* gdb.server/ext-run.exp: Relax regexp for init program.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
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UW
6* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
7remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
8with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
9the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
10
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11* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
12now complete on file names.
13
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14* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
15completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
16For instance, consider:
17
18 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
19 # struct example variable;
20 (gdb) p variable.
21
22If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
23completions will be "f1" and "f2".
24
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25* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
26operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
27macros.
28
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29* New remote packets
30
31qSearch:memory:
32 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
33
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34QStartNoAckMode
35 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
36 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
37 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
38
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39qXfer:osdata:read
40 Obtains additional operating system information
41
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42* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
43
44 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
45 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
46 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
47
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48* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
49source+assembly.
50
c055b101 51* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 52DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
53
54* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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55and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
56`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 57
31fffb02
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58* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
59with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
60
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61* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
62
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63* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
64
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65* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
66which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
67
1fddbabb 68* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 69list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 70
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71* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
72conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
73have also been fixed.
74
bfb8797a 75* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
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76From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
77are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 78
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79* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
80
81 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
82 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
83
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84 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
85 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
86 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
87
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88 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
89 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
90
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91 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
92 gdbserver.
93
d57a3c85
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94* Python scripting
95
96 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
97 available is determined at configure time.
98
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99* Ada tasking support
100
101 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
102 been introduced:
103
104 info tasks
105 Print the list of Ada tasks.
106 info task N
107 Print detailed information about task number N.
108 task
109 Print the task number of the current task.
110 task N
111 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
112
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113* New commands
114
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115find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
116 val1 [, val2, ...]
117 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
118
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119maint set python print-stack
120maint show python print-stack
121 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
122
123python [CODE]
124 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
125
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126set print symbol-loading
127show print symbol-loading
128 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
129
e0a3ce09 130set debug timestamp
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131show debug timestamp
132 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
133
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134set exec-wrapper
135show exec-wrapper
136unset exec-wrapper
137 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 138
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139set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
140show multiple-symbols
141 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
142 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
143 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
144
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145set breakpoint always-inserted
146show breakpoint always-inserted
147 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
148 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
149 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
150
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151set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
152show arm fallback-mode
153set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
154show arm force-mode
155 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
156 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
157 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
158 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
159
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160set disable-randomization
161show disable-randomization
162 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
163 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
164 multiple debugging sessions.
165
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166set target-async
167 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
168 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
169 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
170 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
171
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172macro define
173macro list
174macro undef
175 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
176 interactively.
177
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178* New native configurations
179
180x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
181
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182info os processes
183 Show operating system information about processes.
184
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185* New targets
186
187x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
188
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189* Removed commands
190
191catch load
192catch unload
193 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
194
75feb17d 195*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 196
af5ca30d
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197* New native configurations
198
199NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 200Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
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201
202* New targets
203
204NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 205Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 206
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207* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
208
209 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
210 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
211 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
212 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
213
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214* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
215(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
216
fe6fbf8b 217* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 218is resolved.
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219
220* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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221including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
222and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 223
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224* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
225accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
226more than one contiguous range of addresses.
227
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228* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
229
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230* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
231registers on PowerPC targets.
232
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233* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
234targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
235
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236* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
237commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
238
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239* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
240extended-remote mode.
241
24a836bd 242* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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243The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
244error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
245The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 246
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247* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
248building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
249target architectures.
250
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251* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
252Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
253now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
254stored in two consecutive float registers.
255
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256* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
257breakpoints now.
258
b93b6ca7 259* Improved support for debugging Ada
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260Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
261include:
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JB
262 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
263 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
264 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
265 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
266 of an assignment
267 - Improved command completion in Ada
268 - Several bug fixes
269
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270* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
271process.
272
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273* New commands
274
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275set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
276show print frame-arguments
277 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
278 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
279
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280remote put
281remote get
282remote delete
283 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
284
285* New MI commands
286
287-target-file-put
288-target-file-get
289-target-file-delete
290 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
291
292* New remote packets
293
294vFile:open:
295vFile:close:
296vFile:pread:
297vFile:pwrite:
298vFile:unlink:
299 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 300
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301vAttach
302 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
303 mode.
304
305vRun
306 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
307
8d5f9c6f 308*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 309
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310* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
311bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
312Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
313
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UW
314* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
315symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
316-Bsymbolic linker option.
317
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318* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
319recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
320is not supported.
321
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322* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
323frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
324
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325* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
32632-bit or 64-bit register values.
327
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328* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
329
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330* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
331target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
332a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
333
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334* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
335automatically displayed as character or string data.
336
337* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
338arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
339as strings.
e1f48ead 340
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341* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
342for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 343only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 344
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345* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
346iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 347
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348* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
349ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
350has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
351
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352* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
353
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UW
354* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
355
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356* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
357layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
358segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
359
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360* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
361immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
362
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363* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
364"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
365packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
366where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
367Windows and SymbianOS).
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368
369* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
370(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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371
372* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
373according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 374
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375* New commands
376
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377set remoteflow
378show remoteflow
379 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
380 when debugging using remote targets.
381
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382set mem inaccessible-by-default
383show mem inaccessible-by-default
384 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
385 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
386 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
387 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
388 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
389
390set breakpoint auto-hw
391show breakpoint auto-hw
392 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
393 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
394 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
395 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
396 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
397 including "next" and "finish".
398
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399catch exception
400catch exception unhandled
401 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
402
403catch assert
404 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
405
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406set sysroot
407show sysroot
408 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
409 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
410 an alias to "set sysroot".
411
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UW
412info spu
413 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
414 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
415 architecture.
