gdb/gdbserver/
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
8d5b6c2b 4*** Changes since GDB 7.4
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
9
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10 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
11 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
12
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13* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
14 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
15
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16* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
17 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
18
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19* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
20 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
21 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
22 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
23 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
24 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
25
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26* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
27 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
28 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
29 build/libcpp/expr.c.
30
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31* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
32 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
33
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34* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
35 since December 2007.
36
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37* New commands
38
39 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
40 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
41
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42*** Changes in GDB 7.4
43
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44* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
45 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
46 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
47 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
48 inferior changes.
49
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50* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
51 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
52
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53* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
54 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
55 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
56 target hardware watchpoint.
57
58 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
59 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
60 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
61 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
62
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63* Python scripting
64
32d1c362 65 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 66 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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67 existing one.
68
3a7bf607 69 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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70 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
71 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
72 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
73 now "message", which just prints the error message without
74 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 75
baacfb07 76 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 77 Python API.
713389e0 78
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79 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
80 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 81 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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82 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
83 corresponding value.
84
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85 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
86 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
87 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
88 on GDB start-up.
89
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90 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
91 static_block will return the global and static blocks
92 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
93 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
94
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95 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
96
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97 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
98 "gdb.breakpoints".
99
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100 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
101 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
102 available in the CLI.
103
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104 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
105 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
106 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
107 "some_type.items()".
108
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109 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
110 new object file.
111
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112 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
113 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
114 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
115 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
116 any anonymous fields.
117
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118* MI changes
119
120 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
121 "solib-event".
122
123 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
124 "=breakpoint-modified".
125
126 ** New command -ada-task-info.
127
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128* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
129 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
130 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
131 lives.
132
133 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
134 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
135 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
136 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
137 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
138
139 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
140 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
141
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142* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
143 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
144 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
145 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
146 use this option to specify where to find it.
147
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148* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
149 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
150 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
151 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
152 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
153 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
154 section in the user manual for more details.
155
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156* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
157 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
158 become available after that.
159
71eba9c2 160* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 161
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162* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
163 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
164 gcc version 4.7.
165
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166* New commands
167
168!SHELL COMMAND
169 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
170 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
171
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172* Changed commands
173
174watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
175 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
176 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
177
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178info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
179 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
180 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
181
71eba9c2 182info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
183 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
184 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
185 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
186 name starts with a hyphen.
187
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188collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
189 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
190 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
191 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
192 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
193 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
194 number of bytes that will be collected.
195
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196tstart [NOTES]
197 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
198 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
199 setting the variable trace-notes.
200
201tstop [NOTES]
202 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
203 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
204 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
205 trace-stop-notes.
206
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207* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
208 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
209 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
210 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
211 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
212 is running.
213
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214* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
215 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
216 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
217
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218* New options
219
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220set extended-prompt
221show extended-prompt
222 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
223 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
224 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
225 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
226 prompt is displayed.
227
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228set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
229show print entry-values
230 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
231 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
232 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
233
234set debug entry-values
235show debug entry-values
236 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
237 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
238
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239set basenames-may-differ
240show basenames-may-differ
241 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
242 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
243 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
244 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
245 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
246 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
247 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
248 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
249
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250set trace-user
251show trace-user
252set trace-notes
253show trace-notes
254 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
255 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
256 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
257 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
258
259set trace-stop-notes
260show trace-stop-notes
261 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
262 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
263 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
264 started by someone else.
265
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266* New remote packets
267
268QTEnable
269
270 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
271
272QTDisable
273
274 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
275
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276QTNotes
277
278 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
279
280qTP
281
282 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
283
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284qTMinFTPILen
285
286 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
287 be placed.
288
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289* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
290 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
291
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292* New targets
293
294Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
295
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296* New Simulators
297
298Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
299
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300*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
301
302* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
303
d6e00af6 304*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 305
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306* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
307 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
308 matches the given regular expression.
309
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310* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
311
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312* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
313 dumping the instruction opcodes.
314
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315* New command line options
316
317-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
318 This is mostly for testing purposes.
319
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320* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
321 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
322
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323* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
324 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
325 source path list instead of augmenting it.
326
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327* GDB now understands thread names.
328
329 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
330 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
331
332 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
333 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
334
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335* OpenCL C
336 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
337 has been integrated into GDB.
338
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339* Python scripting
340
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341 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
342 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
343 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
344
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345 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
346 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
347 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
348 and allows for more dynamic content.
349
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350 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
351 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
352 have an is_valid method.
353
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354 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
355 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
356 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
357
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358 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
359
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360 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
361 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
362 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
363 that function like so:
364
365 result = some_value (10,20)
366
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367 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
368 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
369 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
370
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371 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
372 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
373 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
374 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
375 New function: register_pretty_printer.
376
377 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
378 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
379
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380 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
381
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382 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
383 selected thread.
384
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385 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
386 holds the thread's name.
387
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388 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
389 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 390 occurring in the process being debugged.
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391 The following events are currently supported:
392 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
393 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
394 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
395
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396* C++ Improvements:
397
398 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
399 instantiation. For example, if you have:
400
401 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
402
403 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
404 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
405 was added to GCC 4.5.
406
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407 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
408 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
409 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
410 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
411 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
412 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
413
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414* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
415 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
416 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
417 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
418 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
419
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420* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
421 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
422 execution to a label.
423
424* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
425 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
426 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
427 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
428
b56df873 429* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 430 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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431 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
432 of scope.
433
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434* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
435
436 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
437 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
438 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
439 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
440 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
441 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
442
443 (gdb) info threads
444 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
445
446 While now you see this:
447
448 (gdb) info threads
449 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
450
451 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
452 dumps.
453
454 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
455 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
456 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
457 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
458
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459* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
460 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
461 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
462 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
463 section in the user manual for more details.
464
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465* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
466
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467 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
468 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 469
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470 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
471
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472* New native configurations
473
474ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
475
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476* New targets:
477
478Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
479
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480* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
481 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
482 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
483 in the GDB user manual.
484
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485* Guile support was removed.
486
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487* New features in the GNU simulator
488
489 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
490
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491 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
492
76b8507d 493*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 494
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495* Shared library support for remote targets by default
496
497 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
498 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
499 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
500 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
501 was always disabled for such configurations.
502
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503* C++ Improvements:
504
505 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
506
507 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
508 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
509 For example:
510 namespace A
511 {
512 class B { };
513 void foo (B) { }
514 }
515 ...
516 A::B b
517 foo(b)
518 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
519 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
520 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
521
522 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
523
524 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
525 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
526 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
527 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
528 entry.
529 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
530 mentioned flavors of operators.
531
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532 ** static const class members
533
534 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
535 class definition has been fixed.
536
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537* Windows Thread Information Block access.
538
539 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
540 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
541 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
542 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
543 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
544 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
545
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546* Static tracepoints
547
548 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
549 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
550 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
551 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
552 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
553 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
554 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
555 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
556 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
557 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
558 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
559 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
560 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
561 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
562 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
563 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
564 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
565 the "New remote packets" section below.
566
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567* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
568
569 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
570 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
571 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
572 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
573
574* Observer mode
575
576 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
577 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
578 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
579 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
580 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
581 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
582 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
583
584* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
585 current thread.
