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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4*** Changes since GDB 7.5
5
6* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
7 given an argument.
8
9* New configure options
10
11--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
12 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
13 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
14 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
15 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
16 options allow the user to override that default.
17
18* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
19
20maint info bfds
21 List the BFDs known to GDB.
22
23*** Changes in GDB 7.5
24
25* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
26 for more x32 ABI info.
27
28* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
29
30* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
31
32* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
33 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
34 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
35 "info os files" lists file descriptors
36 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
37 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
38 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
39 "info os msg" lists message queues
40 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
41
42* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
43 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
44 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
45 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
46 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
47 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
48
49* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
50 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
51 record/replay support.
52
53* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
54
55* Python scripting
56
57 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
58 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
59
60 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
61
62 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
63 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
64
65 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
66
67 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
68 the source at which the symbol was defined.
69
70 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
71 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
72 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
73 symbol's value.
74
75 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
76 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
77
78 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
79 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
80 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
81
82 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
83 object associated with a PC value.
84
85 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
86 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
87
88* Go language support.
89 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
90 language.
91
92* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
93 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
94
95* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
96 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
97
98* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
99 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
100 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
101 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
102 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
103 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
104
105* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
106 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
107 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
108 build/libcpp/expr.c.
109
110* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
111 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
112
113* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
114 since December 2007.
115
116* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
117 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
118 command does. For instance:
119
120 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
121
122 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
123 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
124 created, using the "condition" command.
125
126* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
127 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
128
129* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
130
131* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
132 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
133 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
134 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
135 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
136 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
137 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
138 files with older .gdb_index sections.
139
140 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
141 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
142 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
143 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
144 the .gdb_index section.
145
146* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
147
148* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
149 target.
150
151* MI changes
152
153 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
154
155 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
156
157* New commands
158
159 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
160 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
161 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
162
163 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
164 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
165
166 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
167 several hits.
168
169 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
170 C++ and Java objects.
171
172 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
173 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
174 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
175 configured with '--with-python'.
176
177 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
178 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
179 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
180 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
181 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
182 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
183 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
184
185 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
186 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
187 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
188 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
189
190 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
191 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
192 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
193 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
194
195 ** "set print symbol"
196 "show print symbol"
197 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
198 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
199 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
200
201* Deprecated commands
202
203 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
204 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
205
206* New targets
207
208Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
209HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
210
211* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
212 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
213 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
214 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
215 evaluates to true.
216
217* New options
218
219set mips compression
220show mips compression
221 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
222 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
223 mips16
224 micromips
225 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
226
227set breakpoint condition-evaluation
228show breakpoint condition-evaluation
229 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
230 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
231 available mode.
232 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
233 target.
234
235set auto-load off
236 Disable auto-loading globally.
237
238show auto-load
239 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
240
241set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
242show auto-load gdb-scripts
243 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
244
245set auto-load python-scripts on|off
246show auto-load python-scripts
247 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
248
249set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
250show auto-load local-gdbinit
251 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
252
253set auto-load libthread-db on|off
254show auto-load libthread-db
255 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
256
257set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
258show auto-load scripts-directory
259 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
260 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
261 of the directories listed by this option.
262 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
263
264set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
265show auto-load safe-path
266 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
267 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
268
269set debug auto-load on|off
270show debug auto-load
271 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
272
273set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
274show dprintf-style
275 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
276 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
277 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
278 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
279
280set dprintf-function <expr>
281show dprintf-function
282set dprintf-channel <expr>
283show dprintf-channel
284 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
285 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
286
287set disconnected-dprintf on|off
288show disconnected-dprintf
289 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
290 after GDB disconnects.
291
292* New configure options
293
294--with-auto-load-dir
295 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
296 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
297 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
298 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
299 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
300
301--with-auto-load-safe-path
302 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
303 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
304
305--without-auto-load-safe-path
306 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
307 security feature.
308
309* New remote packets
310
311z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
312
313 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
314 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
315 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
316 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
317
318QProgramSignals:
319
320 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
321 program without GDB involvement.
322
323* New command line options
324
325--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
326 before loading inferior.
327--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
328 execute it before loading inferior.
329
330*** Changes in GDB 7.4
331
332* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
333 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
334 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
335 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
336 inferior changes.
337
338* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
339 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
340
341* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
342 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
343 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
344 target hardware watchpoint.
345
346 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
347 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
348 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
349 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
350
351* Python scripting
352
353 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
354 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
355 existing one.
356
357 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
358 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
359 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
360 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
361 now "message", which just prints the error message without
362 the stack trace.
363
364 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
365 Python API.
366
367 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
368 modules library. This module provides functionality for
369 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
370 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
371 corresponding value.
372
373 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
374 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
375 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
376 on GDB start-up.
377
378 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
379 static_block will return the global and static blocks
380 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
381 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
382
383 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
384
385 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
386 "gdb.breakpoints".
387
388 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
389 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
390 available in the CLI.
391
392 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
393 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
394 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
395 "some_type.items()".
396
397 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
398 new object file.
399
400 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
401 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
402 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
403 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
404 any anonymous fields.
405
406* MI changes
407
408 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
409 "solib-event".
410
411 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
412 "=breakpoint-modified".
413
414 ** New command -ada-task-info.
415
416* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
417 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
418 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
419 lives.
420
421 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
422 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
423 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
424 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
425 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
426
427 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
428 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
429
430* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
431 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
432 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
433 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
434 use this option to specify where to find it.
435
436* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
437 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
438 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
439 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
440 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
441 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
442 section in the user manual for more details.
443
444* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
445 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
446 become available after that.
447
448* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
449
450* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
451 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
452 gcc version 4.7.
453
454* New commands
455
456!SHELL COMMAND
457 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
458 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
459
460* Changed commands
461
462watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
463 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
464 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
465
466info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
467 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
468 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
469
470info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
471 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
472 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
473 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
474 name starts with a hyphen.
475
476collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
477 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
478 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
479 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
480 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
481 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
482 number of bytes that will be collected.
483
484tstart [NOTES]
485 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
486 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
487 setting the variable trace-notes.
488
489tstop [NOTES]
490 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
491 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
492 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
493 trace-stop-notes.
494
495* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
496 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
497 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
498 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
499 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
500 is running.
501
502* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
503 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
504 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
505
506* New options
507
508set debug dwarf2-read
509show debug dwarf2-read
510 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
511 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
512
513set debug symtab-create
514show debug symtab-create
515 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
516 creation. The default is off.
517
518set extended-prompt
519show extended-prompt
520 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
521 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
522 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
523 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
524 prompt is displayed.
525
526set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
527show print entry-values
528 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
529 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
530 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
531
532set debug entry-values
533show debug entry-values
534 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
535 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
536
537set basenames-may-differ
538show basenames-may-differ
539 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
540 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
541 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
542 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
543 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
544 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
545 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
546 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
547
548set trace-user
549show trace-user
550set trace-notes
551show trace-notes
552 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
553 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
554 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
555 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
556
557set trace-stop-notes
558show trace-stop-notes
559 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
560 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
561 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
562 started by someone else.
563
564* New remote packets
565
566QTEnable
567
568 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
569
570QTDisable
571
572 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
573
574QTNotes
575
576 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
577
578qTP
579
580 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
581
582qTMinFTPILen
583
584 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
585 be placed.
586
587* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
588 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
589
590* New targets
591
592Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
593
594* New Simulators
595
596Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
597
598*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
599
600* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
601
602*** Changes in GDB 7.3
603
604* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
605 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
606 matches the given regular expression.
607
608* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
609
610* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
611 dumping the instruction opcodes.
612
613* New command line options
614
615-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
616 This is mostly for testing purposes.
617
618* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
619 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
620
621* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
622 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
623 source path list instead of augmenting it.
624
625* GDB now understands thread names.
626
627 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
628 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
629
630 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
631 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
632
633* OpenCL C
634 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
635 has been integrated into GDB.
636
637* Python scripting
638
639 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
640 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
641 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
642
643 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
644 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
645 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
646 and allows for more dynamic content.
