ANSI/ISO C
985
986As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
987buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
988containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
989use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
990available. If this is not true, please report the affected
991configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
992information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
993already.
994
995* Readline 2.2
996
997GDB now uses readline 2.2.
998
999* set extension-language
1000
1001You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1002languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1003you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1004 set extension-language .c c++
1005The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1006and their associated languages.
1007
1008* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1009
1010When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1011you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1012PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1013
1014 set processor NAME
1015
1016sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1017following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1018
1019 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1020 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1021 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1022 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1023 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1024 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1025 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1026 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1027 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1028 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1029 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1030
1031At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1032special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1033registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1034only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1035
1036* HP-UX support
1037
1038Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1039more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1040library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1041support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1042for xdb and dbx commands.
1043
1044* Catchpoints
1045
1046HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1047generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1048to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1049
1050This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1051argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1052output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1053
1054* Debugging across forks
1055
1056On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1057in the inferior.
1058
1059* TUI
1060
1061HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1062it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1063configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1064
1065* GDB remote protocol additions
1066
1067A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1068Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1069fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1070allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1071
1072For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1073full 64-bit address. The command
1074
1075 set remoteaddresssize 32
1076
1077can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1078the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1079will be discarded.
1080
1081In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1082command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1083
1084 maint packet heythere
1085
1086sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1087disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1088time.
1089
1090The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1091target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1092downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1093
1094* Tracing can collect general expressions
1095
1096You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1097further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1098doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1099
1100* mask-address variable for Mips
1101
1102For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1103a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1104of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1105
1106* Higher serial baud rates
1107
1108GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1109230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1110to achieve all of these rates.)
1111
1112* i960 simulator
1113
1114The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1115builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1116
1117
1118*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1119
1120* New native configurations
1121
1122Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1123Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1124Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1125PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1126PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1127Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1128Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1129
1130* New targets
1131
1132Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1133Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1134Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1135Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1136MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1137MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1138MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1139Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1140Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1141Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1142NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1143
1144* New debugging protocols
1145
1146ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1147M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1148DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1149PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1150PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1151Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1152
1153* DWARF 2
1154
1155All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1156format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1157information.
1158
1159* Java frontend
1160
1161GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1162only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1163
1164* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1165
1166For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1167loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1168locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1169
1170* Live range splitting
1171
1172GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1173range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1174more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1175
1176* Hurd support
1177
1178GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1179updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1180
1181* ARM Thumb support
1182
1183GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1184instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1185instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1186accordingly.
1187
1188* MIPS16 support
1189
1190GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1191instruction set.
1192
1193* Overlay support
1194
1195GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1196linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1197will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1198control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1199additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1200in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1201
1202* info symbol
1203
1204The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1205the symbol at the specified address.
1206
1207* Trace support
1208
1209The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1210asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1211extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1212includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1213file tracepoint.c for more details.
1214
1215* MIPS simulator
1216
1217Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1218by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1219of most MIPS variants.
1220
1221* Sparc simulator
1222
1223Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1224by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1225Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1226
1227* set architecture
1228
1229For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1230basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1231architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1232the possible architectures.
1233
1234*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1235
1236* New native configurations
1237
1238Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1239M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1240PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1241PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1242PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1243RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1244
1245* New targets
1246
1247ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1248I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1249MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1250MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1251PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1252Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1253Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1254
1255* PowerPC simulator
1256
1257The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1258contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1259PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1260basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1261performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1262
1263* Solaris 2.5
1264
1265GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1266
1267* Windows 95/NT native
1268
1269GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1270To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1271which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1272Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1273ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1274
1275* dont-repeat command
1276
1277If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1278command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1279useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1280extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1281
1282* Send break instead of ^C
1283
1284The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1285rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1286GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1287
1288* Remote protocol timeout
1289
1290The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1291that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1292to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1293
1294* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1295
1296By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1297loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1298stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1299when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1300in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1301
1302Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1303/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1304automatically on hpux10.
1305
1306* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1307
1308Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1309
1310* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1311
1312When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1313may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1314the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1315every character. The default value is 1050.
1316
1317* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1318
1319If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1320a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1321replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1322details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1323remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1324to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1325
1326* Speedups for remote debugging
1327
1328GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1329the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1330and more efficient S-record downloading.
1331
1332* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1333
1334GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1335Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1336
1337*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1338
1339* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1340
1341The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1342can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1343
1344* Remote targets use caching
1345
1346Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1347remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1348it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1349debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1350off' turns the the data cache off.
1351
1352* Remote targets may have threads
1353
1354The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1355in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1356gdb/remote.c for details.
1357
1358* NetROM support
1359
1360If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1361support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1362acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1363write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1364support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1365another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1366sequence is something like
1367
1368 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1369 load <prog>
1370 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1371
1372* Macintosh host
1373
1374GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1375may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1376it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1377available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1378device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1379directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1380scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1381mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1382
1383* Autoconf
1384
1385GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1386but does simplify configuration and building.