586
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587* New remote packets
588
589qGetTIBAddr
590
591 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
592
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593qRelocInsn
594
595 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
596 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
597 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
598 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
599 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
600 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
601
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602qTfSTM, qTsSTM
603
604 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
605
606qTSTMat
607
608 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
609 program.
610
611qXfer:statictrace:read
612
613 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
614 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
615 to gdb's qSupported query.
616
ca11e899
SS
617QAllow
618
619 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
620
621QTDPsrc
622
623 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
624 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
625
3f7b2faa
DE
626* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
627 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
628 a directory.
629
d337e9f0
PA
630* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
631
0fb4aa4b
PA
632 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
633 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
634 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
635 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
636
637 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
638 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
639 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
640 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
641 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
642 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
643 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
644
645 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
646 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 647
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PM
648 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
649
c8d5aac9
L
650* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
651 it understands register description.
652
7c953934
TT
653* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
654
8685c86f
L
655* X86 general purpose registers
656
657 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
658 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
659 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
660 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
661 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
662
95a42b64 663* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
664 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
665 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
666 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
667 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
668 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 669
8bd10a10
CM
670* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
671 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
672 in the specified file.
673
ab38a727
PA
674* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
675 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
676 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
677 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
678 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
679 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
680 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
681 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
682 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
683 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
684
6149aea9
PA
685* New commands
686
f1421989
HZ
687eval template, expressions...
688 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
689 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
690
ab38a727
PA
691set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
692show target-file-system-kind
693 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
694 names.
695
6149aea9
PA
696save breakpoints <filename>
697 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
698 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
699 definitions, use the `source' command.
700
701`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
702is now deprecated.
703
0fb4aa4b
PA
704info static-tracepoint-markers
705 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
706
707strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
708 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
709 function, line, address, or marker ID.
710
ca11e899
SS
711set observer on|off
712show observer
713 Enable and disable observer mode.
714
715set may-write-registers on|off
716set may-write-memory on|off
717set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
718set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
719set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
720set may-interrupt on|off
721 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
722 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
723 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
724 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
725 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
726 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
727 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
728
729set record memory-query on|off
730show record memory-query
731 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
732 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
733
53a71c06
CR
734* Changed commands
735
736disassemble
737 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
738
f3e9a817
PM
739* Python scripting
740
9279c692
JB
741** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
742 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
743 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
744 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
745 GDB using Python' in the manual.
746
adc36818 747** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
748 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
749 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
750 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 751
fa33c3cd 752** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
753 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
754
755** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
756
757** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 758
967cf477
DE
759** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
760
8a1ea21f
DE
761** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
762 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
763 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
764
a7bdde9e
VP
765* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
766there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
767tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
768regular breakpoints.
769
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PA
770* New targets
771
772ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
773
6aecb9c2
JB
774* D language support.
775 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
776 language.
777
431e49aa
TJB
778* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
779 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
780 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
781 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
782 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
783
784* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
785 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
786 conditions of the form:
787
788 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
789
790 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
791 interface mentioned above.
792
bfbf3774 793*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 794
4eef138c
TT
795* C++ Improvements
796
797 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
798
799 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
800 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
801 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
802 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
803 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
804
4eef138c
TT
805 ** Bug Fixes
806
807 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
808 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
809 qualified name.
810
811 ** Cast Operators
812
813 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
814 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
815
2d1c1221
ME
816* New targets
817
818Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 819Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
820
821* New Simulators
822
823Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 824Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 825
6c95b8df
PA
826* Multi-program debugging.
827
828 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
829 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
830 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
831 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
832 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
833 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
834 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
835 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
836
d5551862
SS
837* New tracing features
838
839 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
840
841 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
842
843 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
844 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
845 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
846 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
847 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
848 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
849 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
850 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
851 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
852 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 853
d5551862 854 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
855
856 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
857 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
858 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
859 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
860 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
861 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
862 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
863 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
864 the regular trace command.
865
d5551862
SS
866 ** Disconnected tracing
867
868 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
869 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
870 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
871 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
872 connection is lost unexpectedly.
873
00bf0b85
SS
874 ** Trace files
875
876 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
877 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
878 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
879 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
880 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
881 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
882 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
883
884 ** Circular trace buffer
885
886 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
887 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
888 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
889 not be available for all target agents.
890
21a0512e
PP
891* Changed commands
892
893disassemble
894 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
895 the arguments to be comma-separated.
896
0fe7935b
DJ
897info variables
898 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
899 which only declare a variable are not shown.
900
fb2e7cb4
JB
901source
902 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
903 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
904 support.
905
906 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
907 "set script-extension" (see below).
908
6c95b8df
PA
909* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
910
399cd161
MS
911record save [<FILENAME>]
912 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
913 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
914
915record restore <FILENAME>
916 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
917 earlier time, for replay debugging.
918
6c95b8df
PA
919add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
920 Add a new inferior.
921
922clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
923 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
924 inferior has loaded.
925
926remove-inferior ID
927 Remove an inferior.
928
929maint info program-spaces
930 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
931
9a7071a8
JB
932set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
933show remote interrupt-sequence
934 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
935 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
936 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
937 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
938 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
939
940set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
941show remote interrupt-on-connect
942 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
943 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
944 Linux kernel.
945
946set remotebreak [on | off]
947show remotebreak
948Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
949
f61e138d
SS
950tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
951 Create or modify a trace state variable.
952
953info tvariables
954 List trace state variables and their values.
955
956delete tvariable $NAME ...
957 Delete one or more trace state variables.
958
6da95a67
SS
959teval EXPR, ...
960 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
961 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
962
7a697b8d
SS
963ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
964 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
965
b0f02ee9
JK
966* New expression syntax
967
968 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
969 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
970
6c95b8df
PA
971* New options
972
973set follow-exec-mode new|same
974show follow-exec-mode
975 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
976 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
977 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
978
236f1d4d
SS
979set default-collect EXPR, ...
980show default-collect
981 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
982 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
983 such as registers or a critical global variable.
984
d5551862
SS
985set disconnected-tracing
986show disconnected-tracing
987 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
988 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
989 upon disconnection.
990
4daf5ac0
SS
991set circular-trace-buffer
992show circular-trace-buffer
993 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
994 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
995 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
996 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
997
fb2e7cb4
JB
998set script-extension off|soft|strict
999show script-extension
1000 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1001 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1002 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1003 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1004 evaluation failed.
1005 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1006
2b71fc8e
JB
1007set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1008show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1009 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1010 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1011 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1012 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1013 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1014 is on.
1015
de2e5182
TT
1016* Python API Improvements
1017
1018 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1019 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1020 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1021
1022 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1023 `is_base_class' attribute.
1024
1025 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1026
1027 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1028 evaluate an expression.
1029
f61e138d
SS
1030* New remote packets
1031
1032QTDV
1033 Define a trace state variable.
1034
1035qTV
1036 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1037
d5551862
SS
1038QTDisconnected
1039 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1040
4daf5ac0
SS
1041QTBuffer:circular
1042 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1043
d5551862
SS
1044qTfP, qTsP
1045 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1046
2d483d34
MS
1047* Bug fixes
1048
1049Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1050
6e0e5977
JB
1051Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1052much more reliable. In particular:
1053 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1054 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1055 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1056 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1057 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1058 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1059 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1060 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1061 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1062 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1063 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1064 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1065 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1066 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1067 non-threaded programs.