647
648 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
649 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
650 have an is_valid method.
651
652 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
653 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
654 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
655
656 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
657
658 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
659 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
660 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
661 that function like so:
662
663 result = some_value (10,20)
664
665 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
666 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
667 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
668
669 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
670 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
671 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
672 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
673 New function: register_pretty_printer.
674
675 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
676 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
677
678 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
679
680 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
681 selected thread.
682
683 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
684 holds the thread's name.
685
686 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
687 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
688 occurring in the process being debugged.
689 The following events are currently supported:
690 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
691 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
692 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
693
694* C++ Improvements:
695
696 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
697 instantiation. For example, if you have:
698
699 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
700
701 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
702 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
703 was added to GCC 4.5.
704
705 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
706 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
707 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
708 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
709 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
710 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
711
712* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
713 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
714 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
715 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
716 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
717
718* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
719 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
720 execution to a label.
721
722* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
723 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
724 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
725 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
726
727* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
728 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
729 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
730 of scope.
731
732* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
733
734 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
735 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
736 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
737 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
738 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
739 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
740
741 (gdb) info threads
742 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
743
744 While now you see this:
745
746 (gdb) info threads
747 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
748
749 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
750 dumps.
751
752 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
753 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
754 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
755 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
756
757* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
758 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
759 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
760 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
761 section in the user manual for more details.
762
763* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
764
765 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
766 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
767
768 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
769
770* New native configurations
771
772ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
773
774* New targets:
775
776Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
777
778* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
779 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
780 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
781 in the GDB user manual.
782
783* Guile support was removed.
784
785* New features in the GNU simulator
786
787 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
788
789 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
790
791*** Changes in GDB 7.2
792
793* Shared library support for remote targets by default
794
795 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
796 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
797 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
798 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
799 was always disabled for such configurations.
800
801* C++ Improvements:
802
803 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
804
805 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
806 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
807 For example:
808 namespace A
809 {
810 class B { };
811 void foo (B) { }
812 }
813 ...
814 A::B b
815 foo(b)
816 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
817 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
818 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
819
820 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
821
822 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
823 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
824 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
825 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
826 entry.
827 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
828 mentioned flavors of operators.
829
830 ** static const class members
831
832 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
833 class definition has been fixed.
834
835* Windows Thread Information Block access.
836
837 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
838 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
839 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
840 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
841 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
842 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
843
844* Static tracepoints
845
846 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
847 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
848 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
849 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
850 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
851 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
852 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
853 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
854 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
855 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
856 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
857 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
858 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
859 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
860 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
861 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
862 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
863 the "New remote packets" section below.
864
865* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
866
867 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
868 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
869 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
870 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
871
872* Observer mode
873
874 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
875 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
876 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
877 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
878 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
879 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
880 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
881
882* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
883 current thread.
884
885* New remote packets
886
887qGetTIBAddr
888
889 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
890
891qRelocInsn
892
893 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
894 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
895 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
896 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
897 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
898 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
899
900qTfSTM, qTsSTM
901
902 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
903
904qTSTMat
905
906 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
907 program.
908
909qXfer:statictrace:read
910
911 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
912 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
913 to gdb's qSupported query.
914
915QAllow
916
917 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
918
919QTDPsrc
920
921 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
922 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
923
924* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
925 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
926 a directory.
927
928* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
929
930 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
931 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
932 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
933 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
934
935 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
936 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
937 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
938 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
939 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
940 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
941 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
942
943 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
944 for static tracepoints support.
945
946 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
947
948* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
949 it understands register description.
950
951* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
952
953* X86 general purpose registers
954
955 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
956 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
957 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
958 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
959 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
960
961* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
962 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
963 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
964 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
965 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
966 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
967
968* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
969 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
970 in the specified file.
971
972* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
973 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
974 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
975 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
976 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
977 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
978 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
979 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
980 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
981 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
982
983* New commands
984
985eval template, expressions...
986 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
987 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
988
989set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
990show target-file-system-kind
991 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
992 names.
993
994save breakpoints <filename>
995 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
996 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
997 definitions, use the `source' command.
998
999`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1000is now deprecated.
1001
1002info static-tracepoint-markers
1003 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1004
1005strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1006 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1007 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1008
1009set observer on|off
1010show observer
1011 Enable and disable observer mode.
1012
1013set may-write-registers on|off
1014set may-write-memory on|off
1015set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1016set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1017set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1018set may-interrupt on|off
1019 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1020 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1021 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1022 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1023 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1024 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1025 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1026
1027set record memory-query on|off
1028show record memory-query
1029 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1030 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1031
1032* Changed commands
1033
1034disassemble
1035 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1036
1037* Python scripting
1038
1039** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1040 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1041 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1042 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1043 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1044
1045** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1046 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1047 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1048 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1049
1050** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1051 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1052
1053** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1054
1055** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1056
1057** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1058
1059** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1060 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1061 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1062
1063* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1064there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1065tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1066regular breakpoints.
1067
1068* New targets
1069
1070ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1071
1072* D language support.
1073 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1074 language.
1075
1076* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1077 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1078 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1079 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1080 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1081
1082* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1083 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1084 conditions of the form:
1085
1086 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1087
1088 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1089 interface mentioned above.
1090
1091*** Changes in GDB 7.1
1092
1093* C++ Improvements
1094
1095 ** Namespace Support
1096
1097 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1098 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1099 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1100 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1101 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1102
1103 ** Bug Fixes
1104
1105 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1106 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1107 qualified name.
1108
1109 ** Cast Operators
1110
1111 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1112 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1113
1114* New targets
1115
1116Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1117Renesas RX rx-*-elf
1118
1119* New Simulators
1120
1121Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1122Renesas RX rx
1123
1124* Multi-program debugging.
1125
1126 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1127 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1128 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1129 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1130 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1131 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1132 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1133 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1134
1135* New tracing features
1136
1137 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1138
1139 ** Trace state variables
1140
1141 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1142 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1143 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1144 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1145 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1146 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1147 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1148 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1149 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1150 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1151
1152 ** Fast tracepoints
1153
1154 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1155 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1156 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1157 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1158 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1159 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1160 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1161 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1162 the regular trace command.
1163
1164 ** Disconnected tracing
1165
1166 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1167 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1168 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1169 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1170 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1171
1172 ** Trace files
1173
1174 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1175 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1176 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1177 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1178 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1179 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1180 <name>".
1181
1182 ** Circular trace buffer
1183
1184 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1185 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1186 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1187 not be available for all target agents.
1188
1189* Changed commands
1190
1191disassemble
1192 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1193 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1194
1195info variables
1196 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1197 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1198
1199source
1200 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1201 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1202 support.
1203
1204 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1205 "set script-extension" (see below).
1206
1207* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1208
1209record save [<FILENAME>]
1210 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1211 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1212
1213record restore <FILENAME>
1214 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1215 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1216
1217add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1218 Add a new inferior.
1219
1220clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1221 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1222 inferior has loaded.
1223
1224remove-inferior ID
1225 Remove an inferior.
1226
1227maint info program-spaces
1228 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1229
1230set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1231show remote interrupt-sequence
1232 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1233 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1234 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1235 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1236 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1237
1238set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1239show remote interrupt-on-connect
1240 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1241 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1242 Linux kernel.
1243
1244set remotebreak [on | off]
1245show remotebreak
1246Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1247
1248tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1249 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1250
1251info tvariables
1252 List trace state variables and their values.
1253
1254delete tvariable $NAME ...
1255 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1256
1257teval EXPR, ...
1258 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1259 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1260
1261ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1262 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1263
1264* New expression syntax
1265
1266 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1267 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1268
1269* New options
1270
1271set follow-exec-mode new|same
1272show follow-exec-mode
1273 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1274 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1275 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1276
1277set default-collect EXPR, ...
1278show default-collect
1279 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1280 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1281 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1282
1283set disconnected-tracing
1284show disconnected-tracing
1285 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1286 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1287 upon disconnection.