416
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417* New native configurations
418
419OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
420
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421set tdesc filename
422unset tdesc filename
423show tdesc filename
424 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
425 not query the target for its built-in description.
426
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427* New targets
428
54fe9172 429OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 430MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 431Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 432
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433* New remote packets
434
435QPassSignals:
436 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
437 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
438
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439qXfer:features:read:
440 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
441 features.
6dd09645 442
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UW
443qXfer:spu:read:
444qXfer:spu:write:
445 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
446 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
447
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448qXfer:libraries:read:
449 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
450 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
451 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
452 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
453
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454* Removed targets
455
456Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
457
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458alpha*-*-osf1*
459alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 460d10v-*-*
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461hppa*-*-hiux*
462i[34567]86-ncr-*
463i[34567]86-*-dgux*
464i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
465i[34567]86-*-netware*
466i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
467i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
468i[34567]86-*-sco*
469i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
470i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
471i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
472i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
473i[34567]86-*-unixware*
474i[34567]86-*-sysv*
475i[34567]86-*-isc*
476m68*-cisco*-*
477m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 478mips*-*-pe
483367ee 479rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 480sh*-*-pe
483367ee 481
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482* Other removed features
483
484target abug
485target cpu32bug
486target est
487target rom68k
488
489 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
490
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491target hms
492target e7000
493target sh3
494target sh3e
495
496 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
497 H8/300.
498
499target ocd
500
501 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
502 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
503 interfaces.
504
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505DWARF 1 support
506
507 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
508 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
509
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510Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
511
512 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
513 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
514 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
515 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
516
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517MIPS ".pdr" sections
518
519 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
520 in debugging information.
521
522Scheme support
523
524 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
525 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
526
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527set mips stack-arg-size
528set mips saved-gpreg-size
529
530 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
531
6dd09645 532*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 533
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534* New targets
535
536Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 537Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 538
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539* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
540(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
541running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
542
543* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
544Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
545supported.
546
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547* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
548broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
549
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550* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
551stub provides the required support.
552
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553* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
554longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
555
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556* New commands
557
558set substitute-path
559unset substitute-path
560show substitute-path
561 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
562 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
563 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
564 between compilation and debugging.
565
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566set trace-commands
567show trace-commands
568 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
569 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
570 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
571
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572* REMOVED features
573
574The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
575
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576Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
577an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
578
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579The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
580
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581* New remote packets
582
583qSupported:
584 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
585 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
586 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
587 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
588 target.
589
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590qXfer:auxv:read:
591 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
592 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
593
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594qXfer:memory-map:read:
595 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
596 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
597
598vFlashErase:
599vFlashWrite:
600vFlashDone:
601 Erase and program a flash memory device.
602
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603* Removed remote packets
604
605qPart:auxv:read:
606 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
607 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
608
e374b601 609*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 610
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611* New targets
612
613Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
614
615Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
616
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617* New commands
618
619init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
620 only if it doesn't already have a value.
621
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622The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
623
624checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
625
626restart <n> Return the program state to a
627 previously saved state.
628
629info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
630
631delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
632
633set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
634 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
635
636info forks List forks of the user program that
637 are available to be debugged.
638
639fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
640 forks of the user program that are
641 available to be debugged.
642
643delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
644 that are available to be debugged (and
645 kill the forked process).
646
647detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
648 that are available to be debugged (and
649 allow the process to continue).
650
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NS
651* New architecture
652
653Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
654
0ea3f30e
DJ
655* Improved Windows host support
656
657GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
658native console support, and remote communications using either
659network sockets or serial ports.
660
f79daebb
GM
661* Improved Modula-2 language support
662
663GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
664basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
665pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
666printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
667written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
668GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
669
acab6ab2
MM
670* REMOVED features
671
672The ARM rdi-share module.
673
f4267320
DJ
674The Netware NLM debug server.
675
53e5f3cf 676*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 677
e0ecbda1
MK
678* New native configurations
679
02a677ac 680OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
681OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
682
d64a6579
KB
683* New targets
684
685Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
686
b33a6190
AS
687* New command line options
688
689--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
690--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
691 the child (debugged) program exited with.
692--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
693 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
694 specified multiple times and in conjunction
695 with the --command (-x) option.
696
11dced61
AC
697* Deprecated commands removed
698
699The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
700removed:
701
702 Command Replacement
703 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
704 othernames set arm disassembler
705 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
706 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
707 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
708 regs info registers
709
6fe85783
MK
710* New BSD user-level threads support
711
712It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
713library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
714configurations are:
715
716FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
717FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
718OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
719
720Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
721are not yet supported.
722
5260ca71
MS
723* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
724(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
725
e84ecc99
AC
726* REMOVED configurations and files
727
728VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 729Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 730National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 731
31e35378
JB
732* New "set print array-indexes" command
733
734After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
735when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
736behavior.
737
e85e5c83
MK
738* VAX floating point support
739
740GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
741
d91e9901
AS
742* User-defined command support
743
744In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
745to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
746section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
747
f2cb65ca
MC
748*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
749
f47b1503
AS
750* New command line option
751
752GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
753debugging.
754
f2cb65ca
MC
755* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
756
757GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
758information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
759by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
760proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
761to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 762
d08c0230
AC
763* Internationalization
764
765When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
766internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
767continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
768
117ea3cf
PH
769* Ada
770
771Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
772implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
773into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
774
d08c0230
AC
775* New native configurations
776
777GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
778
779* Remote 'p' packet
780
781GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
782packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
783
784* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
785
786GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
787The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
788features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
789i386 application).