1068
93c26624
JK
1069PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1070This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1071libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1072executable program.
1073
abc7453d 1074*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1075
4efc6507
DE
1076* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1077dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1078them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1079for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1080"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1081
782b2b07
SS
1082* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1083breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1084or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1085the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1086for tracepoint actions.
1087
53a71c06
CR
1088* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1089raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1090modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1091
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1092* Process record and replay
1093
1094 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1095 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1096 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1097 execute commands.
1098
64644d9b
MS
1099* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1100step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1101set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1102reverse execution.
1103
b9412953
DD
1104* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1105feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
11062.6.28 or later.
1107
6c7a06a3
TT
1108* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1109target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1110char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1111literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1112U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1113`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1114system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1115the installation instructions for more information.
1116
f1838a98
UW
1117* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1118remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1119with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1120the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1121
55333a84
DE
1122* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1123and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1124
7f6a6314
PM
1125* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1126now complete on file names.
1127
65d12d83
TT
1128* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1129completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1130For instance, consider:
1131
1132 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1133 # struct example variable;
1134 (gdb) p variable.
1135
1136If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1137completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1138
edb3359d
DJ
1139* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1140the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1141
2fae03e8
TT
1142* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1143operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1144macros.
1145
47a3467a 1146* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1147the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1148implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1149
1150* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1151registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1152can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1153and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1154
08388c79
DE
1155* New remote packets
1156
1157qSearch:memory:
1158 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1159
a6f3e723
SL
1160QStartNoAckMode
1161 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1162 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1163 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1164
d7713ae0
EZ
1165vKill
1166 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1167 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1168
07e059b5
VP
1169qXfer:osdata:read
1170 Obtains additional operating system information
1171
47a3467a
PA
1172qXfer:siginfo:read
1173qXfer:siginfo:write
1174 Read or write additional signal information.
1175
060871df
PA
1176* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1177
1178 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1179 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1180 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1181
c055b101 1182* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1183DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1184
1185* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1186and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1187`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1188
31fffb02
CS
1189* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1190with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1191
88d8a8e0
JB
1192* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1193
7f99b190
JB
1194* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1195
ccd213ac
DJ
1196* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1197which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1198
1fddbabb 1199* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1200list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1201
a0ef4274
DJ
1202* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1203conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1204have also been fixed.
1205
bfb8797a 1206* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1207From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1208are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1209
71c25dea
TT
1210* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1211example, given:
1212
1213 template<typename T> class C { };
1214 C<char const *> c;
1215
1216GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1217
1218 ptype C<char const *>
1219 ptype C<char const*>
1220 ptype C<const char *>
1221 ptype C<const char*>
1222
ccd213ac
DJ
1223* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1224
1225 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1226 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1227
7ae0e2a2
UW
1228 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1229 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1230 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1231
a6f3e723
SL
1232 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1233 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1234
da8bd9a3
DJ
1235 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1236 gdbserver.
1237
d70e31dd
DE
1238 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1239 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1240
1241 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1242 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1243 as appropriate.
1244
d57a3c85
TJB
1245* Python scripting
1246
1247 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1248 available is determined at configure time.
1249
d8906c6f
TJB
1250 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1251
aadc346a
JB
1252* Ada tasking support
1253
1254 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1255 been introduced:
1256
1257 info tasks
1258 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1259 info task N
1260 Print detailed information about task number N.
1261 task
1262 Print the task number of the current task.
1263 task N
1264 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1265
adb483fe
DJ
1266* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1267add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1268
2277426b
PA
1269* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1270
1271 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1272 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1273 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1274 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1275 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1276 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1277 below.
1278
08d16641
PA
1279* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1280"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1281information.
1282
e35359c5
UW
1283* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1284to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1285architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1286See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1287more information.
1288
85e747d2
UW
1289* Multi-architecture debugging.
1290
1291 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1292 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1293 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1294 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1295 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1296
1297* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1298use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1299Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1300powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1301--enable-targets configure option.
1302
11ade57a
PA
1303* Non-stop mode debugging.
1304
1305 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1306 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1307 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1308 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1309 section in the user manual for more information.
1310
1311 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1312 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1313 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1314 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1315 extensions on linux targets.
1316
d7713ae0 1317* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1318
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1319catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1320 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1321 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1322 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1323 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1324 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1325 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1326 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1327 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1328
08388c79
DE
1329find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1330 val1 [, val2, ...]
1331 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1332
d57a3c85
TJB
1333maint set python print-stack
1334maint show python print-stack
1335 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1336
1337python [CODE]
1338 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1339
d7713ae0
EZ
1340macro define
1341macro list
1342macro undef
1343 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1344 interactively.
1345
1346info os processes
1347 Show operating system information about processes.
1348
2277426b
PA
1349info inferiors
1350 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1351
1352inferior NUM
1353 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1354
1355detach inferior NUM
1356 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1357
1358kill inferior NUM
1359 Kill inferior number NUM.
1360
d7713ae0
EZ
1361* New options
1362
3285f3fe
UW
1363set spu stop-on-load
1364show spu stop-on-load
1365 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1366
ff1a52c6
UW
1367set spu auto-flush-cache
1368show spu auto-flush-cache
1369 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1370 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1371
d7713ae0
EZ
1372set sh calling-convention
1373show sh calling-convention
1374 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1375
e0a3ce09 1376set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1377show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1378 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1379
1380set disassemble-next-line
1381show disassemble-next-line
1382 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1383 the debuggee stops.
1384
1385set remote noack-packet
1386show remote noack-packet
1387 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1388 under "New remote packets."
1389
1390set remote query-attached-packet
1391show remote query-attached-packet
1392 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1393
1394set remote read-siginfo-object
1395show remote read-siginfo-object
1396 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1397 packet.
1398
1399set remote write-siginfo-object
1400show remote write-siginfo-object
1401 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1402 packet.
1403
40ab02ce
MS
1404set remote reverse-continue
1405show remote reverse-continue
1406 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1407
1408set remote reverse-step
1409show remote reverse-step
1410 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1411
d7713ae0
EZ
1412set displaced-stepping
1413show displaced-stepping
1414 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1415 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1416 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1417
1418set debug displaced
1419show debug displaced
1420 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1421
1422maint set internal-error
1423maint show internal-error
1424 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1425
1426maint set internal-warning
1427maint show internal-warning
1428 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1429
ccd213ac
DJ
1430set exec-wrapper
1431show exec-wrapper
1432unset exec-wrapper
1433 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1434
aad4b048
JB
1435set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1436show multiple-symbols
1437 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1438 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1439 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1440
74960c60
VP
1441set breakpoint always-inserted
1442show breakpoint always-inserted
1443 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1444 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1445 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1446
0428b8f5
DJ
1447set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1448show arm fallback-mode
1449set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1450show arm force-mode
1451 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1452 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1453 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1454 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1455
10568435
JK
1456set disable-randomization
1457show disable-randomization
1458 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1459 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1460 multiple debugging sessions.
1461
d7713ae0
EZ
1462set non-stop
1463show non-stop
1464 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1465 a breakpoint.