1288
1289set circular-trace-buffer
1290show circular-trace-buffer
1291 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1292 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1293 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1294 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1295
1296set script-extension off|soft|strict
1297show script-extension
1298 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1299 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1300 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1301 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1302 evaluation failed.
1303 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1304
1305set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1306show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1307 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1308 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1309 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1310 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1311 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1312 is on.
1313
1314* Python API Improvements
1315
1316 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1317 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1318 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1319
1320 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1321 `is_base_class' attribute.
1322
1323 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1324
1325 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1326 evaluate an expression.
1327
1328* New remote packets
1329
1330QTDV
1331 Define a trace state variable.
1332
1333qTV
1334 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1335
1336QTDisconnected
1337 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1338
1339QTBuffer:circular
1340 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1341
1342qTfP, qTsP
1343 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1344
1345* Bug fixes
1346
1347Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1348
1349Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1350much more reliable. In particular:
1351 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1352 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1353 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1354 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1355 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1356 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1357 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1358 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1359 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1360 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1361 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1362 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1363 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1364 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1365 non-threaded programs.
1366
1367PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1368This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1369libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1370executable program.
1371
1372*** Changes in GDB 7.0
1373
1374* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1375dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1376them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1377for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1378"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1379
1380* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1381breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1382or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1383the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1384for tracepoint actions.
1385
1386* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1387raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1388modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1389
1390* Process record and replay
1391
1392 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1393 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1394 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1395 execute commands.
1396
1397* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1398step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1399set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1400reverse execution.
1401
1402* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1403feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
14042.6.28 or later.
1405
1406* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1407target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1408char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1409literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1410U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1411`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1412system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1413the installation instructions for more information.
1414
1415* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1416remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1417with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1418the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1419
1420* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1421and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1422
1423* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1424now complete on file names.
1425
1426* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1427completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1428For instance, consider:
1429
1430 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1431 # struct example variable;
1432 (gdb) p variable.
1433
1434If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1435completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1436
1437* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1438the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1439
1440* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1441operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1442macros.
1443
1444* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1445the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1446implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1447
1448* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1449registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1450can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1451and simulator targets may also provide them.
1452
1453* New remote packets
1454
1455qSearch:memory:
1456 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1457
1458QStartNoAckMode
1459 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1460 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1461 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1462
1463vKill
1464 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1465 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1466
1467qXfer:osdata:read
1468 Obtains additional operating system information
1469
1470qXfer:siginfo:read
1471qXfer:siginfo:write
1472 Read or write additional signal information.
1473
1474* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1475
1476 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1477 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1478 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1479
1480* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1481DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1482
1483* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1484and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1485`set/show sh calling-convention'.
1486
1487* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1488with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1489
1490* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1491
1492* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1493
1494* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1495which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1496
1497* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1498list of section offsets.
1499
1500* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1501conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1502have also been fixed.
1503
1504* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1505From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1506are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1507
1508* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1509example, given:
1510
1511 template<typename T> class C { };
1512 C<char const *> c;
1513
1514GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1515
1516 ptype C<char const *>
1517 ptype C<char const*>
1518 ptype C<const char *>
1519 ptype C<const char*>
1520
1521* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1522
1523 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1524 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1525
1526 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1527 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1528 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1529
1530 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1531 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1532
1533 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1534 gdbserver.
1535
1536 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1537 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1538
1539 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1540 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1541 as appropriate.
1542
1543* Python scripting
1544
1545 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1546 available is determined at configure time.
1547
1548 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1549
1550* Ada tasking support
1551
1552 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1553 been introduced:
1554
1555 info tasks
1556 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1557 info task N
1558 Print detailed information about task number N.
1559 task
1560 Print the task number of the current task.
1561 task N
1562 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1563
1564* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1565add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1566
1567* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1568
1569 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1570 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1571 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1572 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1573 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1574 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1575 below.
1576
1577* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1578"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1579information.
1580
1581* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1582to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1583architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1584See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1585more information.
1586
1587* Multi-architecture debugging.
1588
1589 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1590 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1591 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1592 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1593 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1594
1595* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1596use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1597Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1598powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1599--enable-targets configure option.
1600
1601* Non-stop mode debugging.
1602
1603 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1604 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1605 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1606 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1607 section in the user manual for more information.
1608
1609 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1610 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1611 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1612 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1613 extensions on linux targets.
1614
1615* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1616
1617catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1618 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1619 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1620 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1621 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1622 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1623 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1624 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1625 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1626
1627find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1628 val1 [, val2, ...]
1629 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1630
1631maint set python print-stack
1632maint show python print-stack
1633 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1634
1635python [CODE]
1636 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1637
1638macro define
1639macro list
1640macro undef
1641 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1642 interactively.
1643
1644info os processes
1645 Show operating system information about processes.
1646
1647info inferiors
1648 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1649
1650inferior NUM
1651 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1652
1653detach inferior NUM
1654 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1655
1656kill inferior NUM
1657 Kill inferior number NUM.
1658
1659* New options
1660
1661set spu stop-on-load
1662show spu stop-on-load
1663 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1664
1665set spu auto-flush-cache
1666show spu auto-flush-cache
1667 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1668 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1669
1670set sh calling-convention
1671show sh calling-convention
1672 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1673
1674set debug timestamp
1675show debug timestamp
1676 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1677
1678set disassemble-next-line
1679show disassemble-next-line
1680 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1681 the debuggee stops.
1682
1683set remote noack-packet
1684show remote noack-packet
1685 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1686 under "New remote packets."
1687
1688set remote query-attached-packet
1689show remote query-attached-packet
1690 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1691
1692set remote read-siginfo-object
1693show remote read-siginfo-object
1694 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1695 packet.
1696
1697set remote write-siginfo-object
1698show remote write-siginfo-object
1699 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1700 packet.
1701
1702set remote reverse-continue
1703show remote reverse-continue
1704 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1705
1706set remote reverse-step
1707show remote reverse-step
1708 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1709
1710set displaced-stepping
1711show displaced-stepping
1712 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1713 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1714 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1715
1716set debug displaced
1717show debug displaced
1718 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1719
1720maint set internal-error
1721maint show internal-error
1722 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1723
1724maint set internal-warning
1725maint show internal-warning
1726 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1727
1728set exec-wrapper
1729show exec-wrapper
1730unset exec-wrapper
1731 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1732
1733set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1734show multiple-symbols
1735 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1736 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1737 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1738
1739set breakpoint always-inserted
1740show breakpoint always-inserted
1741 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1742 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1743 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1744
1745set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1746show arm fallback-mode
1747set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1748show arm force-mode
1749 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1750 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1751 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1752 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1753
1754set disable-randomization
1755show disable-randomization
1756 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1757 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1758 multiple debugging sessions.
1759
1760set non-stop
1761show non-stop
1762 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1763 a breakpoint.
1764
1765set target-async
1766show target-async
1767 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1768 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1769 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1770 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1771
1772set target-wide-charset
1773show target-wide-charset
1774 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1775 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1776
1777set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1778show tcp auto-retry
1779set tcp connect-timeout
1780show tcp connect-timeout
1781 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1782 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1783 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1784
1785set libthread-db-search-path
1786show libthread-db-search-path
1787 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1788 libthread_db.
1789
1790set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1791show schedule-multiple
1792 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1793 the current process.
1794
1795set stack-cache
1796show stack-cache
1797 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1798 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1799 affecting correctness.
1800
1801set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1802show interactive-mode
1803 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1804 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1805 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1806 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1807 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1808
1809* Removed commands
1810
1811info forks
1812 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1813 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1814 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1815 command.
1816
1817fork NUM
1818 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1819 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1820 alias for the `fork' command.
1821
1822process PID
1823 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1824 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1825 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1826
1827delete fork NUM
1828 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1829 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1830 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1831 fork' command.
1832
1833detach fork NUM
1834 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1835 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1836 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1837 fork' command.