1387
1388* hpux10
1389
1390GDB now supports hpux10.
1391
1392*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1393
1394* New native configurations
1395
1396x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1397x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1398NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1399Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1400
1401* New targets
1402
1403A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1404HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1405CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1406PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1407WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1408
1409* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1410
1411GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1412possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1413filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1414the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1415if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1416
1417* Arguments to user-defined commands
1418
1419User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1420Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1421trivial example:
1422define adder
1423 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1424
1425To execute the command use:
1426adder 1 2 3
1427
1428Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1429Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1430use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1431
1432* New `if' and `while' commands
1433
1434This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1435commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1436expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1437execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1438terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1439`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1440if the expression is zero.
1441
1442* Fortran source language mode
1443
1444GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1445Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1446variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1447with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1448Fortran compilers.
1449
1450* Better HPUX support
1451
1452Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1453running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1454processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1455for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1456that behavior do the following before running the program:
1457
1458 adb -w a.out
1459 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1460 control-d
1461
1462This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1463To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1464
1465 adb -w a.out
1466 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1467 control-d
1468
1469You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1470the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1471external linkage.
1472
1473GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1474HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1475
1476* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1477
1478You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1479commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1480current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1481"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1482associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1483configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1484
1485* New DOS host serial code
1486
1487This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1488no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1489a PC's serial port.
1490
1491*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1492
1493* New "complete" command
1494
1495This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1496were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1497
1498* Trailing space optional in prompt
1499
1500"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1501allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1502
1503* Breakpoint hit counts
1504
1505"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1506has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1507can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1508to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1509less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1510that breakpoint.
1511
1512* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1513
1514"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1515an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1516arrays actually contain only short strings.
1517
1518* Shared library breakpoints
1519
1520In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1521breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1522
1523* Hardware watchpoints
1524
1525There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1526targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1527
55241689 1528Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1529
1530* Annotations
1531
1532Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1533and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1534
1535* Improved Irix 5 support
1536
1537GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1538
1539* Improved HPPA support
1540
1541GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1542
1543* New native configurations
1544
1545Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1546HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1547Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1548RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1549
1550* New targets
1551
1552OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1553MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1554Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1555
1556* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1557
1558There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1559This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1560
1561* Fixes
1562
1563As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1564and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1565
1566*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1567
1568* Irix 5 is now supported
1569
1570* HPPA support
1571
1572GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1573to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1574GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1575of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1576can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1577
1578
1579*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1580
1581* User visible changes:
1582
1583* Remote Debugging
1584
1585The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1586target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1587debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1588integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1589debugging info for the mips target).
1590
1591* DEC Alpha native support
1592
1593GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1594debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1595work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1596Alpha-specific notes.
1597
1598* Preliminary thread implementation
1599
1600GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1601
1602* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1603
1604This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1605to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1606for details).
1607
1608* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1609
1610This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1611mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1612call methods, ...etc.
1613
1614*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1615
1616 * User visible changes:
1617
1618Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1619supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1620other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1621somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1622
1623Filename completion now works.
1624
1625When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1626arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1627addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1628
1629All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1630vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1631should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1632your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1633to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1634
1635 * DEC alpha support
1636
1637This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1638cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1639
1640
1641*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1642
1643 * Testsuite
1644
1645This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1646The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1647via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1648
1649 * C++ demangling
1650
1651'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1652emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1653Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1654disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1655use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1656
1657 * Simulators
1658
1659GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1660So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1661Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1662
1663 * New targets supported
1664
1665H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1666H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1667SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1668Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1669IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1670
1671Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1672version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1673GO32 memory extender.
1674
1675 * New remote protocols
1676
1677MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1678
1679 * New source languages supported
1680
1681This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1682used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1683into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1684
1685
1686*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1687
1688 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1689
1690GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1691version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1692University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1693compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1694format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1695(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1696
1697Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1698
1699 * Faster and better demangling
1700
1701We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1702demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1703character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1704only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1705This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1706increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1707symbol lookups.
1708
1709`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1710from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1711compiler does not actually implement.
1712
1713 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1714
1715In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1716inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1717recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1718very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1719The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1720circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1721fix.
1722
1723The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1724release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1725
1726 * Improved configure script
1727
1728The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1729you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1730host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1731done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1732
1733We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1734version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1735`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1736The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1737only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1738We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1739
1740 * Documentation improvements
1741
1742There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1743produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1744before submitting changes.
1745
1746The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1747M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1748`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1749you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1750a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1751
1752*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1753We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1754been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1755or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1756`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1757around this problem.
1758
1759 * New features
1760
1761GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1762the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1763`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1764the target program.