1466
b3eb342c 1467set target-async
d7713ae0 1468show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1469 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1470 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1471 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1472 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1473
6c7a06a3
TT
1474set target-wide-charset
1475show target-wide-charset
1476 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1477 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1478
84603566
SL
1479set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1480show tcp auto-retry
1481set tcp connect-timeout
1482show tcp connect-timeout
1483 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1484 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1485 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1486
17a37d48
PP
1487set libthread-db-search-path
1488show libthread-db-search-path
1489 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1490 libthread_db.
1491
d4db2f36
PA
1492set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1493show schedule-multiple
1494 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1495 the current process.
1496
4e5d721f
DE
1497set stack-cache
1498show stack-cache
1499 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1500 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1501 affecting correctness.
1502
910c5da8
JB
1503set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1504show interactive-mode
1505 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1506 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1507 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1508 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1509 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1510
2277426b
PA
1511* Removed commands
1512
1513info forks
1514 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1515 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1516 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1517 command.
1518
1519fork NUM
1520 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1521 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1522 alias for the `fork' command.
1523
1524process PID
1525 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1526 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1527 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1528
1529delete fork NUM
1530 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1531 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1532 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1533 fork' command.
1534
1535detach fork NUM
1536 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1537 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1538 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1539 fork' command.
1540
a80b95ba
TG
1541* New native configurations
1542
1543x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1544
b8bfd3ed
JB
1545x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1546
75a2d5e7
TT
1547* New targets
1548
c28c63d8 1549Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1550x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1551x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1552S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1553
6de3146c
PA
1554* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1555 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1556
d5cbbe6e
JB
1557* Removed commands
1558
1559catch load
1560catch unload
1561 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1562
75feb17d 1563*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1564
af5ca30d
NH
1565* New native configurations
1566
1567NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1568Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1569
1570* New targets
1571
1572NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1573Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1574
7a404eba
PA
1575* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1576
1577 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1578 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1579 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1580 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1581
430ebac9
PA
1582* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1583(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1584
fe6fbf8b 1585* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1586is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1587
1588* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1589including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1590and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1591
10665d76
JB
1592* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1593accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1594more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1595
7cc46491
DJ
1596* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1597
d71340b8
DJ
1598* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1599registers on PowerPC targets.
1600
523c4513
DJ
1601* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1602targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1603
a6b151f1
DJ
1604* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1605commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1606
2d717e4f
DJ
1607* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1608extended-remote mode.
1609
24a836bd 1610* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1611The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1612error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1613The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1614
d0c678e6
UW
1615* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1616building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1617target architectures.
1618
d64a946d
TJB
1619* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1620Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1621now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1622stored in two consecutive float registers.
1623
ee163bf5
VP
1624* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1625breakpoints now.
1626
b93b6ca7 1627* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1628Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1629include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1630 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1631 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1632 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1633 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1634 of an assignment
1635 - Improved command completion in Ada
1636 - Several bug fixes
1637
d001be7a
DJ
1638* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1639process.
1640
a6b151f1
DJ
1641* New commands
1642
6d53d0af
JB
1643set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1644show print frame-arguments
1645 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1646 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1647
a6b151f1
DJ
1648remote put
1649remote get
1650remote delete
1651 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1652
1653* New MI commands
1654
1655-target-file-put
1656-target-file-get
1657-target-file-delete
1658 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1659
1660* New remote packets
1661
1662vFile:open:
1663vFile:close:
1664vFile:pread:
1665vFile:pwrite:
1666vFile:unlink:
1667 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1668
2d717e4f
DJ
1669vAttach
1670 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1671 mode.
1672
1673vRun
1674 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1675
8d5f9c6f 1676*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1677
19d378fc
MS
1678* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1679bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1680Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1681
3a40aaa0
UW
1682* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1683symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1684-Bsymbolic linker option.
1685
a6ec25f2
BW
1686* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1687recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1688is not supported.
1689
6dd09645
JB
1690* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1691frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1692
c9bb8148
DJ
1693* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
169432-bit or 64-bit register values.
1695
0d5de010
DJ
1696* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1697
23181151
DJ
1698* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1699target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1700a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1701
ea37ba09
DJ
1702* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1703automatically displayed as character or string data.
1704
1705* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1706arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1707as strings.
e1f48ead 1708
123dc839
DJ
1709* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1710for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1711only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1712
05a4558a
DJ
1713* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1714iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1715
7c963485
PA
1716* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1717ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1718has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1719
b18be20d
DJ
1720* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1721
0ca420ce
UW
1722* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1723
31d99776
DJ
1724* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1725layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1726segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1727
a4642986
MR
1728* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1729immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1730
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1731* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1732"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1733packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1734where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1735Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1736
1737* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1738(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1739
1740* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1741according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1742
c9bb8148
DJ
1743* New commands
1744
23776285
MR
1745set remoteflow
1746show remoteflow
1747 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1748 when debugging using remote targets.
1749
c9bb8148
DJ
1750set mem inaccessible-by-default
1751show mem inaccessible-by-default
1752 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1753 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1754 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1755 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1756 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1757
1758set breakpoint auto-hw
1759show breakpoint auto-hw
1760 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1761 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1762 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1763 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1764 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1765 including "next" and "finish".
1766
0e420bd8
JB
1767catch exception
1768catch exception unhandled
1769 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1770
1771catch assert
1772 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1773
f822c95b
DJ
1774set sysroot
1775show sysroot
1776 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1777 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1778 an alias to "set sysroot".
1779
83cc5c53
UW
1780info spu
1781 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1782 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1783 architecture.
1784
bd372731
MK
1785* New native configurations
1786
1787OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1788
23181151
DJ
1789set tdesc filename
1790unset tdesc filename
1791show tdesc filename
1792 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1793 not query the target for its built-in description.
1794
c9bb8148
DJ
1795* New targets
1796
54fe9172 1797OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1798MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1799Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1800
6dd09645
JB
1801* New remote packets
1802
1803QPassSignals:
1804 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1805 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1806
23181151
DJ
1807qXfer:features:read:
1808 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1809 features.
6dd09645 1810
83cc5c53
UW
1811qXfer:spu:read:
1812qXfer:spu:write:
1813 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1814 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1815
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1816qXfer:libraries:read:
1817 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1818 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1819 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1820 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1821
483367ee
DJ
1822* Removed targets
1823
1824Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1825
d08950c4
UW
1826alpha*-*-osf1*
1827alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1828d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1829hppa*-*-hiux*
1830i[34567]86-ncr-*
1831i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1832i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1833i[34567]86-*-netware*
1834i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1835i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1836i[34567]86-*-sco*
1837i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1838i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1839i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1840i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1841i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1842i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1843i[34567]86-*-isc*
1844m68*-cisco*-*
1845m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1846mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1847rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1848sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1849
7ce59000
DJ
1850* Other removed features
1851
1852target abug
1853target cpu32bug
1854target est
1855target rom68k
1856
1857 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1858
ea35711c
DJ
1859target hms
1860target e7000
1861target sh3
1862target sh3e
1863
1864 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1865 H8/300.
1866
1867target ocd
1868
1869 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1870 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1871 interfaces.
1872
7ce59000
DJ
1873DWARF 1 support
1874
1875 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1876 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1877
54d61198
DJ
1878Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1879
1880 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1881 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1882 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1883 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1884
ea35711c
DJ
1885MIPS ".pdr" sections
1886
1887 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1888 in debugging information.