1838
1839* New native configurations
1840
1841x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1842
1843x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1844
1845* New targets
1846
1847Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1848x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1849x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1850S+core 3 score-*-*
1851
1852* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1853 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1854
1855* Removed commands
1856
1857catch load
1858catch unload
1859 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1860
1861*** Changes in GDB 6.8
1862
1863* New native configurations
1864
1865NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1866Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1867
1868* New targets
1869
1870NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1871Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1872
1873* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1874
1875 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1876 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1877 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1878 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1879
1880* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1881(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1882
1883* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1884is resolved.
1885
1886* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1887including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1888and in inlined functions.
1889
1890* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1891accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1892more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1893
1894* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1895
1896* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1897registers on PowerPC targets.
1898
1899* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1900targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1901
1902* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1903commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1904
1905* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1906extended-remote mode.
1907
1908* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1909The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1910error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1911The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1912
1913* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1914building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1915target architectures.
1916
1917* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1918Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1919now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1920stored in two consecutive float registers.
1921
1922* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1923breakpoints now.
1924
1925* Improved support for debugging Ada
1926Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1927include:
1928 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1929 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1930 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1931 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1932 of an assignment
1933 - Improved command completion in Ada
1934 - Several bug fixes
1935
1936* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1937process.
1938
1939* New commands
1940
1941set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1942show print frame-arguments
1943 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1944 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1945
1946remote put
1947remote get
1948remote delete
1949 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1950
1951* New MI commands
1952
1953-target-file-put
1954-target-file-get
1955-target-file-delete
1956 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1957
1958* New remote packets
1959
1960vFile:open:
1961vFile:close:
1962vFile:pread:
1963vFile:pwrite:
1964vFile:unlink:
1965 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1966
1967vAttach
1968 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1969 mode.
1970
1971vRun
1972 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1973
1974*** Changes in GDB 6.7
1975
1976* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1977bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1978Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1979
1980* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1981symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1982-Bsymbolic linker option.
1983
1984* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1985recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1986is not supported.
1987
1988* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1989frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1990
1991* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
199232-bit or 64-bit register values.
1993
1994* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1995
1996* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1997target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1998a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1999
2000* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2001automatically displayed as character or string data.
2002
2003* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2004arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2005as strings.
2006
2007* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2008for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2009only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2010
2011* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2012iWMMXt coprocessor.
2013
2014* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2015ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2016has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2017
2018* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2019
2020* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2021
2022* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2023layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2024segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2025
2026* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2027immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2028
2029* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2030"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2031packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2032where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2033Windows and SymbianOS).
2034
2035* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2036(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2037
2038* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2039according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2040
2041* New commands
2042
2043set remoteflow
2044show remoteflow
2045 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2046 when debugging using remote targets.
2047
2048set mem inaccessible-by-default
2049show mem inaccessible-by-default
2050 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2051 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2052 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2053 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2054 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2055
2056set breakpoint auto-hw
2057show breakpoint auto-hw
2058 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2059 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2060 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2061 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2062 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2063 including "next" and "finish".
2064
2065catch exception
2066catch exception unhandled
2067 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2068
2069catch assert
2070 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2071
2072set sysroot
2073show sysroot
2074 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2075 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2076 an alias to "set sysroot".
2077
2078info spu
2079 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2080 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2081 architecture.
2082
2083* New native configurations
2084
2085OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2086
2087set tdesc filename
2088unset tdesc filename
2089show tdesc filename
2090 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2091 not query the target for its built-in description.
2092
2093* New targets
2094
2095OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2096MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2097Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2098
2099* New remote packets
2100
2101QPassSignals:
2102 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2103 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2104
2105qXfer:features:read:
2106 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2107 features.
2108
2109qXfer:spu:read:
2110qXfer:spu:write:
2111 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2112 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2113
2114qXfer:libraries:read:
2115 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2116 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2117 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2118 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2119
2120* Removed targets
2121
2122Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2123
2124alpha*-*-osf1*
2125alpha*-*-osf2*
2126d10v-*-*
2127hppa*-*-hiux*
2128i[34567]86-ncr-*
2129i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2130i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2131i[34567]86-*-netware*
2132i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2133i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2134i[34567]86-*-sco*
2135i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2136i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2137i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2138i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2139i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2140i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2141i[34567]86-*-isc*
2142m68*-cisco*-*
2143m68*-tandem-*
2144mips*-*-pe
2145rs6000-*-lynxos*
2146sh*-*-pe
2147
2148* Other removed features
2149
2150target abug
2151target cpu32bug
2152target est
2153target rom68k
2154
2155 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2156
2157target hms
2158target e7000
2159target sh3
2160target sh3e
2161
2162 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2163 H8/300.
2164
2165target ocd
2166
2167 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2168 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2169 interfaces.
2170
2171DWARF 1 support
2172
2173 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2174 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2175
2176Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2177
2178 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2179 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2180 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2181 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2182
2183MIPS ".pdr" sections
2184
2185 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2186 in debugging information.
2187
2188Scheme support
2189
2190 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2191 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2192
2193set mips stack-arg-size
2194set mips saved-gpreg-size
2195
2196 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2197
2198*** Changes in GDB 6.6
2199
2200* New targets
2201
2202Xtensa xtensa-elf
2203Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2204
2205* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2206(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2207running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2208
2209* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2210Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2211supported.
2212
2213* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2214broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2215
2216* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2217stub provides the required support.
2218
2219* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2220longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2221
2222* New commands
2223
2224set substitute-path
2225unset substitute-path
2226show substitute-path
2227 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2228 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2229 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2230 between compilation and debugging.
2231
2232set trace-commands
2233show trace-commands
2234 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2235 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2236 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2237
2238* REMOVED features
2239
2240The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2241
2242Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2243an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2244
2245The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2246
2247* New remote packets
2248
2249qSupported:
2250 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2251 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2252 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2253 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2254 target.
2255
2256qXfer:auxv:read:
2257 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2258 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2259
2260qXfer:memory-map:read:
2261 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2262 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2263
2264vFlashErase:
2265vFlashWrite:
2266vFlashDone:
2267 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2268
2269* Removed remote packets
2270
2271qPart:auxv:read:
2272 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2273 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2274
2275*** Changes in GDB 6.5
2276
2277* New targets
2278
2279Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2280
2281Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2282
2283* New commands
2284
2285init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2286 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2287
2288The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2289
2290checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2291
2292restart <n> Return the program state to a
2293 previously saved state.
2294
2295info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2296
2297delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2298
2299set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2300 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2301
2302info forks List forks of the user program that
2303 are available to be debugged.
2304
2305fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2306 forks of the user program that are
2307 available to be debugged.
2308
2309delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2310 that are available to be debugged (and
2311 kill the forked process).
2312
2313detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2314 that are available to be debugged (and
2315 allow the process to continue).
2316
2317* New architecture
2318
2319Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2320
2321* Improved Windows host support
2322
2323GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2324native console support, and remote communications using either
2325network sockets or serial ports.
2326
2327* Improved Modula-2 language support
2328
2329GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2330basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2331pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2332printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2333written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2334GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2335
2336* REMOVED features
2337
2338The ARM rdi-share module.
2339
2340The Netware NLM debug server.
2341
2342*** Changes in GDB 6.4
2343
2344* New native configurations
2345
2346OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2347OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2348
2349* New targets
2350
2351Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2352
2353* New command line options
2354
2355--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2356--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2357 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2358--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2359 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2360 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2361 with the --command (-x) option.
2362
2363* Deprecated commands removed
2364
2365The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2366removed:
2367
2368 Command Replacement
2369 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2370 othernames set arm disassembler
2371 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2372 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2373 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2374 regs info registers
2375
2376* New BSD user-level threads support
2377
2378It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2379library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2380configurations are:
2381
2382FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2383FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2384OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2385
2386Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2387are not yet supported.
2388
2389* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2390(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2391
2392* REMOVED configurations and files
2393
2394VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2395Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2396National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2397
2398* New "set print array-indexes" command
2399
2400After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2401when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2402behavior.