790
791GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
792compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
793continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
794configurations:
795
796hppa-*-hpux
797ia64-*-aix
798mips-*-irix*
799*-*-lynx
800mips-*-linux-gnu
801sds protocol
802xdr protocol
803powerpc bdm protocol
804
805Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
806made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
807
808* OBSOLETE configurations and files
809
810Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
811been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
812configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
813permanently REMOVED.
814
815h8300-*-*
816mcore-*-*
817mn10300-*-*
818ns32k-*-*
819sh64-*-*
820v850-*-*
821
ebb7c577
AC
822*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
823
824* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
825
826When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
827heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
828been fixed.
829
830* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
831
832When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
833fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
834IRIX long double values).
835
836* VAX and "next"
837
838A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
839command. This problem has been fixed.
840
860660cb 841*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 842
0dea2468
AC
843* Fix for ``many threads''
844
845On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
846rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
847error message:
848
849 ptrace: No such process.
850 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
851
852This problem has been fixed.
853
2c07db7a
AC
854* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
855
856Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
857GDB to dump core).
858
c23968a2
JB
859* New ``start'' command.
860
861This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
862
71009278
MK
863* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
864
865Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
866live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
867platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
868
869FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
870FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
871NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
872NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
873NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
874OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
875OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
876OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
877OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
878
3c0b7db2
AC
879* Signal trampoline code overhauled
880
881Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
882These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
883of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
884call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
885signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
886
73cc75f3
AC
887Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
888features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
889include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 890
7243600a
BF
891* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
892
6f606e1c
MK
893* New native configurations
894
97dc871c 895GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 896OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
897OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
898OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 899OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 900NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 901OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 902
a1b461bf
AC
903* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
904
905GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
906The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
907including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
908migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
909compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
910work, was also included.
911
912GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
913module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
914
915h8300-*-*
916mcore-*-*
917mn10300-*-*
918ns32k-*-*
919sh64-*-*
920v850-*-*
921xstormy16-*-*
922
923Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
924made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
925
3c7012f5
AC
926* REMOVED configurations and files
927
928Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
929Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
930Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
931Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
932Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
933AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
934Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
935decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
936riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
937sonymips mips-sony-*
938sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
939
e5fe55f7
AC
940*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
941
942* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
943
944The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
945GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
946command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
947program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
948with GDB".
949
950* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
951
952Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
953libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
954cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
955GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
956shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
957the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
958are created.
959
960Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
961
962* Fixed ISO-C build problems
963
964The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
965non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
966compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
967
968* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
969
970Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
971wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
972
973* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
974
975The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
976permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
977systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
978
979* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
980
981Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
982has been updated to use constant array sizes.
983
984* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
985
986GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
987its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
988panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
989
990* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
991
992When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
993by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
994not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
995
faae5abe 996*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 997
9175c9a3
MC
998* Removed --with-mmalloc
999
1000Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1001conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1002
3cc87ec0
MK
1003* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1004
1005The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1006the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1007and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1008you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1009
f0424ef6
MK
1010* Revised SPARC target
1011
1012The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1013FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1014support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1015from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1016(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1017
59659be2
ILT
1018* New C++ demangler
1019
1020GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1021names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1022with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1023programs.
1024
9e08b29b
DJ
1025* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1026
1027GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1028arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1029encountered these.
1030
8dfe8985
DC
1031* C++ nested types and namespaces
1032
1033GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1034improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1035is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1036Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1037namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1038"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1039frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1040if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1041GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1042
cced5e27
MK
1043* New native configurations
1044
1045NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1046OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1047OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1048OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1049OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1050
b4b4b794
KI
1051* New debugging protocols
1052
1053M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1054
7989c619
AC
1055* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1056
1057The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1058and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1059tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1060
5994185b
AC
1061* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1062
1063Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1064been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1065configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1066permanently REMOVED.
1067
1068Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1069Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1070Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1071Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1072Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1073AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1074Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1075decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1076riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1077sonymips mips-sony-*
1078sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1079
0ddabb4c
AC
1080* REMOVED configurations and files
1081
1082SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1083SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1084Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1085Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1086H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1087HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1088HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1089HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1090PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1091386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1092Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1093 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1094 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1095SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1096SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1097Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1098Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1099
c7f1390e
DJ
1100*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1101
1fe43d45
AC
1102* Objective-C
1103
1104Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1105integrated into GDB.
1106
e6beb428
AC
1107* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1108
1109DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1110information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1111By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1112backtraces.
1113
1114The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1115have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1116DWARF 2 CFI support.
1117
1118* Hosted file I/O.
1119
1120GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1121file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1122remote protocol documentation for details.
1123
1124* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1125
1126All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1127architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1128to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1129ppc32 on ppc64).
1130
1131* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1132
1133GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1134per-thread variables.
1135
1136* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1137
1138GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1139GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1140
1141* Separate debug info.
1142
1143GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1144automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1145of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1146system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1147and optional debug files.
1148
1149* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1150
1151DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1152describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1153debugger.
1154
1155GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1156for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1157
1158* Java
1159
1160A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1161Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1162considered "useable".
1163
85f8f974
DJ
1164* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1165
1166The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1167commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1168kernel.
1169
0fac0b41
DJ
1170* GDB supports logging output to a file
1171
1172There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1173used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1174
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1175* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1176
1177The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1178disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1179command.
1180
e286caf2 1181* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1182
1183The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1184registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1185
d28f9cdf
DJ
1186* Profiling support
1187
1188A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1189be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1190session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1191"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1192data, for more informative profiling results.
1193
da0f9dcd
AC
1194* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1195
1196The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1197option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1198"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1199
1200Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1201removed.
1202
fb9b6b35
JJ
1203Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1204Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1205Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1206 in a subsequent -var-update.