1889
1890Scheme support
1891
1892 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1893 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1894
1a69e1e4
DJ
1895set mips stack-arg-size
1896set mips saved-gpreg-size
1897
1898 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1899
6dd09645 1900*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1901
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1902* New targets
1903
1904Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1905Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1906
6aec2e11
DJ
1907* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1908(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1909running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1910
1911* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1912Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1913supported.
1914
17218d91
DJ
1915* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1916broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1917
9ebce043
DJ
1918* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1919stub provides the required support.
1920
7d3d3ece
DJ
1921* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1922longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1923
4f8253f3
JB
1924* New commands
1925
1926set substitute-path
1927unset substitute-path
1928show substitute-path
1929 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1930 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1931 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1932 between compilation and debugging.
1933
9fa66fd7
AS
1934set trace-commands
1935show trace-commands
1936 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1937 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1938 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1939
1f5befc1
DJ
1940* REMOVED features
1941
1942The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1943
2ec3381a
DJ
1944Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1945an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1946
3d00d119
DJ
1947The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1948
be2a5f71
DJ
1949* New remote packets
1950
1951qSupported:
1952 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1953 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1954 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1955 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1956 target.
1957
0876f84a
DJ
1958qXfer:auxv:read:
1959 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1960 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1961
9ebce043
DJ
1962qXfer:memory-map:read:
1963 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1964 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1965
1966vFlashErase:
1967vFlashWrite:
1968vFlashDone:
1969 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1970
0876f84a
DJ
1971* Removed remote packets
1972
1973qPart:auxv:read:
1974 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1975 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1976
e374b601 1977*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1978
96309189
MS
1979* New targets
1980
1981Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1982
1983Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1984
53e5f3cf
AS
1985* New commands
1986
1987init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1988 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1989
ac264b3b
MS
1990The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1991
1992checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1993
1994restart <n> Return the program state to a
1995 previously saved state.
1996
1997info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1998
1999delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2000
2001set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2002 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2003
2004info forks List forks of the user program that
2005 are available to be debugged.
2006
2007fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2008 forks of the user program that are
2009 available to be debugged.
2010
2011delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2012 that are available to be debugged (and
2013 kill the forked process).
2014
2015detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2016 that are available to be debugged (and
2017 allow the process to continue).
2018
3950dc3f
NS
2019* New architecture
2020
2021Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2022
0ea3f30e
DJ
2023* Improved Windows host support
2024
2025GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2026native console support, and remote communications using either
2027network sockets or serial ports.
2028
f79daebb
GM
2029* Improved Modula-2 language support
2030
2031GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2032basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2033pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2034printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2035written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2036GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2037
acab6ab2
MM
2038* REMOVED features
2039
2040The ARM rdi-share module.
2041
f4267320
DJ
2042The Netware NLM debug server.
2043
53e5f3cf 2044*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2045
e0ecbda1
MK
2046* New native configurations
2047
02a677ac 2048OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2049OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2050
d64a6579
KB
2051* New targets
2052
2053Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2054
b33a6190
AS
2055* New command line options
2056
2057--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2058--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2059 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2060--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2061 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2062 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2063 with the --command (-x) option.
2064
11dced61
AC
2065* Deprecated commands removed
2066
2067The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2068removed:
2069
2070 Command Replacement
2071 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2072 othernames set arm disassembler
2073 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2074 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2075 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2076 regs info registers
2077
6fe85783
MK
2078* New BSD user-level threads support
2079
2080It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2081library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2082configurations are:
2083
2084FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2085FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2086OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2087
2088Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2089are not yet supported.
2090
5260ca71
MS
2091* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2092(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2093
e84ecc99
AC
2094* REMOVED configurations and files
2095
2096VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2097Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2098National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2099
31e35378
JB
2100* New "set print array-indexes" command
2101
2102After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2103when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2104behavior.
2105
e85e5c83
MK
2106* VAX floating point support
2107
2108GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2109
d91e9901
AS
2110* User-defined command support
2111
2112In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2113to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2114section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2115
f2cb65ca
MC
2116*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2117
f47b1503
AS
2118* New command line option
2119
2120GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2121debugging.
2122
f2cb65ca
MC
2123* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2124
2125GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2126information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2127by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2128proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2129to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2130
d08c0230
AC
2131* Internationalization
2132
2133When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2134internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2135continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2136
117ea3cf
PH
2137* Ada
2138
2139Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2140implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2141into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2142
d08c0230
AC
2143* New native configurations
2144
2145GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2146
2147* Remote 'p' packet
2148
2149GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2150packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2151
2152* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2153
2154GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2155The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2156features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2157i386 application).
2158
2159GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2160compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2161continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2162configurations:
2163
2164hppa-*-hpux
2165ia64-*-aix
2166mips-*-irix*
2167*-*-lynx
2168mips-*-linux-gnu
2169sds protocol
2170xdr protocol
2171powerpc bdm protocol
2172
2173Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2174made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2175
2176* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2177
2178Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2179been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2180configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2181permanently REMOVED.
2182
2183h8300-*-*
2184mcore-*-*
2185mn10300-*-*
2186ns32k-*-*
2187sh64-*-*
2188v850-*-*
2189
ebb7c577
AC
2190*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2191
2192* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2193
2194When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2195heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2196been fixed.
2197
2198* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2199
2200When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2201fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2202IRIX long double values).
2203
2204* VAX and "next"
2205
2206A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2207command. This problem has been fixed.
2208
860660cb 2209*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2210
0dea2468
AC
2211* Fix for ``many threads''
2212
2213On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2214rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2215error message:
2216
2217 ptrace: No such process.
2218 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2219
2220This problem has been fixed.
2221
2c07db7a
AC
2222* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2223
2224Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2225GDB to dump core).
2226
c23968a2
JB
2227* New ``start'' command.
2228
2229This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2230
71009278
MK
2231* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2232
2233Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2234live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2235platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2236
2237FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2238FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2239NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2240NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2241NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2242OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2243OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2244OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2245OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2246
3c0b7db2
AC
2247* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2248
2249Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2250These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2251of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2252call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2253signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2254
73cc75f3
AC
2255Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2256features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2257include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2258
7243600a
BF
2259* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2260
6f606e1c
MK
2261* New native configurations
2262
97dc871c 2263GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2264OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2265OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2266OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2267OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2268NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2269OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2270
a1b461bf
AC
2271* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2272
2273GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2274The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2275including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2276migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2277compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2278work, was also included.
2279
2280GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2281module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2282
2283h8300-*-*
2284mcore-*-*
2285mn10300-*-*
2286ns32k-*-*
2287sh64-*-*
2288v850-*-*
2289xstormy16-*-*
2290
2291Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2292made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2293
3c7012f5
AC
2294* REMOVED configurations and files
2295
2296Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2297Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2298Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2299Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2300Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2301AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2302Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2303decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2304riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2305sonymips mips-sony-*
2306sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2307
e5fe55f7
AC
2308*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2309
2310* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2311
2312The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2313GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2314command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2315program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2316with GDB".
2317
2318* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2319
2320Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2321libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2322cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2323GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2324shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2325the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2326are created.