2403
2404* VAX floating point support
2405
2406GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2407
2408* User-defined command support
2409
2410In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2411to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2412section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2413
2414*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2415
2416* New command line option
2417
2418GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2419debugging.
2420
2421* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2422
2423GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2424information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2425by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2426proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2427to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2428
2429* Internationalization
2430
2431When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2432internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2433continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2434
2435* Ada
2436
2437Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2438implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2439into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2440
2441* New native configurations
2442
2443GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2444
2445* Remote 'p' packet
2446
2447GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2448packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2449
2450* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2451
2452GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2453The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2454features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2455i386 application).
2456
2457GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2458compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2459continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2460configurations:
2461
2462hppa-*-hpux
2463ia64-*-aix
2464mips-*-irix*
2465*-*-lynx
2466mips-*-linux-gnu
2467sds protocol
2468xdr protocol
2469powerpc bdm protocol
2470
2471Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2472made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2473
2474* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2475
2476Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2477been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2478configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2479permanently REMOVED.
2480
2481h8300-*-*
2482mcore-*-*
2483mn10300-*-*
2484ns32k-*-*
2485sh64-*-*
2486v850-*-*
2487
2488*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2489
2490* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2491
2492When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2493heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2494been fixed.
2495
2496* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2497
2498When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2499fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2500IRIX long double values).
2501
2502* VAX and "next"
2503
2504A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2505command. This problem has been fixed.
2506
2507*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2508
2509* Fix for ``many threads''
2510
2511On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2512rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2513error message:
2514
2515 ptrace: No such process.
2516 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2517
2518This problem has been fixed.
2519
2520* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2521
2522Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2523GDB to dump core).
2524
2525* New ``start'' command.
2526
2527This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2528
2529* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2530
2531Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2532live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2533platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2534
2535FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2536FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2537NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2538NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2539NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2540OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2541OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2542OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2543OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2544
2545* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2546
2547Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2548These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2549of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2550call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2551signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2552
2553Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2554features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2555include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2556
2557* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2558
2559* New native configurations
2560
2561GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2562OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2563OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2564OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2565OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2566NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2567OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2568
2569* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2570
2571GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2572The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2573including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2574migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2575compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2576work, was also included.
2577
2578GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2579module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2580
2581h8300-*-*
2582mcore-*-*
2583mn10300-*-*
2584ns32k-*-*
2585sh64-*-*
2586v850-*-*
2587xstormy16-*-*
2588
2589Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2590made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2591
2592* REMOVED configurations and files
2593
2594Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2595Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2596Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2597Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2598Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2599AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2600Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2601decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2602riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2603sonymips mips-sony-*
2604sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2605
2606*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2607
2608* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2609
2610The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2611GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2612command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2613program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2614with GDB".
2615
2616* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2617
2618Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2619libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2620cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2621GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2622shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2623the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2624are created.
2625
2626Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2627
2628* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2629
2630The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2631non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2632compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2633
2634* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2635
2636Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2637wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2638
2639* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2640
2641The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2642permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2643systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2644
2645* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2646
2647Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2648has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2649
2650* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2651
2652GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2653its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2654panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2655
2656* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2657
2658When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2659by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2660not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2661
2662*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2663
2664* Removed --with-mmalloc
2665
2666Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2667conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2668
2669* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2670
2671The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2672the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2673and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2674you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2675
2676* Revised SPARC target
2677
2678The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2679FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2680support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2681from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2682(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2683
2684* New C++ demangler
2685
2686GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2687names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2688with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2689programs.
2690
2691* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2692
2693GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2694arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2695encountered these.
2696
2697* C++ nested types and namespaces
2698
2699GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2700improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2701is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2702Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2703namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2704"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2705frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2706if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2707GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2708
2709* New native configurations
2710
2711NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2712OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2713OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2714OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2715OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2716
2717* New debugging protocols
2718
2719M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2720
2721* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2722
2723The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2724and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2725tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2726
2727* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2728
2729Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2730been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2731configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2732permanently REMOVED.
2733
2734Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2735Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2736Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2737Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2738Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2739AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2740Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2741decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2742riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2743sonymips mips-sony-*
2744sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2745
2746* REMOVED configurations and files
2747
2748SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2749SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2750Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2751Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2752H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2753HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2754HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2755HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2756PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2757386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2758Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2759 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2760 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2761SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2762SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2763Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2764Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2765
2766*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2767
2768* Objective-C
2769
2770Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2771integrated into GDB.
2772
2773* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2774
2775DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2776information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2777By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2778backtraces.
2779
2780The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2781have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2782DWARF 2 CFI support.
2783
2784* Hosted file I/O.
2785
2786GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2787file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2788remote protocol documentation for details.
2789
2790* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2791
2792All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2793architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2794to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2795ppc32 on ppc64).
2796
2797* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2798
2799GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2800per-thread variables.
2801
2802* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2803
2804GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2805GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2806
2807* Separate debug info.
2808
2809GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2810automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2811of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2812system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2813and optional debug files.
2814
2815* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2816
2817DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2818describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2819debugger.
2820
2821GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2822for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2823
2824* Java
2825
2826A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2827Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2828considered "useable".
2829
2830* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2831
2832The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2833commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2834kernel.
2835
2836* GDB supports logging output to a file
2837
2838There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2839used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2840
2841* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2842
2843The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2844disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2845command.
2846
2847* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2848
2849The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2850registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2851
2852* Profiling support
2853
2854A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2855be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2856session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2857"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2858data, for more informative profiling results.
2859
2860* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2861
2862The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2863option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2864"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2865
2866Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2867removed.
2868
2869Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2870Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2871Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2872 in a subsequent -var-update.
2873
2874* New native configurations.
2875
2876FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2877
2878* Multi-arched targets.
2879
2880HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2881Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2882
2883* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2884
2885Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2886been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2887configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2888permanently REMOVED.
2889
2890Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2891Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2892H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2893HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2894HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2895HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2896PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2897Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2898 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2899 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2900Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2901Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2902
2903* REMOVED configurations and files
2904
2905V850EA ISA
2906Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2907IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2908i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2909i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2910i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2911HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2912 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2913 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2914Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2915Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2916Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2917OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2918I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2919
2920* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2921
2922The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2923the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2924context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2925address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2926The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2927
2928*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2929
2930* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2931
2932When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2933`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2934in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2935library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2936shared libs like mad''.
2937
2938* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2939
2940Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2941the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2942arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2943powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2944
2945* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2946
2947GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2948and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2949they expand.
2950
2951The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2952invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2953
2954The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2955macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2956
2957Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2958information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2959your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2960information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2961
2962* Multi-arched targets.
2963
2964DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2965DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2966NEC V850 v850-*-*
2967National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2968Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2969Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2970
2971* New targets.
2972
2973Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2974
2975
2976* New native configurations
2977
2978Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2979SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2980MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2981UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2982
2983* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2984
2985Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2986been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2987configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2988permanently REMOVED.
2989
2990Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2991OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2992IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2993Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2994Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2995Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2996i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2997i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2998i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2999HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3000 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3001 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3002I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3003
3004* OBSOLETE languages
3005
3006CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3007
3008* REMOVED configurations and files
3009
3010AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3011A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3012AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3013AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3014AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3015
3016testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3017
3018* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3019
3020This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3021commands. The default is 1024.
3022
3023* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3024
3025Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3026
3027* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3028
3029These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3030to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3031from a file into memory (restore).
3032
3033* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3034
3035The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3036including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3037of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3038
3039*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3040
3041* New targets.
3042
3043Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3044
3045* Bug fixes
3046
3047gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3048mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3049Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3050
3051gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3052dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3053Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3054
3055Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3056Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3057By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3058
3059i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3060avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3061By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3062
3063*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3064
3065* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3066
3067This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3068really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3069In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3070target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3071This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3072(notably embedded) targets.
3073
3074* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3075
3076This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3077process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3078GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3079hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3080
3081* New command line option
3082
3083GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3084
3085* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3086
3087There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3088command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3089a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3090be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3091open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3092issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3093a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3094it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3095GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3096is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3097
3098* Changes in ARM configurations.