1207
954a4db8
MK
1208* New native configurations.
1209
1210FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1211
6760f9e6
JB
1212* Multi-arched targets.
1213
b4263afa 1214HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1215Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1216
1b831c93
AC
1217* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1218
1219Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1220been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1221configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1222permanently REMOVED.
1223
8b0e5691 1224Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1225Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1226H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1227HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1228HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1229HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1230PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1231Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1232 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1233 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1234Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1235Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1236
5835abe7
NC
1237* REMOVED configurations and files
1238
1239V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1240Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1241IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1242i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1243i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1244i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1245HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1246 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1247 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1248Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1249Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1250Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1251OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1252I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1253
a094c6fb
AC
1254* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1255
1256The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1257the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1258context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1259address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1260The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1261
299ffc64 1262*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1263
46248966
AC
1264* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1265
1266When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1267`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1268in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1269library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1270shared libs like mad''.
1271
b9d14705 1272* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1273
b9d14705
DJ
1274Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1275the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1276arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1277powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1278
e0e9281e
JB
1279* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1280
1281GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1282and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1283they expand.
1284
dd73b9bb
AC
1285The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1286invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1287
1288The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1289macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1290
e0e9281e
JB
1291Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1292information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1293your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1294information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1295
2250ee0c
CV
1296* Multi-arched targets.
1297
6e3ba3b8
JT
1298DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1299DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1300NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1301National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1302Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1303Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1304
cd9bfe15 1305* New targets.
e33ce519 1306
456f8b9d
DB
1307Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1308
e33ce519 1309
da8ca43d
JT
1310* New native configurations
1311
1312Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1313SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1314MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1315UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1316
cd9bfe15
AC
1317* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1318
1319Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1320been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1321configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1322permanently REMOVED.
1323
92eb23c5 1324Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1325OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1326IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1327Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1328Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1329Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1330i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1331i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1332i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1333HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1334 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1335 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1336I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1337
db034ac5
AC
1338* OBSOLETE languages
1339
1340CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1341
cd9bfe15
AC
1342* REMOVED configurations and files
1343
1344AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1345A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1346AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1347AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1348AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1349
1350testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1351
20f01a46
DH
1352* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1353
1354This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1355commands. The default is 1024.
1356
a5941fbf
MK
1357* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1358
1359Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1360
89743e04
MS
1361* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1362
1363These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1364to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1365from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1366
9fb14e79
JB
1367* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1368
1369The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1370including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1371of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1372
2037aebb
AC
1373*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1374
1375* New targets.
1376
1377Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1378
1379* Bug fixes
1380
1381gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1382mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1383Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1384
1385gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1386dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1387Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1388
1389Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1390Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1391By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1392
1393i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1394avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1395By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1396
37057839 1397*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1398
1a703748
MS
1399* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1400
1401This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1402really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1403In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1404target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1405This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1406(notably embedded) targets.
1407
cefd4ef5
MS
1408* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1409
55241689
AC
1410This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1411process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1412GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1413hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1414
352ed7b4
MS
1415* New command line option
1416
1417GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1418
1419* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1420
1421There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1422command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1423a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1424be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1425open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1426issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1427a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1428it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1429GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1430is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1431
fe419ffc
RE
1432* Changes in ARM configurations.
1433
1434Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1435configuration is fully multi-arch.
1436
eb7cedd9
MK
1437* New native configurations
1438
fe419ffc 1439ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1440x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1441AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1442Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1443
c9f63e6b
CV
1444* New targets
1445
1446Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1447
9b4ff276
AC
1448* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1449
1450Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1451been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1452configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1453permanently REMOVED.
1454
1455AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1456A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1457AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1458AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1459AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1460
b4ceaee6 1461testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1462
e2caac18
AC
1463* REMOVED configurations and files
1464
1465TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1466WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1467PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1468PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1469PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1470Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1471Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1472 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1473SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1474Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1475Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1476ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1477Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1478
c2a727fa
TT
1479* Changes to command line processing
1480
1481The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1482for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1483
467d8519
TT
1484* Changes to key bindings
1485
1486There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1487
7072a954
AC
1488*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1489
1490Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1491
1492Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1493corrupted.
1494
1495Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1496
1497Numerous documentation fixes.
1498
1499Numerous testsuite fixes.
1500
34f47bc4 1501*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1502
1503* New native configurations
1504
1505Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1506x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1507MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1508MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1509ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1510s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1511
bf64bfd6
AC
1512* New targets
1513
def90278 1514Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1515CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1516UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1517
17e78a56 1518* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1519
1520x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1521Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1522Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1523 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1524TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1525WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1526Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1527PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1528PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1529PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1530SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1531Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1532ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1533Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1534
17e78a56
AC
1535stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1536kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1537
7fcca85b
AC
1538Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1539been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1540configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1541permanently REMOVED.
1542
a196c81c 1543* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1544
1545Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1546Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1547Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1548ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1549Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1550ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1551
6d6b80e5 1552* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1553
6d6b80e5 1554GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1555sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1556present.
1557
bf64bfd6
AC
1558* Other news:
1559
e23194cb
EZ
1560* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1561
1562* The MI enabled by default.
1563
1564The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1565revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1566engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1567using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1568which is now deprecated.
1569
1570* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1571
1572GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1573main features are supported:
1574
1575 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1576
1577 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1578 extension;
1579
1580 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1581
1582 - a Pascal expression parser.
1583
1584However, some important features are not yet supported.
1585
1586 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1587
1588 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1589
1590 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1591 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1592
1593 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1594
1595 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1596
1597* Changes in completion.
1598
1599Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1600to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1601users expect at the shell prompt.