1765
1766The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1767how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1768
1769 * New native hosts supported
1770
1771HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1772386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1773
1774 * New targets supported
1775
1776AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1777
1778 * New file formats supported
1779
1780BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1781HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1782
1783 * Major bug fixes
1784
1785Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1786
1787We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1788printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1789
1790We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1791for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1792release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1793
1794You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1795will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1796
1797We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1798for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1799especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1800libraries.
1801
1802The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1803information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1804command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1805any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1806when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1807
1808 * Internal improvements
1809
1810GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1811debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1812
1813GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1814Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1815symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1816contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1817shared code that handles any of them.
1818
1819 * New command line options
1820
1821We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1822
1823 * Mmalloc licensing
1824
1825The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1826General Public License.
1827
1828*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1829
1830 * Host/native/target split
1831
1832GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1833hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1834target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1835local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1836ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1837
1838The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1839GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1840is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1841code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1842any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1843built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1844handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1845
1846GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1847It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1848plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1849
1850 * New hosts supported
1851
1852HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1853386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1854386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1855
1856 * New targets supported
1857
1858Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
185968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1860
1861 * New native hosts supported
1862
1863386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1864 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1865386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1866
1867 * New file formats supported
1868
1869BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1870supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1871format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1872
1873 * New commands
1874
1875`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1876`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1877These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1878
1879`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1880
1881You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1882scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1883prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1884executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1885
1886 * C++ improvements
1887
1888We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1889info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1890symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1891
1892Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1893
1894 * Major bug fixes
1895
1896The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1897fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1898by the compiler.
1899
1900We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1901support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1902
1903John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1904slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1905that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1906purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1907the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1908mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1909
1910Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1911about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1912completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1913we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1914
1915 * AMD 29k support
1916
1917A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1918specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1919calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1920usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1921in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1922
1923We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1924Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1925of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1926resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1927
1928 * Remote interfaces
1929
1930We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1931with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1932message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1933This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1934needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1935breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1936each instruction being stepped through.
1937
1938The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1939registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1940
1941There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1942find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1943Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1944processor with a serial port.
1945
1946 * Configuration
1947
1948Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1949`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1950supported, and what files each one uses.
1951
1952 * Library changes
1953
1954There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1955disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1956Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1957disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1958
1959The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1960Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1961can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1962grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1963
1964 * Documentation
1965
1966The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1967reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1968as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1969encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1970system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1971bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1972
1973And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1974
1975
1976*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1977
1978 * Better support for C++ function names
1979
1980GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1981names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1982(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1983single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1984Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1985
1986GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1987the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1988You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1989lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1990for the list of formats.
1991
1992 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1993
1994Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1995C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1996directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1997can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1998usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1999about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2000this problem.)
2001
2002 * New 'maintenance' command
2003
2004All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2005the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2006can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2007
2008 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2009 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2010 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2011 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2012 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2013 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2014
2015The following commands are new:
2016
2017 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2018 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2019 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2020
2021 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2022
2023We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2024(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2025be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2026read after argv processing.
2027
2028 * New hosts supported
2029
2030Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2031
55241689 2032GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2033
2034We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2035is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2036for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2037masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2038fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2039It costs extra.
2040
2041 * New targets supported
2042
2043Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2044
2045 * More smarts about finding #include files
2046
2047GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2048all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2049greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2050especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2051the one that contains your sources.
2052
2053We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2054breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2055try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2056
2057 * Interesting infernals change
2058
2059GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2060section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2061target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2062stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2063
2064 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2065
2066There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2067 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2068 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2069
2070See the ChangeLog for details.
2071
2072*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2073
2074 * New machines supported (host and target)
2075
2076IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2077
2078SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2079
2080 * New malloc package
2081
2082GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2083Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2084capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2085This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2086pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2087more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2088
2089 * info proc
2090
2091The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2092'help info proc' for details.
2093
2094 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2095
2096The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2097Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2098possible.
2099
2100 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2101
2102Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2103support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2104conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2105environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2106that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2107in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2108
2109 * Cross byte order fixes
2110
2111Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2112targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2113
2114 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2115
2116If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2117system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2118`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2119program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2120called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2121Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2122and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2123the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2124option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2125starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2126
2127You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2128the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2129information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2130slower, but makes future operations faster.
2131
2132The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2133build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2134A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2135use is:
2136
2137 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2138
2139The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2140It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2141shared across multiple host platforms.
2142
2143 * longjmp() handling
2144
2145GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2146siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2147all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2148platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2149
2150 * Solaris 2.0
2151
2152Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2153this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2154reading symbols.
2155
2156 * Bug fixes
2157
2158As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2159People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2160crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2161
2162*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2163
2164 * New machines supported (host and target)
2165
2166SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2167 (except core files)
2168BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2169Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2170
2171 * New machines supported (target)
2172
2173AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2174
2175 * C++ support
2176
2177GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2178The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2179per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2180
2181GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2182`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2183extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2184good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2185will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2186released.