3099
3100Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3101configuration is fully multi-arch.
3102
3103* New native configurations
3104
3105ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3106x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3107AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3108Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3109
3110* New targets
3111
3112Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3113
3114* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3115
3116Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3117been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3118configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3119permanently REMOVED.
3120
3121AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3122A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3123AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3124AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3125AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3126
3127testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3128
3129* REMOVED configurations and files
3130
3131TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3132WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3133PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3134PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3135PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3136Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3137Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3138 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3139SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3140Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3141Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3142ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3143Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3144
3145* Changes to command line processing
3146
3147The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3148for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3149
3150* Changes to key bindings
3151
3152There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3153
3154*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3155
3156Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3157
3158Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3159corrupted.
3160
3161Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3162
3163Numerous documentation fixes.
3164
3165Numerous testsuite fixes.
3166
3167*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3168
3169* New native configurations
3170
3171Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3172x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3173MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3174MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3175ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3176s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3177
3178* New targets
3179
3180Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3181CRIS cris-axis
3182UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3183
3184* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3185
3186x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3187Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3188Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3189 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3190TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3191WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3192Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3193PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3194PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3195PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3196SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3197Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3198ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3199Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3200
3201stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3202kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3203
3204Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3205been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3206configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3207permanently REMOVED.
3208
3209* REMOVED configurations and files
3210
3211Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3212Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3213Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3214ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3215Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3216ser-ocd.c *-*-*
3217
3218* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3219
3220GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3221sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3222present.
3223
3224* Other news:
3225
3226* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3227
3228* The MI enabled by default.
3229
3230The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3231revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3232engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3233using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3234which is now deprecated.
3235
3236* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3237
3238GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3239main features are supported:
3240
3241 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3242
3243 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3244 extension;
3245
3246 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3247
3248 - a Pascal expression parser.
3249
3250However, some important features are not yet supported.
3251
3252 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3253
3254 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3255
3256 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3257 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3258
3259 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3260
3261 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3262
3263* Changes in completion.
3264
3265Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3266to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3267users expect at the shell prompt.
3268
3269Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3270`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3271program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3272files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3273be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3274considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3275name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3276
3277`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3278
3279* New platform-independent commands:
3280
3281It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3282hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3283documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3284
3285* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3286
3287Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3288revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3289many threads as your system allows you to have.
3290
3291Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3292
3293Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3294multi-threaded programs though.
3295
3296* Changes in MIPS configurations.
3297
3298Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3299
3300GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3301debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3302supported.)
3303
3304* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3305
3306Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3307breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3308implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3309put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3310and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3311registers.
3312
3313The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3314debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3315watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3316
3317* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3318
3319New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3320the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3321
3322New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3323display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3324IDT.
3325
3326New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3327from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3328New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3329a given linear address.
3330
3331GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3332program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3333which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3334
3335DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3336
3337It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3338
3339* Changes in documentation.
3340
3341All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3342Documentation License.
3343
3344Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3345manual.
3346
3347TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3348
3349Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3350manual.
3351
3352The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3353documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3354hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3355
3356* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3357
3358The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3359``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3360contents of this file.
3361
3362* gdba.el deleted
3363
3364GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3365
3366*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3367
3368* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3369
3370Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3371programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3372displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3373greater level of detail.
3374
3375* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3376
3377It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3378bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3379on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3380written.
3381
3382* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3383
3384The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3385necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3386machines ``out of the box''.
3387
3388The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3389possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3390signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3391would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3392interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3393
3394It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3395standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3396even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3397and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3398terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3399
3400The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3401enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3402also works.
3403
3404DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3405GDB.
3406
3407It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3408directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3409times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3410breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3411
3412* New native configurations
3413
3414ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3415PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3416
3417* New targets
3418
3419Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3420x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3421PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3422TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3423
3424* OBSOLETE configurations
3425
3426Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3427Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3428Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3429ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3430Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3431
3432Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3433but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3434these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3435be permanently REMOVED.
3436
3437* Gould support removed
3438
3439Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3440
3441* New features for SVR4
3442
3443On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3444without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3445load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3446
3447* Many C++ enhancements
3448
3449C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3450in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3451
3452* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3453
3454A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3455sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3456with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3457``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3458
3459 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3460 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3461
3462* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3463
3464A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3465expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3466instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3467
3468The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3469added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3470
3471* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3472
3473The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3474``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3475include ``set remote P-packet''.
3476
3477* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3478
3479The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3480accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3481``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3482
3483* ``apropos'' command added.
3484
3485The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3486documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3487try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3488
3489* New MI interface
3490
3491A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3492interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3493process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3494"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3495enabled by configuring with:
3496
3497 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3498
3499*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3500
3501* New native configurations
3502
3503HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3504HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3505M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3506
3507* New targets
3508
3509Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3510Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3511Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3512
3513* OBSOLETE configurations
3514
3515Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3516
3517Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3518but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3519these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3520be permanently REMOVED.
3521
3522* ANSI/ISO C
3523
3524As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3525buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3526containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3527use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3528available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3529configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3530information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3531already.
3532
3533* Readline 2.2
3534
3535GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3536
3537* set extension-language
3538
3539You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3540languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3541you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3542 set extension-language .c c++
3543The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3544and their associated languages.
3545
3546* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3547
3548When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3549you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3550PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3551
3552 set processor NAME
3553
3554sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3555following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3556
3557 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3558 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3559 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3560 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3561 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3562 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3563 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3564 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3565 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3566 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3567 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3568
3569At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3570special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3571registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3572only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3573
3574* HP-UX support
3575
3576Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3577more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3578library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3579support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3580for xdb and dbx commands.
3581
3582* Catchpoints
3583
3584HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3585generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3586to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3587
3588This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3589argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3590output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3591
3592* Debugging across forks
3593
3594On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3595in the inferior.
3596
3597* TUI
3598
3599HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3600it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3601configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3602
3603* GDB remote protocol additions
3604
3605A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3606Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3607fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3608allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3609
3610For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3611full 64-bit address. The command
3612
3613 set remoteaddresssize 32
3614
3615can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3616the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3617will be discarded.
3618
3619In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3620command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3621
3622 maint packet heythere
3623
3624sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3625disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3626time.
3627
3628The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3629target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3630downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3631
3632* Tracing can collect general expressions
3633
3634You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3635further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3636doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3637
3638* mask-address variable for Mips
3639
3640For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3641a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3642of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3643
3644* Higher serial baud rates
3645
3646GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3647230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3648to achieve all of these rates.)
3649
3650* i960 simulator
3651
3652The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3653builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3654
3655
3656*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3657
3658* New native configurations
3659
3660Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3661Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3662Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3663PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3664PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3665Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3666Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3667
3668* New targets
3669
3670Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3671Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3672Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3673Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3674MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3675MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3676MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3677Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3678Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3679Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3680NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3681
3682* New debugging protocols
3683
3684ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3685M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3686DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3687PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3688PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3689Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3690
3691* DWARF 2
3692
3693All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3694format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3695information.
3696
3697* Java frontend
3698
3699GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3700only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3701
3702* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3703
3704For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3705loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3706locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3707
3708* Live range splitting
3709
3710GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3711range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3712more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3713
3714* Hurd support
3715
3716GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3717updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3718
3719* ARM Thumb support
3720
3721GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3722instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3723instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3724accordingly.
3725
3726* MIPS16 support
3727
3728GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3729instruction set.
3730
3731* Overlay support
3732
3733GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3734linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3735will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3736control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3737additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3738in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3739
3740* info symbol
3741
3742The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3743the symbol at the specified address.
3744
3745* Trace support
3746
3747The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3748asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3749extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3750includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3751file tracepoint.c for more details.
3752
3753* MIPS simulator
3754
3755Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3756by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3757of most MIPS variants.
3758
3759* Sparc simulator
3760
3761Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3762by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3763Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3764
3765* set architecture
3766
3767For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3768basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3769architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3770the possible architectures.