1602
1603Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1604`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1605program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1606files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1607be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1608considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1609name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1610
1611`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1612
1613* New platform-independent commands:
1614
1615It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1616hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1617documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1618
1619* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1620
d7275149
MK
1621Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1622revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1623many threads as your system allows you to have.
1624
e23194cb
EZ
1625Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1626
d7275149
MK
1627Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1628multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1629
1630* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1631
1632Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1633
e23194cb
EZ
1634GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1635debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1636supported.)
1637
1638* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1639
1640Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1641breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1642implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1643put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1644and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1645registers.
1646
1647The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1648debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1649watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1650
1651* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1652
1653New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1654the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1655
1656New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1657display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1658IDT.
1659
1660New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1661from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1662New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1663a given linear address.
1664
1665GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1666program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1667which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1668
1669DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1670
6c56c069
EZ
1671It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1672
e23194cb
EZ
1673* Changes in documentation.
1674
1675All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1676Documentation License.
1677
1678Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1679manual.
1680
1681TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1682
1683Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1684manual.
1685
1686The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1687documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1688hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1689
5d6640b1
AC
1690* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1691
1692The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1693``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1694contents of this file.
1695
1a1d8446
AC
1696* gdba.el deleted
1697
1698GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1699
9debab2f 1700*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1701
c63ce875
EZ
1702* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1703
1704Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1705programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1706displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1707greater level of detail.
1708
1709* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1710
1711It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1712bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1713on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1714written.
1715
1716* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1717
1718The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1719necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1720machines ``out of the box''.
1721
1722The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1723possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1724signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1725would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1726interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1727
1728It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1729standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1730even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1731and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1732terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1733
1734The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1735enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1736also works.
1737
1738DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1739GDB.
1740
1741It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1742directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1743times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1744breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1745
ed9a39eb
JM
1746* New native configurations
1747
1748ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1749PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1750
7a292a7a
SS
1751* New targets
1752
96baa820 1753Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1754x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1755PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1756TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1757
085dd6e6
JM
1758* OBSOLETE configurations
1759
1760Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1761Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1762Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1763ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1764Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1765
9debab2f
AC
1766Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1767but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1768these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1769be permanently REMOVED.
1770
5330533d
SS
1771* Gould support removed
1772
1773Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1774
bc9e5bbf
AC
1775* New features for SVR4
1776
1777On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1778without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1779load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1780
1781* Many C++ enhancements
1782
1783C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1784in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1785
adf40b2e
JM
1786* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1787
1788A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1789sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1790with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1791``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1792
1793 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1794 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1795
43e526b9
JM
1796* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1797
1798A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1799expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1800instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1801
1802The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1803added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1804
96baa820
JM
1805* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1806
1807The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1808``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1809include ``set remote P-packet''.
1810
11cf8741
JM
1811* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1812
1813The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1814accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1815``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1816
7876dd43
DB
1817* ``apropos'' command added.
1818
1819The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1820documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1821try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1822
bc9e5bbf
AC
1823* New MI interface
1824
1825A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1826interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1827process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1828"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1829enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1830
1831 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1832
c906108c
SS
1833*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1834
1835* New native configurations
1836
1837HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1838HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1839M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1840
1841* New targets
1842
1843Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1844Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1845Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1846
1847* OBSOLETE configurations
1848
1849Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1850
1851Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1852but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1853these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1854be permanently REMOVED.
1855
1856* ANSI/ISO C
1857
1858As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1859buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1860containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1861use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1862available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1863configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1864information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1865already.
1866
1867* Readline 2.2
1868
1869GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1870
1871* set extension-language
1872
1873You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1874languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1875you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1876 set extension-language .c c++
1877The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1878and their associated languages.
1879
1880* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1881
1882When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1883you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1884PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1885
1886 set processor NAME
1887
1888sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1889following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1890
1891 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1892 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1893 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1894 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1895 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1896 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1897 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1898 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1899 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1900 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1901 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1902
1903At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1904special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1905registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1906only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1907
1908* HP-UX support
1909
1910Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1911more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1912library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1913support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1914for xdb and dbx commands.
1915
1916* Catchpoints
1917
1918HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1919generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1920to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1921
1922This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1923argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1924output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1925
1926* Debugging across forks
1927
1928On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1929in the inferior.
1930
1931* TUI
1932
1933HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1934it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1935configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1936
1937* GDB remote protocol additions
1938
1939A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1940Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1941fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1942allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1943
1944For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1945full 64-bit address. The command
1946
1947 set remoteaddresssize 32
1948
1949can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1950the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1951will be discarded.
1952
1953In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1954command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1955
1956 maint packet heythere
1957
1958sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1959disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1960time.
1961
1962The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1963target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1964downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1965
1966* Tracing can collect general expressions
1967
1968You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1969further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1970doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1971
1972* mask-address variable for Mips
1973
1974For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1975a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1976of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1977
1978* Higher serial baud rates
1979
1980GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1981230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1982to achieve all of these rates.)
1983
1984* i960 simulator
1985
1986The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1987builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1988
1989
1990*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1991
1992* New native configurations
1993
1994Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1995Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1996Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1997PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1998PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1999Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2000Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2001
2002* New targets
2003
2004Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2005Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2006Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2007Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2008MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2009MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2010MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2011Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2012Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2013Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2014NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2015
2016* New debugging protocols
2017
2018ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2019M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2020DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2021PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2022PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2023Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2024
2025* DWARF 2
2026
2027All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2028format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2029information.
2030
2031* Java frontend
2032
2033GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2034only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2035
2036* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2037
2038For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2039loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2040locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2041
2042* Live range splitting
2043
2044GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2045range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2046more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2047
2048* Hurd support
2049
2050GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2051updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2052
2053* ARM Thumb support
2054
2055GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2056instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2057instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2058accordingly.