2327
2328Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2329
2330* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2331
2332The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2333non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2334compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2335
2336* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2337
2338Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2339wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2340
2341* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2342
2343The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2344permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2345systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2346
2347* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2348
2349Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2350has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2351
2352* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2353
2354GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2355its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2356panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2357
2358* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2359
2360When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2361by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2362not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2363
faae5abe 2364*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2365
9175c9a3
MC
2366* Removed --with-mmalloc
2367
2368Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2369conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2370
3cc87ec0
MK
2371* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2372
2373The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2374the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2375and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2376you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2377
f0424ef6
MK
2378* Revised SPARC target
2379
2380The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2381FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2382support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2383from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2384(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2385
59659be2
ILT
2386* New C++ demangler
2387
2388GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2389names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2390with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2391programs.
2392
9e08b29b
DJ
2393* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2394
2395GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2396arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2397encountered these.
2398
8dfe8985
DC
2399* C++ nested types and namespaces
2400
2401GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2402improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2403is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2404Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2405namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2406"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2407frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2408if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2409GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2410
cced5e27
MK
2411* New native configurations
2412
2413NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2414OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2415OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2416OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2417OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2418
b4b4b794
KI
2419* New debugging protocols
2420
2421M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2422
7989c619
AC
2423* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2424
2425The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2426and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2427tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2428
5994185b
AC
2429* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2430
2431Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2432been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2433configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2434permanently REMOVED.
2435
2436Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2437Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2438Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2439Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2440Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2441AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2442Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2443decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2444riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2445sonymips mips-sony-*
2446sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2447
0ddabb4c
AC
2448* REMOVED configurations and files
2449
2450SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2451SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2452Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2453Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2454H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2455HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2456HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2457HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2458PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2459386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2460Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2461 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2462 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2463SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2464SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2465Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2466Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2467
c7f1390e
DJ
2468*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2469
1fe43d45
AC
2470* Objective-C
2471
2472Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2473integrated into GDB.
2474
e6beb428
AC
2475* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2476
2477DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2478information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2479By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2480backtraces.
2481
2482The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2483have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2484DWARF 2 CFI support.
2485
2486* Hosted file I/O.
2487
2488GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2489file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2490remote protocol documentation for details.
2491
2492* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2493
2494All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2495architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2496to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2497ppc32 on ppc64).
2498
2499* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2500
2501GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2502per-thread variables.
2503
2504* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2505
2506GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2507GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2508
2509* Separate debug info.
2510
2511GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2512automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2513of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2514system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2515and optional debug files.
2516
2517* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2518
2519DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2520describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2521debugger.
2522
2523GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2524for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2525
2526* Java
2527
2528A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2529Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2530considered "useable".
2531
85f8f974
DJ
2532* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2533
2534The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2535commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2536kernel.
2537
0fac0b41
DJ
2538* GDB supports logging output to a file
2539
2540There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2541used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2542
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2543* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2544
2545The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2546disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2547command.
2548
e286caf2 2549* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2550
2551The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2552registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2553
d28f9cdf
DJ
2554* Profiling support
2555
2556A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2557be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2558session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2559"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2560data, for more informative profiling results.
2561
da0f9dcd
AC
2562* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2563
2564The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2565option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2566"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2567
2568Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2569removed.
2570
fb9b6b35
JJ
2571Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2572Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2573Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2574 in a subsequent -var-update.
2575
954a4db8
MK
2576* New native configurations.
2577
2578FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2579
6760f9e6
JB
2580* Multi-arched targets.
2581
b4263afa 2582HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2583Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2584
1b831c93
AC
2585* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2586
2587Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2588been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2589configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2590permanently REMOVED.
2591
8b0e5691 2592Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2593Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2594H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2595HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2596HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2597HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2598PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2599Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2600 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2601 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2602Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2603Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2604
5835abe7
NC
2605* REMOVED configurations and files
2606
2607V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2608Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2609IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2610i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2611i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2612i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2613HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2614 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2615 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2616Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2617Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2618Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2619OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2620I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2621
a094c6fb
AC
2622* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2623
2624The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2625the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2626context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2627address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2628The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2629
299ffc64 2630*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2631
46248966
AC
2632* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2633
2634When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2635`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2636in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2637library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2638shared libs like mad''.
2639
b9d14705 2640* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2641
b9d14705
DJ
2642Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2643the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2644arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2645powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2646
e0e9281e
JB
2647* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2648
2649GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2650and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2651they expand.
2652
dd73b9bb
AC
2653The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2654invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2655
2656The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2657macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2658
e0e9281e
JB
2659Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2660information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2661your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2662information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2663
2250ee0c
CV
2664* Multi-arched targets.
2665
6e3ba3b8
JT
2666DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2667DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2668NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2669National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2670Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2671Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2672
cd9bfe15 2673* New targets.
e33ce519 2674
456f8b9d
DB
2675Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2676
e33ce519 2677
da8ca43d
JT
2678* New native configurations
2679
2680Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2681SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2682MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2683UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2684
cd9bfe15
AC
2685* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2686
2687Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2688been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2689configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2690permanently REMOVED.
2691
92eb23c5 2692Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2693OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2694IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2695Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2696Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2697Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2698i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2699i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2700i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2701HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2702 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2703 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2704I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2705
db034ac5
AC
2706* OBSOLETE languages
2707
2708CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2709
cd9bfe15
AC
2710* REMOVED configurations and files
2711
2712AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2713A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2714AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2715AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2716AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2717
2718testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2719
20f01a46
DH
2720* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2721
2722This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2723commands. The default is 1024.
2724
a5941fbf
MK
2725* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2726
2727Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2728
89743e04
MS
2729* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2730
2731These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2732to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2733from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2734
9fb14e79
JB
2735* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2736
2737The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2738including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2739of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2740
2037aebb
AC
2741*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2742
2743* New targets.
2744
2745Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2746
2747* Bug fixes
2748
2749gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2750mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2751Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2752
2753gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2754dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2755Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2756
2757Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2758Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2759By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2760
2761i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2762avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2763By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2764
37057839 2765*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2766
1a703748
MS
2767* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2768
2769This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2770really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2771In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2772target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2773This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2774(notably embedded) targets.
2775
cefd4ef5
MS
2776* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2777
55241689
AC
2778This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2779process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2780GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2781hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2782
352ed7b4
MS
2783* New command line option
2784
2785GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2786
2787* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2788
2789There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2790command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2791a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2792be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2793open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2794issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2795a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2796it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2797GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2798is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2799
fe419ffc
RE
2800* Changes in ARM configurations.
2801
2802Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2803configuration is fully multi-arch.
2804
eb7cedd9
MK
2805* New native configurations
2806
fe419ffc 2807ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2808x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2809AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2810Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2811
c9f63e6b
CV
2812* New targets
2813
2814Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2815
9b4ff276
AC
2816* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2817
2818Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2819been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2820configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2821permanently REMOVED.
2822
2823AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2824A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2825AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2826AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2827AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2828
b4ceaee6 2829testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2830
e2caac18
AC
2831* REMOVED configurations and files
2832
2833TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2834WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2835PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2836PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2837PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2838Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2839Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2840 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2841SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2842Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2843Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2844ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2845Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2846
c2a727fa
TT
2847* Changes to command line processing
2848
2849The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2850for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2851
467d8519
TT
2852* Changes to key bindings
2853
2854There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2855
7072a954
AC
2856*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2857
2858Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2859
2860Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2861corrupted.
2862
2863Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2864
2865Numerous documentation fixes.
2866
2867Numerous testsuite fixes.