3771
3772*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3773
3774* New native configurations
3775
3776Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3777M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3778PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3779PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3780PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3781RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3782
3783* New targets
3784
3785ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3786I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3787MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3788MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3789PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3790Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3791Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3792
3793* PowerPC simulator
3794
3795The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3796contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3797PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3798basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3799performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3800
3801* Solaris 2.5
3802
3803GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3804
3805* Windows 95/NT native
3806
3807GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3808To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3809which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3810Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3811ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3812
3813* dont-repeat command
3814
3815If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3816command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3817useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3818extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3819
3820* Send break instead of ^C
3821
3822The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3823rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3824GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3825
3826* Remote protocol timeout
3827
3828The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3829that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3830to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3831
3832* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3833
3834By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3835loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3836stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3837when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3838in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3839
3840Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3841/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3842automatically on hpux10.
3843
3844* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3845
3846Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3847
3848* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3849
3850When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3851may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3852the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3853every character. The default value is 1050.
3854
3855* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3856
3857If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3858a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3859replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3860details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3861remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3862to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3863
3864* Speedups for remote debugging
3865
3866GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3867the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3868and more efficient S-record downloading.
3869
3870* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3871
3872GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3873Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3874
3875*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3876
3877* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3878
3879The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3880can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3881
3882* Remote targets use caching
3883
3884Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3885remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3886it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3887debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3888off' turns the the data cache off.
3889
3890* Remote targets may have threads
3891
3892The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3893in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3894gdb/remote.c for details.
3895
3896* NetROM support
3897
3898If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3899support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3900acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3901write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3902support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3903another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3904sequence is something like
3905
3906 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3907 load <prog>
3908 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3909
3910* Macintosh host
3911
3912GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3913may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3914it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3915available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3916device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3917directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3918scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3919mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3920
3921* Autoconf
3922
3923GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3924but does simplify configuration and building.
3925
3926* hpux10
3927
3928GDB now supports hpux10.
3929
3930*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3931
3932* New native configurations
3933
3934x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3935x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3936NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3937Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3938
3939* New targets
3940
3941A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3942HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3943CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3944PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3945WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3946
3947* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3948
3949GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3950possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3951filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3952the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3953if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3954
3955* Arguments to user-defined commands
3956
3957User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3958Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3959trivial example:
3960define adder
3961 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3962
3963To execute the command use:
3964adder 1 2 3
3965
3966Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3967Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3968use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3969
3970* New `if' and `while' commands
3971
3972This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3973commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3974expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3975execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3976terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3977`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3978if the expression is zero.
3979
3980* Fortran source language mode
3981
3982GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3983Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3984variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3985with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3986Fortran compilers.
3987
3988* Better HPUX support
3989
3990Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3991running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3992processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3993for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3994that behavior do the following before running the program:
3995
3996 adb -w a.out
3997 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3998 control-d
3999
4000This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4001To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4002
4003 adb -w a.out
4004 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4005 control-d
4006
4007You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4008the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4009external linkage.
4010
4011GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4012HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4013
4014* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4015
4016You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4017commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4018current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4019"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4020associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4021configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4022
4023* New DOS host serial code
4024
4025This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4026no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4027a PC's serial port.
4028
4029*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4030
4031* New "complete" command
4032
4033This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4034were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4035
4036* Trailing space optional in prompt
4037
4038"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4039allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4040
4041* Breakpoint hit counts
4042
4043"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4044has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4045can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4046to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4047less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4048that breakpoint.
4049
4050* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4051
4052"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4053an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4054arrays actually contain only short strings.
4055
4056* Shared library breakpoints
4057
4058In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4059breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4060
4061* Hardware watchpoints
4062
4063There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4064targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4065
4066Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4067
4068* Annotations
4069
4070Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4071and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4072
4073* Improved Irix 5 support
4074
4075GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4076
4077* Improved HPPA support
4078
4079GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4080
4081* New native configurations
4082
4083Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4084HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4085Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4086RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4087
4088* New targets
4089
4090OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4091MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4092Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4093
4094* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4095
4096There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4097This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4098
4099* Fixes
4100
4101As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4102and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4103
4104*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4105
4106* Irix 5 is now supported
4107
4108* HPPA support
4109
4110GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4111to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4112GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4113of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4114can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4115
4116
4117*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4118
4119* User visible changes:
4120
4121* Remote Debugging
4122
4123The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4124target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4125debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4126integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4127debugging info for the mips target).
4128
4129* DEC Alpha native support
4130
4131GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4132debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4133work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4134Alpha-specific notes.
4135
4136* Preliminary thread implementation
4137
4138GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4139
4140* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4141
4142This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4143to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4144for details).
4145
4146* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4147
4148This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4149mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4150call methods, ...etc.
4151
4152*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4153
4154 * User visible changes:
4155
4156Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4157supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4158other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4159somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4160
4161Filename completion now works.
4162
4163When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4164arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4165addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4166
4167All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4168vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4169should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4170your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4171to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4172
4173 * DEC alpha support
4174
4175This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4176cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4177
4178
4179*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4180
4181 * Testsuite
4182
4183This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4184The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4185via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4186
4187 * C++ demangling
4188
4189'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4190emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4191Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4192disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4193use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4194
4195 * Simulators
4196
4197GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4198So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4199Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4200
4201 * New targets supported
4202
4203H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4204H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4205SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4206Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4207IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4208
4209Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4210version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4211GO32 memory extender.
4212
4213 * New remote protocols
4214
4215MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4216
4217 * New source languages supported
4218
4219This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4220used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4221into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4222
4223
4224*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4225
4226 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4227
4228GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4229version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4230University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4231compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4232format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4233(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4234
4235Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4236
4237 * Faster and better demangling
4238
4239We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4240demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4241character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4242only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4243This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4244increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4245symbol lookups.
4246
4247`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4248from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4249compiler does not actually implement.
4250
4251 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4252
4253In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4254inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4255recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4256very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4257The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4258circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4259fix.
4260
4261The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4262release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4263
4264 * Improved configure script
4265
4266The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4267you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4268host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4269done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4270
4271We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4272version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4273`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4274The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4275only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4276We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4277
4278 * Documentation improvements
4279
4280There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4281produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4282before submitting changes.
4283
4284The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4285M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4286`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4287you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4288a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4289
4290*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4291We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4292been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4293or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4294`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4295around this problem.
4296
4297 * New features
4298
4299GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4300the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4301`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4302the target program.
4303
4304The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4305how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4306
4307 * New native hosts supported
4308
4309HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4310386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4311
4312 * New targets supported
4313
4314AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4315
4316 * New file formats supported
4317
4318BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4319HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4320
4321 * Major bug fixes
4322
4323Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4324
4325We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4326printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4327
4328We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4329for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4330release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4331
4332You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4333will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4334
4335We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4336for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4337especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4338libraries.
4339
4340The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4341information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4342command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4343any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4344when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4345
4346 * Internal improvements
4347
4348GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4349debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4350
4351GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4352Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4353symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4354contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4355shared code that handles any of them.
4356
4357 * New command line options
4358
4359We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4360
4361 * Mmalloc licensing
4362
4363The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4364General Public License.
4365
4366*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4367
4368 * Host/native/target split
4369
4370GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4371hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4372target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4373local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4374ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4375
4376The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4377GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4378is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4379code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4380any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4381built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4382handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4383
4384GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4385It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4386plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4387
4388 * New hosts supported
4389
4390HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4391386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4392386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4393
4394 * New targets supported
4395
4396Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
439768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4398
4399 * New native hosts supported
4400
4401386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4402 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4403386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4404
4405 * New file formats supported
4406
4407BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4408supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4409format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4410
4411 * New commands
4412
4413`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4414`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4415These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4416
4417`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4418
4419You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4420scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4421prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4422executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4423
4424 * C++ improvements
4425
4426We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4427info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4428symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4429
4430Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4431
4432 * Major bug fixes
4433
4434The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4435fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4436by the compiler.