2059
2060* MIPS16 support
2061
2062GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2063instruction set.
2064
2065* Overlay support
2066
2067GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2068linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2069will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2070control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2071additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2072in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2073
2074* info symbol
2075
2076The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2077the symbol at the specified address.
2078
2079* Trace support
2080
2081The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2082asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2083extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2084includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2085file tracepoint.c for more details.
2086
2087* MIPS simulator
2088
2089Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2090by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2091of most MIPS variants.
2092
2093* Sparc simulator
2094
2095Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2096by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2097Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2098
2099* set architecture
2100
2101For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2102basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2103architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2104the possible architectures.
2105
2106*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2107
2108* New native configurations
2109
2110Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2111M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2112PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2113PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2114PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2115RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2116
2117* New targets
2118
2119ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2120I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2121MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2122MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2123PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2124Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2125Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2126
2127* PowerPC simulator
2128
2129The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2130contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2131PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2132basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2133performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2134
2135* Solaris 2.5
2136
2137GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2138
2139* Windows 95/NT native
2140
2141GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2142To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2143which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2144Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2145ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2146
2147* dont-repeat command
2148
2149If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2150command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2151useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2152extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2153
2154* Send break instead of ^C
2155
2156The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2157rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2158GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2159
2160* Remote protocol timeout
2161
2162The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2163that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2164to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2165
2166* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2167
2168By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2169loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2170stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2171when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2172in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2173
2174Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2175/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2176automatically on hpux10.
2177
2178* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2179
2180Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2181
2182* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2183
2184When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2185may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2186the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2187every character. The default value is 1050.
2188
2189* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2190
2191If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2192a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2193replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2194details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2195remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2196to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2197
2198* Speedups for remote debugging
2199
2200GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2201the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2202and more efficient S-record downloading.
2203
2204* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2205
2206GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2207Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2208
2209*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2210
2211* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2212
2213The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2214can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2215
2216* Remote targets use caching
2217
2218Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2219remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2220it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2221debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2222off' turns the the data cache off.
2223
2224* Remote targets may have threads
2225
2226The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2227in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2228gdb/remote.c for details.
2229
2230* NetROM support
2231
2232If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2233support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2234acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2235write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2236support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2237another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2238sequence is something like
2239
2240 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2241 load <prog>
2242 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2243
2244* Macintosh host
2245
2246GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2247may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2248it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2249available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2250device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2251directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2252scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2253mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2254
2255* Autoconf
2256
2257GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2258but does simplify configuration and building.
2259
2260* hpux10
2261
2262GDB now supports hpux10.
2263
2264*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2265
2266* New native configurations
2267
2268x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2269x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2270NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2271Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2272
2273* New targets
2274
2275A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2276HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2277CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2278PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2279WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2280
2281* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2282
2283GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2284possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2285filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2286the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2287if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2288
2289* Arguments to user-defined commands
2290
2291User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2292Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2293trivial example:
2294define adder
2295 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2296
2297To execute the command use:
2298adder 1 2 3
2299
2300Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2301Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2302use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2303
2304* New `if' and `while' commands
2305
2306This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2307commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2308expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2309execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2310terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2311`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2312if the expression is zero.
2313
2314* Fortran source language mode
2315
2316GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2317Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2318variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2319with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2320Fortran compilers.
2321
2322* Better HPUX support
2323
2324Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2325running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2326processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2327for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2328that behavior do the following before running the program:
2329
2330 adb -w a.out
2331 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2332 control-d
2333
2334This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2335To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2336
2337 adb -w a.out
2338 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2339 control-d
2340
2341You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2342the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2343external linkage.
2344
2345GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2346HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2347
2348* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2349
2350You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2351commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2352current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2353"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2354associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2355configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2356
2357* New DOS host serial code
2358
2359This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2360no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2361a PC's serial port.
2362
2363*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2364
2365* New "complete" command
2366
2367This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2368were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2369
2370* Trailing space optional in prompt
2371
2372"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2373allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2374
2375* Breakpoint hit counts
2376
2377"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2378has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2379can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2380to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2381less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2382that breakpoint.
2383
2384* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2385
2386"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2387an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2388arrays actually contain only short strings.
2389
2390* Shared library breakpoints
2391
2392In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2393breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2394
2395* Hardware watchpoints
2396
2397There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2398targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2399
55241689 2400Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2401
2402* Annotations
2403
2404Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2405and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2406
2407* Improved Irix 5 support
2408
2409GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2410
2411* Improved HPPA support
2412
2413GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2414
2415* New native configurations
2416
2417Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2418HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2419Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2420RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2421
2422* New targets
2423
2424OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2425MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2426Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2427
2428* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2429
2430There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2431This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2432
2433* Fixes
2434
2435As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2436and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2437
2438*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2439
2440* Irix 5 is now supported
2441
2442* HPPA support
2443
2444GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2445to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2446GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2447of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2448can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2449
2450
2451*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2452
2453* User visible changes:
2454
2455* Remote Debugging
2456
2457The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2458target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2459debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2460integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2461debugging info for the mips target).
2462
2463* DEC Alpha native support
2464
2465GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2466debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2467work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2468Alpha-specific notes.
2469
2470* Preliminary thread implementation
2471
2472GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2473
2474* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2475
2476This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2477to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2478for details).
2479
2480* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2481
2482This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2483mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2484call methods, ...etc.
2485
2486*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2487
2488 * User visible changes:
2489
2490Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2491supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2492other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2493somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2494
2495Filename completion now works.