2868
34f47bc4 2869*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2870
2871* New native configurations
2872
2873Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2874x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2875MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2876MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2877ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2878s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2879
bf64bfd6
AC
2880* New targets
2881
def90278 2882Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2883CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2884UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2885
17e78a56 2886* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2887
2888x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2889Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2890Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2891 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2892TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2893WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2894Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2895PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2896PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2897PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2898SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2899Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2900ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2901Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2902
17e78a56
AC
2903stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2904kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2905
7fcca85b
AC
2906Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2907been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2908configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2909permanently REMOVED.
2910
a196c81c 2911* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2912
2913Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2914Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2915Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2916ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2917Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2918ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2919
6d6b80e5 2920* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2921
6d6b80e5 2922GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2923sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2924present.
2925
bf64bfd6
AC
2926* Other news:
2927
e23194cb
EZ
2928* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2929
2930* The MI enabled by default.
2931
2932The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2933revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2934engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2935using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2936which is now deprecated.
2937
2938* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2939
2940GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2941main features are supported:
2942
2943 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2944
2945 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2946 extension;
2947
2948 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2949
2950 - a Pascal expression parser.
2951
2952However, some important features are not yet supported.
2953
2954 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2955
2956 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2957
2958 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2959 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2960
2961 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2962
2963 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2964
2965* Changes in completion.
2966
2967Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2968to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2969users expect at the shell prompt.
2970
2971Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2972`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2973program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2974files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2975be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2976considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2977name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2978
2979`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2980
2981* New platform-independent commands:
2982
2983It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2984hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2985documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2986
2987* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2988
d7275149
MK
2989Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2990revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2991many threads as your system allows you to have.
2992
e23194cb
EZ
2993Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2994
d7275149
MK
2995Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2996multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2997
2998* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2999
3000Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3001
e23194cb
EZ
3002GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3003debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3004supported.)
3005
3006* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3007
3008Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3009breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3010implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3011put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3012and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3013registers.
3014
3015The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3016debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3017watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3018
3019* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3020
3021New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3022the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3023
3024New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3025display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3026IDT.
3027
3028New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3029from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3030New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3031a given linear address.
3032
3033GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3034program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3035which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3036
3037DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3038
6c56c069
EZ
3039It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3040
e23194cb
EZ
3041* Changes in documentation.
3042
3043All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3044Documentation License.
3045
3046Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3047manual.
3048
3049TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3050
3051Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3052manual.
3053
3054The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3055documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3056hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3057
5d6640b1
AC
3058* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3059
3060The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3061``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3062contents of this file.
3063
1a1d8446
AC
3064* gdba.el deleted
3065
3066GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3067
9debab2f 3068*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3069
c63ce875
EZ
3070* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3071
3072Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3073programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3074displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3075greater level of detail.
3076
3077* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3078
3079It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3080bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3081on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3082written.
3083
3084* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3085
3086The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3087necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3088machines ``out of the box''.
3089
3090The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3091possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3092signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3093would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3094interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3095
3096It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3097standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3098even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3099and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3100terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3101
3102The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3103enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3104also works.
3105
3106DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3107GDB.
3108
3109It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3110directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3111times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3112breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3113
ed9a39eb
JM
3114* New native configurations
3115
3116ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3117PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3118
7a292a7a
SS
3119* New targets
3120
96baa820 3121Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3122x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3123PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3124TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3125
085dd6e6
JM
3126* OBSOLETE configurations
3127
3128Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3129Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3130Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3131ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3132Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3133
9debab2f
AC
3134Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3135but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3136these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3137be permanently REMOVED.
3138
5330533d
SS
3139* Gould support removed
3140
3141Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3142
bc9e5bbf
AC
3143* New features for SVR4
3144
3145On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3146without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3147load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3148
3149* Many C++ enhancements
3150
3151C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3152in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3153
adf40b2e
JM
3154* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3155
3156A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3157sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3158with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3159``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3160
3161 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3162 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3163
43e526b9
JM
3164* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3165
3166A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3167expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3168instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3169
3170The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3171added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3172
96baa820
JM
3173* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3174
3175The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3176``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3177include ``set remote P-packet''.
3178
11cf8741
JM
3179* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3180
3181The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3182accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3183``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3184
7876dd43
DB
3185* ``apropos'' command added.
3186
3187The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3188documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3189try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3190
bc9e5bbf
AC
3191* New MI interface
3192
3193A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3194interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3195process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3196"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3197enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3198
3199 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3200
c906108c
SS
3201*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3202
3203* New native configurations
3204
3205HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3206HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3207M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3208
3209* New targets
3210
3211Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3212Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3213Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3214
3215* OBSOLETE configurations
3216
3217Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3218
3219Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3220but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3221these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3222be permanently REMOVED.
3223
3224* ANSI/ISO C
3225
3226As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3227buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3228containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3229use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3230available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3231configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3232information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3233already.
3234
3235* Readline 2.2
3236
3237GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3238
3239* set extension-language
3240
3241You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3242languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3243you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3244 set extension-language .c c++
3245The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3246and their associated languages.
3247
3248* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3249
3250When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3251you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3252PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3253
3254 set processor NAME
3255
3256sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3257following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3258
3259 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3260 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3261 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3262 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3263 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3264 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3265 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3266 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3267 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3268 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3269 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3270
3271At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3272special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3273registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3274only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3275
3276* HP-UX support
3277
3278Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3279more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3280library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3281support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3282for xdb and dbx commands.
3283
3284* Catchpoints
3285
3286HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3287generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3288to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3289
3290This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3291argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3292output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3293
3294* Debugging across forks
3295
3296On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3297in the inferior.
3298
3299* TUI
3300
3301HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3302it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3303configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3304
3305* GDB remote protocol additions
3306
3307A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3308Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3309fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3310allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3311
3312For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3313full 64-bit address. The command
3314
3315 set remoteaddresssize 32
3316
3317can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3318the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3319will be discarded.
3320
3321In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3322command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3323
3324 maint packet heythere
3325
3326sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3327disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3328time.
3329
3330The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3331target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3332downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3333
3334* Tracing can collect general expressions
3335
3336You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3337further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3338doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3339
3340* mask-address variable for Mips
3341
3342For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3343a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3344of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3345
3346* Higher serial baud rates
3347
3348GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3349230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3350to achieve all of these rates.)
3351
3352* i960 simulator
3353
3354The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3355builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3356
3357
3358*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3359
3360* New native configurations
3361
3362Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3363Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3364Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3365PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3366PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3367Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3368Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3369
3370* New targets
3371
3372Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3373Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3374Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3375Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3376MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3377MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3378MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3379Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3380Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3381Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3382NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3383
3384* New debugging protocols
3385
3386ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3387M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3388DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3389PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3390PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3391Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3392
3393* DWARF 2
3394
3395All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3396format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3397information.
3398
3399* Java frontend
3400
3401GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3402only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3403
3404* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3405
3406For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3407loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3408locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3409
3410* Live range splitting
3411
3412GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3413range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3414more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3415
3416* Hurd support
3417
3418GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3419updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3420
3421* ARM Thumb support
3422
3423GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3424instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3425instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3426accordingly.
3427
3428* MIPS16 support
3429
3430GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3431instruction set.
3432
3433* Overlay support
3434
3435GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3436linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3437will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3438control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3439additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3440in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3441
3442* info symbol
3443
3444The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3445the symbol at the specified address.