4437
4438We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4439support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4440
4441John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4442slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4443that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4444purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4445the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4446mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4447
4448Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4449about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4450completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4451we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4452
4453 * AMD 29k support
4454
4455A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4456specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4457calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4458usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4459in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4460
4461We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4462Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4463of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4464resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4465
4466 * Remote interfaces
4467
4468We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4469with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4470message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4471This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4472needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4473breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4474each instruction being stepped through.
4475
4476The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4477registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4478
4479There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4480find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4481Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4482processor with a serial port.
4483
4484 * Configuration
4485
4486Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4487`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4488supported, and what files each one uses.
4489
4490 * Library changes
4491
4492There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4493disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4494Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4495disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4496
4497The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4498Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4499can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4500grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4501
4502 * Documentation
4503
4504The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4505reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4506as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4507encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4508system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4509bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4510
4511And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4512
4513
4514*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4515
4516 * Better support for C++ function names
4517
4518GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4519names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4520(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4521single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4522Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4523
4524GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4525the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4526You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4527lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4528for the list of formats.
4529
4530 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4531
4532Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4533C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4534directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4535can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4536usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4537about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4538this problem.)
4539
4540 * New 'maintenance' command
4541
4542All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4543the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4544can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4545
4546 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4547 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4548 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4549 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4550 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4551 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4552
4553The following commands are new:
4554
4555 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4556 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4557 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4558
4559 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4560
4561We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4562(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4563be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4564read after argv processing.
4565
4566 * New hosts supported
4567
4568Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4569
4570GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4571
4572We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4573is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4574for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4575masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4576fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4577It costs extra.
4578
4579 * New targets supported
4580
4581Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4582
4583 * More smarts about finding #include files
4584
4585GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4586all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4587greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4588especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4589the one that contains your sources.
4590
4591We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4592breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4593try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4594
4595 * Interesting infernals change
4596
4597GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4598section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4599target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4600stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4601
4602 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4603
4604There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4605 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4606 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4607
4608See the ChangeLog for details.
4609
4610*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4611
4612 * New machines supported (host and target)
4613
4614IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4615
4616SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4617
4618 * New malloc package
4619
4620GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4621Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4622capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4623This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4624pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4625more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4626
4627 * info proc
4628
4629The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4630'help info proc' for details.
4631
4632 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4633
4634The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4635Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4636possible.
4637
4638 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4639
4640Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4641support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4642conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4643environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4644that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4645in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4646
4647 * Cross byte order fixes
4648
4649Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4650targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4651
4652 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4653
4654If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4655system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4656`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4657program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4658called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4659Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4660and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4661the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4662option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4663starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4664
4665You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4666the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4667information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4668slower, but makes future operations faster.
4669
4670The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4671build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4672A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4673use is:
4674
4675 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4676
4677The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4678It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4679shared across multiple host platforms.
4680
4681 * longjmp() handling
4682
4683GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4684siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4685all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4686platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4687
4688 * Solaris 2.0
4689
4690Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4691this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4692reading symbols.
4693
4694 * Bug fixes
4695
4696As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4697People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4698crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4699
4700*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4701
4702 * New machines supported (host and target)
4703
4704SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4705 (except core files)
4706BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4707Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4708
4709 * New machines supported (target)
4710
4711AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4712
4713 * C++ support
4714
4715GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4716The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4717per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4718
4719GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4720`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4721extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4722good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4723will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4724released.
4725
4726 * New features for SVR4
4727
4728GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4729shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4730only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4731
4732The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4733on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4734it prints the address mappings of the process.
4735
4736If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4737bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4738
4739 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4740
4741Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4742now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4743skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4744make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4745same code linked statically.
4746
4747 * New Getopt
4748
4749GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4750version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4751continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4752Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4753added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4754future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4755
4756 * Bugs fixed
4757
4758The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4759Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4760See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4761
4762
4763*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4764
4765 * New machines supported (host and target)
4766
4767Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4768NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4769Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4770
4771 * Almost SCO Unix support
4772
4773We had hoped to support:
4774SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4775(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4776that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4777about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4778
4779 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4780
4781GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4782debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4783is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4784send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4785reqired (if any).
4786
4787 * New Readline
4788
4789GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4790is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4791required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4792
4793 * Bugs fixed
4794
4795The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4796Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4797See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4798
4799 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4800
4801GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4802supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4803symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4804
4805Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4806mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4807debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4808mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4809version 2.
4810
4811Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4812really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4813line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4814variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4815situation somewhat.
4816
4817When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4818However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4819methods.
4820
4821We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4822DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4823encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4824
4825
4826*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4827
4828 * Improved configuration
4829
4830Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4831Porting BFD is simpler.
4832
4833 * Stepping improved
4834
4835The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4836of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4837in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4838function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4839
4840 * Bug fixing
4841
4842Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4843
4844 * New host supported (not target)
4845
4846Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4847
4848
4849*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4850
4851 * Multiple source language support
4852
4853GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4854It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4855and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4856language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4857You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4858`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4859
4860 * GDB and Modula-2
4861
4862GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4863currently under development at the State University of New York at
4864Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4865continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4866
4867Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4868debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4869symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4870
4871There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4872in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4873
4874 * set write on/off
4875
4876GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4877a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4878the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4879by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4880effect immediately.
4881
4882 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4883
4884When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4885shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4886The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4887examining core files.
4888
4889 * set listsize
4890
4891You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4892The default is 10.
4893
4894 * New machines supported (host and target)
4895
4896SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4897Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4898Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4899
4900 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4901
4902IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4903
4904 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4905
4906AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4907AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4908Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4909
4910 * New remote interfaces
4911
4912AMD 29000 Adapt
4913AMD 29000 Minimon
4914
4915
4916*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4917
4918 * New Facilities
4919
4920Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4921
4922Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4923target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4924is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4925remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4926remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4927also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4928using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4929stub on the target system.
4930
4931New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4932
4933GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4934library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4935object file types such as a.out and coff.
4936
4937There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4938refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4939
4940
4941 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4942
4943All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4944by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4945
4946For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4947``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4948Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4949
4950What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4951print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4952will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4953all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4954
4955confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4956 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4957 it is already running. Default is ON.
4958
4959editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4960 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4961 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4962 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4963 Default is ON.
4964
4965history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4966 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4967 or the value of the environment variable
4968 GDBHISTFILE.
4969
4970history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4971 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4972 HISTSIZE.
4973
4974history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4975 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4976 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4977
4978history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4979 history expansion will be performed on
4980 command line input. The default is OFF.
4981
4982radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4983 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4984 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4985
4986height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4987 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4988 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4989 variable TERM.
4990
4991width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4992 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4993 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4994 variable TERM.
4995
4996Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4997``set width'' instead.
4998
4999print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5000 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5001 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5002 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5003
5004print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5005 is OFF.
5006
5007print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5008 "raw" form if off.
5009
5010print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5011 like instructions.
5012
5013print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5014
5015
5016 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5017
5018The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5019new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5020are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5021window.
5022
5023
5024 * Support for Shared Libraries
5025
5026GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5027Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5028before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5029happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5030At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5031from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5032shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5033It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5034
5035sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5036 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5037 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5038
5039info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5040
5041
5042 * Watchpoints
5043
5044A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5045expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5046tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5047quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5048problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5049more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5050
5051watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5052
5053info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5054
5055delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5056disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5057enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5058
5059
5060 * C++ multiple inheritance
5061
5062When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5063for C++ programs.
5064
5065 * C++ exception handling
5066
5067Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5068ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5069the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5070handler's context).
5071
5072catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5073 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5074 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5075
5076info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5077 current stack frame.
5078
5079
5080 * Minor command changes
5081
5082The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5083command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5084is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5085
5086The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5087at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5088frames without printing.
5089
5090 * New directory command
5091
5092'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5093The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5094about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5095with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5096find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5097
5098 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5099
5100For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5101for more details.
5102
5103GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5104two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5105Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5106where the program that you are debugging will run.