2496
2497When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2498arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2499addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2500
2501All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2502vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2503should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2504your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2505to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2506
2507 * DEC alpha support
2508
2509This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2510cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2511
2512
2513*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2514
2515 * Testsuite
2516
2517This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2518The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2519via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2520
2521 * C++ demangling
2522
2523'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2524emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2525Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2526disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2527use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2528
2529 * Simulators
2530
2531GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2532So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2533Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2534
2535 * New targets supported
2536
2537H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2538H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2539SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2540Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2541IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2542
2543Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2544version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2545GO32 memory extender.
2546
2547 * New remote protocols
2548
2549MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2550
2551 * New source languages supported
2552
2553This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2554used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2555into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2556
2557
2558*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2559
2560 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2561
2562GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2563version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2564University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2565compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2566format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2567(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2568
2569Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2570
2571 * Faster and better demangling
2572
2573We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2574demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2575character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2576only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2577This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2578increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2579symbol lookups.
2580
2581`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2582from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2583compiler does not actually implement.
2584
2585 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2586
2587In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2588inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2589recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2590very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2591The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2592circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2593fix.
2594
2595The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2596release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2597
2598 * Improved configure script
2599
2600The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2601you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2602host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2603done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2604
2605We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2606version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2607`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2608The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2609only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2610We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2611
2612 * Documentation improvements
2613
2614There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2615produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2616before submitting changes.
2617
2618The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2619M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2620`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2621you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2622a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2623
2624*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2625We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2626been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2627or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2628`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2629around this problem.
2630
2631 * New features
2632
2633GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2634the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2635`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2636the target program.
2637
2638The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2639how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2640
2641 * New native hosts supported
2642
2643HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2644386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2645
2646 * New targets supported
2647
2648AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2649
2650 * New file formats supported
2651
2652BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2653HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2654
2655 * Major bug fixes
2656
2657Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2658
2659We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2660printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2661
2662We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2663for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2664release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2665
2666You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2667will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2668
2669We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2670for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2671especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2672libraries.
2673
2674The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2675information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2676command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2677any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2678when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2679
2680 * Internal improvements
2681
2682GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2683debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2684
2685GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2686Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2687symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2688contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2689shared code that handles any of them.
2690
2691 * New command line options
2692
2693We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2694
2695 * Mmalloc licensing
2696
2697The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2698General Public License.
2699
2700*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2701
2702 * Host/native/target split
2703
2704GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2705hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2706target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2707local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2708ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2709
2710The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2711GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2712is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2713code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2714any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2715built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2716handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2717
2718GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2719It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2720plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2721
2722 * New hosts supported
2723
2724HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2725386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2726386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2727
2728 * New targets supported
2729
2730Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
273168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2732
2733 * New native hosts supported
2734
2735386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2736 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2737386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2738
2739 * New file formats supported
2740
2741BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2742supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2743format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2744
2745 * New commands
2746
2747`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2748`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2749These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2750
2751`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2752
2753You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2754scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2755prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2756executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2757
2758 * C++ improvements
2759
2760We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2761info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2762symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2763
2764Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2765
2766 * Major bug fixes
2767
2768The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2769fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2770by the compiler.
2771
2772We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2773support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2774
2775John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2776slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2777that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2778purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2779the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2780mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2781
2782Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2783about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2784completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2785we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2786
2787 * AMD 29k support
2788
2789A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2790specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2791calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2792usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2793in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2794
2795We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2796Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2797of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2798resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2799
2800 * Remote interfaces
2801
2802We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2803with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2804message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2805This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2806needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2807breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2808each instruction being stepped through.
2809
2810The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2811registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2812
2813There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2814find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2815Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2816processor with a serial port.
2817
2818 * Configuration
2819
2820Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2821`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2822supported, and what files each one uses.
2823
2824 * Library changes
2825
2826There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2827disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2828Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2829disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2830
2831The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2832Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2833can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2834grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2835
2836 * Documentation
2837
2838The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2839reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2840as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2841encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2842system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2843bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2844
2845And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2846
2847
2848*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2849
2850 * Better support for C++ function names
2851
2852GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2853names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2854(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2855single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2856Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2857
2858GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2859the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2860You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2861lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2862for the list of formats.
2863
2864 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2865
2866Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2867C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2868directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2869can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2870usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2871about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2872this problem.)
2873
2874 * New 'maintenance' command
2875
2876All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2877the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2878can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2879
2880 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2881 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2882 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2883 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2884 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2885 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2886
2887The following commands are new:
2888
2889 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2890 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2891 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2892
2893 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2894
2895We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2896(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2897be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2898read after argv processing.
2899
2900 * New hosts supported
2901
2902Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2903
55241689 2904GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2905
2906We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2907is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2908for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2909masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2910fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2911It costs extra.
2912
2913 * New targets supported
2914
2915Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2916
2917 * More smarts about finding #include files
2918
2919GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2920all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2921greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2922especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2923the one that contains your sources.
2924
2925We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2926breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2927try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2928
2929 * Interesting infernals change
2930
2931GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2932section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2933target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2934stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2935
2936 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2937
2938There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2939 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2940 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2941
2942See the ChangeLog for details.
2943
2944*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2945
2946 * New machines supported (host and target)
2947
2948IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2949
2950SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2951
2952 * New malloc package
2953
2954GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2955Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2956capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2957This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2958pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2959more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2960
2961 * info proc
2962
2963The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2964'help info proc' for details.
2965
2966 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2967
2968The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2969Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2970possible.