2187
2188 * New features for SVR4
2189
2190GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2191shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2192only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2193
2194The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2195on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2196it prints the address mappings of the process.
2197
2198If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2199bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2200
2201 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2202
2203Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2204now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2205skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2206make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2207same code linked statically.
2208
2209 * New Getopt
2210
2211GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2212version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2213continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2214Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2215added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2216future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2217
2218 * Bugs fixed
2219
2220The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2221Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2222See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2223
2224
2225*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2226
2227 * New machines supported (host and target)
2228
2229Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2230NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2231Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2232
2233 * Almost SCO Unix support
2234
2235We had hoped to support:
2236SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2237(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2238that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2239about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2240
2241 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2242
2243GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2244debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2245is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2246send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2247reqired (if any).
2248
2249 * New Readline
2250
2251GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2252is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2253required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2254
2255 * Bugs fixed
2256
2257The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2258Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2259See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2260
2261 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2262
2263GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2264supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2265symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2266
2267Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2268mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2269debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2270mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2271version 2.
2272
2273Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2274really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2275line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2276variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2277situation somewhat.
2278
2279When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2280However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2281methods.
2282
2283We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2284DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2285encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2286
2287
2288*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2289
2290 * Improved configuration
2291
2292Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2293Porting BFD is simpler.
2294
2295 * Stepping improved
2296
2297The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2298of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2299in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2300function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2301
2302 * Bug fixing
2303
2304Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2305
2306 * New host supported (not target)
2307
2308Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2309
2310
2311*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2312
2313 * Multiple source language support
2314
2315GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2316It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2317and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2318language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2319You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2320`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2321
2322 * GDB and Modula-2
2323
2324GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2325currently under development at the State University of New York at
2326Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2327continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2328
2329Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2330debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2331symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2332
2333There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2334in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2335
2336 * set write on/off
2337
2338GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2339a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2340the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2341by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2342effect immediately.
2343
2344 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2345
2346When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2347shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2348The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2349examining core files.
2350
2351 * set listsize
2352
2353You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2354The default is 10.
2355
2356 * New machines supported (host and target)
2357
2358SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2359Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2360Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2361
2362 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2363
2364IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2365
2366 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2367
2368AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2369AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2370Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2371
2372 * New remote interfaces
2373
2374AMD 29000 Adapt
2375AMD 29000 Minimon
2376
2377
2378*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2379
2380 * New Facilities
2381
2382Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2383
2384Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2385target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2386is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2387remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2388remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2389also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2390using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2391stub on the target system.
2392
2393New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2394
2395GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2396library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2397object file types such as a.out and coff.
2398
2399There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2400refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2401
2402
2403 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2404
2405All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2406by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2407
2408For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2409``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2410Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2411
2412What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2413print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2414will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2415all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2416
2417confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2418 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2419 it is already running. Default is ON.
2420
2421editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2422 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2423 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2424 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2425 Default is ON.
2426
2427history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2428 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2429 or the value of the environment variable
2430 GDBHISTFILE.
2431
2432history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2433 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2434 HISTSIZE.
2435
2436history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2437 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2438 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2439
2440history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2441 history expansion will be performed on
2442 command line input. The default is OFF.
2443
2444radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2445 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2446 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2447
2448height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2449 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2450 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2451 variable TERM.
2452
2453width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2454 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2455 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2456 variable TERM.
2457
2458Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2459``set width'' instead.
2460
2461print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2462 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2463 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2464 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2465
2466print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2467 is OFF.
2468
2469print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2470 "raw" form if off.
2471
2472print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2473 like instructions.
2474
2475print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2476
2477
2478 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2479
2480The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2481new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2482are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2483window.
2484
2485
2486 * Support for Shared Libraries
2487
2488GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2489Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2490before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2491happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2492At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2493from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2494shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2495It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2496
2497sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2498 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2499 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2500
2501info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2502
2503
2504 * Watchpoints
2505
2506A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2507expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2508tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2509quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2510problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2511more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2512
2513watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2514
2515info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2516
2517delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2518disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2519enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2520
2521
2522 * C++ multiple inheritance
2523
2524When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2525for C++ programs.
2526
2527 * C++ exception handling
2528
2529Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2530ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2531the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2532handler's context).
2533
2534catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2535 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2536 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2537
2538info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2539 current stack frame.
2540
2541
2542 * Minor command changes
2543
2544The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2545command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2546is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2547
2548The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2549at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2550frames without printing.
2551
2552 * New directory command
2553
2554'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2555The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2556about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2557with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2558find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2559
2560 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2561
2562For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2563for more details.
2564
2565GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2566two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2567Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2568where the program that you are debugging will run.