2971
2972 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2973
2974Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2975support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2976conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2977environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2978that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2979in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2980
2981 * Cross byte order fixes
2982
2983Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2984targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2985
2986 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2987
2988If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2989system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2990`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2991program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2992called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2993Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2994and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2995the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2996option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2997starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2998
2999You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3000the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3001information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3002slower, but makes future operations faster.
3003
3004The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3005build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3006A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3007use is:
3008
3009 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3010
3011The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3012It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3013shared across multiple host platforms.
3014
3015 * longjmp() handling
3016
3017GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3018siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3019all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3020platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3021
3022 * Solaris 2.0
3023
3024Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3025this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3026reading symbols.
3027
3028 * Bug fixes
3029
3030As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3031People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3032crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3033
3034*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3035
3036 * New machines supported (host and target)
3037
3038SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3039 (except core files)
3040BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3041Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3042
3043 * New machines supported (target)
3044
3045AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3046
3047 * C++ support
3048
3049GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3050The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3051per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3052
3053GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3054`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3055extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3056good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3057will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3058released.
3059
3060 * New features for SVR4
3061
3062GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3063shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3064only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3065
3066The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3067on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3068it prints the address mappings of the process.
3069
3070If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3071bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3072
3073 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3074
3075Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3076now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3077skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3078make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3079same code linked statically.
3080
3081 * New Getopt
3082
3083GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3084version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3085continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3086Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3087added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3088future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3089
3090 * Bugs fixed
3091
3092The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3093Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3094See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3095
3096
3097*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3098
3099 * New machines supported (host and target)
3100
3101Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3102NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3103Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3104
3105 * Almost SCO Unix support
3106
3107We had hoped to support:
3108SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3109(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3110that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3111about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3112
3113 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3114
3115GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3116debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3117is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3118send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3119reqired (if any).
3120
3121 * New Readline
3122
3123GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3124is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3125required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3126
3127 * Bugs fixed
3128
3129The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3130Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3131See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3132
3133 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3134
3135GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3136supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3137symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3138
3139Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3140mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3141debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3142mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3143version 2.
3144
3145Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3146really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3147line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3148variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3149situation somewhat.
3150
3151When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3152However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3153methods.
3154
3155We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3156DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3157encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3158
3159
3160*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3161
3162 * Improved configuration
3163
3164Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3165Porting BFD is simpler.
3166
3167 * Stepping improved
3168
3169The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3170of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3171in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3172function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3173
3174 * Bug fixing
3175
3176Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3177
3178 * New host supported (not target)
3179
3180Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3181
3182
3183*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3184
3185 * Multiple source language support
3186
3187GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3188It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3189and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3190language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3191You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3192`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3193
3194 * GDB and Modula-2
3195
3196GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3197currently under development at the State University of New York at
3198Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3199continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3200
3201Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3202debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3203symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3204
3205There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3206in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3207
3208 * set write on/off
3209
3210GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3211a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3212the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3213by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3214effect immediately.
3215
3216 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3217
3218When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3219shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3220The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3221examining core files.
3222
3223 * set listsize
3224
3225You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3226The default is 10.
3227
3228 * New machines supported (host and target)
3229
3230SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3231Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3232Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3233
3234 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3235
3236IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3237
3238 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3239
3240AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3241AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3242Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3243
3244 * New remote interfaces
3245
3246AMD 29000 Adapt
3247AMD 29000 Minimon
3248
3249
3250*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3251
3252 * New Facilities
3253
3254Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3255
3256Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3257target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3258is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3259remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3260remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3261also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3262using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3263stub on the target system.
3264
3265New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3266
3267GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3268library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3269object file types such as a.out and coff.
3270
3271There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3272refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3273
3274
3275 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3276
3277All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3278by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3279
3280For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3281``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3282Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3283
3284What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3285print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3286will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3287all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3288
3289confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3290 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3291 it is already running. Default is ON.
3292
3293editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3294 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3295 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3296 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3297 Default is ON.
3298
3299history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3300 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3301 or the value of the environment variable
3302 GDBHISTFILE.
3303
3304history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3305 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3306 HISTSIZE.
3307
3308history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3309 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3310 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3311
3312history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3313 history expansion will be performed on
3314 command line input. The default is OFF.
3315
3316radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3317 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3318 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3319
3320height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3321 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3322 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3323 variable TERM.
3324
3325width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3326 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3327 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3328 variable TERM.
3329
3330Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3331``set width'' instead.
3332
3333print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3334 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3335 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3336 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3337
3338print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3339 is OFF.
3340
3341print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3342 "raw" form if off.
3343
3344print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3345 like instructions.
3346
3347print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3348
3349
3350 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3351
3352The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3353new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3354are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3355window.
3356
3357
3358 * Support for Shared Libraries
3359
3360GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3361Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3362before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3363happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3364At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3365from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3366shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3367It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3368
3369sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3370 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3371 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3372
3373info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3374
3375
3376 * Watchpoints
3377
3378A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3379expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3380tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3381quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3382problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3383more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3384
3385watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3386
3387info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3388
3389delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3390disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3391enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3392
3393
3394 * C++ multiple inheritance
3395
3396When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3397for C++ programs.
3398
3399 * C++ exception handling
3400
3401Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3402ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3403the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3404handler's context).
3405
3406catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3407 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3408 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3409
3410info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3411 current stack frame.
3412
3413
3414 * Minor command changes
3415
3416The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3417command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3418is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3419
3420The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3421at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3422frames without printing.
3423
3424 * New directory command
3425
3426'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3427The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3428about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3429with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3430find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3431
3432 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3433
3434For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3435for more details.
3436
3437GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3438two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3439Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3440where the program that you are debugging will run.
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