3446
3447* Trace support
3448
3449The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3450asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3451extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3452includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3453file tracepoint.c for more details.
3454
3455* MIPS simulator
3456
3457Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3458by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3459of most MIPS variants.
3460
3461* Sparc simulator
3462
3463Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3464by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3465Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3466
3467* set architecture
3468
3469For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3470basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3471architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3472the possible architectures.
3473
3474*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3475
3476* New native configurations
3477
3478Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3479M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3480PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3481PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3482PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3483RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3484
3485* New targets
3486
3487ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3488I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3489MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3490MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3491PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3492Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3493Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3494
3495* PowerPC simulator
3496
3497The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3498contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3499PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3500basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3501performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3502
3503* Solaris 2.5
3504
3505GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3506
3507* Windows 95/NT native
3508
3509GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3510To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3511which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3512Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3513ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3514
3515* dont-repeat command
3516
3517If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3518command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3519useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3520extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3521
3522* Send break instead of ^C
3523
3524The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3525rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3526GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3527
3528* Remote protocol timeout
3529
3530The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3531that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3532to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3533
3534* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3535
3536By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3537loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3538stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3539when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3540in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3541
3542Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3543/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3544automatically on hpux10.
3545
3546* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3547
3548Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3549
3550* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3551
3552When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3553may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3554the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3555every character. The default value is 1050.
3556
3557* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3558
3559If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3560a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3561replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3562details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3563remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3564to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3565
3566* Speedups for remote debugging
3567
3568GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3569the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3570and more efficient S-record downloading.
3571
3572* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3573
3574GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3575Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3576
3577*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3578
3579* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3580
3581The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3582can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3583
3584* Remote targets use caching
3585
3586Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3587remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3588it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3589debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3590off' turns the the data cache off.
3591
3592* Remote targets may have threads
3593
3594The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3595in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3596gdb/remote.c for details.
3597
3598* NetROM support
3599
3600If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3601support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3602acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3603write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3604support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3605another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3606sequence is something like
3607
3608 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3609 load <prog>
3610 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3611
3612* Macintosh host
3613
3614GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3615may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3616it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3617available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3618device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3619directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3620scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3621mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3622
3623* Autoconf
3624
3625GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3626but does simplify configuration and building.
3627
3628* hpux10
3629
3630GDB now supports hpux10.
3631
3632*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3633
3634* New native configurations
3635
3636x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3637x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3638NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3639Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3640
3641* New targets
3642
3643A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3644HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3645CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3646PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3647WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3648
3649* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3650
3651GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3652possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3653filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3654the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3655if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3656
3657* Arguments to user-defined commands
3658
3659User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3660Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3661trivial example:
3662define adder
3663 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3664
3665To execute the command use:
3666adder 1 2 3
3667
3668Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3669Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3670use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3671
3672* New `if' and `while' commands
3673
3674This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3675commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3676expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3677execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3678terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3679`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3680if the expression is zero.
3681
3682* Fortran source language mode
3683
3684GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3685Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3686variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3687with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3688Fortran compilers.
3689
3690* Better HPUX support
3691
3692Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3693running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3694processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3695for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3696that behavior do the following before running the program:
3697
3698 adb -w a.out
3699 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3700 control-d
3701
3702This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3703To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3704
3705 adb -w a.out
3706 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3707 control-d
3708
3709You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3710the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3711external linkage.
3712
3713GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3714HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3715
3716* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3717
3718You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3719commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3720current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3721"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3722associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3723configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3724
3725* New DOS host serial code
3726
3727This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3728no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3729a PC's serial port.
3730
3731*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3732
3733* New "complete" command
3734
3735This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3736were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3737
3738* Trailing space optional in prompt
3739
3740"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3741allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3742
3743* Breakpoint hit counts
3744
3745"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3746has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3747can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3748to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3749less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3750that breakpoint.
3751
3752* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3753
3754"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3755an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3756arrays actually contain only short strings.
3757
3758* Shared library breakpoints
3759
3760In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3761breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3762
3763* Hardware watchpoints
3764
3765There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3766targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3767
55241689 3768Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3769
3770* Annotations
3771
3772Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3773and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3774
3775* Improved Irix 5 support
3776
3777GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3778
3779* Improved HPPA support
3780
3781GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3782
3783* New native configurations
3784
3785Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3786HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3787Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3788RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3789
3790* New targets
3791
3792OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3793MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3794Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3795
3796* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3797
3798There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3799This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3800
3801* Fixes
3802
3803As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3804and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3805
3806*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3807
3808* Irix 5 is now supported
3809
3810* HPPA support
3811
3812GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3813to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3814GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3815of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3816can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3817
3818
3819*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3820
3821* User visible changes:
3822
3823* Remote Debugging
3824
3825The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3826target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3827debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3828integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3829debugging info for the mips target).
3830
3831* DEC Alpha native support
3832
3833GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3834debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3835work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3836Alpha-specific notes.
3837
3838* Preliminary thread implementation
3839
3840GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3841
3842* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3843
3844This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3845to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3846for details).
3847
3848* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3849
3850This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3851mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3852call methods, ...etc.
3853
3854*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3855
3856 * User visible changes:
3857
3858Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3859supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3860other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3861somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3862
3863Filename completion now works.
3864
3865When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3866arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3867addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3868
3869All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3870vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3871should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3872your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3873to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3874
3875 * DEC alpha support
3876
3877This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3878cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3879
3880
3881*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3882
3883 * Testsuite
3884
3885This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3886The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3887via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3888
3889 * C++ demangling
3890
3891'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3892emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3893Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3894disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3895use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3896
3897 * Simulators
3898
3899GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3900So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3901Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3902
3903 * New targets supported
3904
3905H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3906H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3907SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3908Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3909IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3910
3911Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3912version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3913GO32 memory extender.
3914
3915 * New remote protocols
3916
3917MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3918
3919 * New source languages supported
3920
3921This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3922used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3923into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3924
3925
3926*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3927
3928 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3929
3930GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3931version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3932University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3933compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3934format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3935(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3936
3937Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3938
3939 * Faster and better demangling
3940
3941We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3942demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3943character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3944only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3945This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3946increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3947symbol lookups.
3948
3949`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3950from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3951compiler does not actually implement.
3952
3953 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3954
3955In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3956inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3957recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3958very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3959The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3960circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3961fix.
3962
3963The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3964release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3965
3966 * Improved configure script
3967
3968The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3969you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3970host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3971done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3972
3973We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3974version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3975`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3976The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3977only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3978We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3979
3980 * Documentation improvements
3981
3982There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3983produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3984before submitting changes.
3985
3986The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3987M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3988`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3989you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3990a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3991
3992*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3993We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3994been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3995or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3996`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3997around this problem.
3998
3999 * New features
4000
4001GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4002the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4003`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4004the target program.
4005
4006The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4007how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4008
4009 * New native hosts supported
4010
4011HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4012386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4013
4014 * New targets supported
4015
4016AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4017
4018 * New file formats supported
4019
4020BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4021HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4022
4023 * Major bug fixes
4024
4025Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4026
4027We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4028printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4029
4030We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4031for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4032release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4033
4034You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4035will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4036
4037We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4038for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4039especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4040libraries.
4041
4042The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4043information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4044command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4045any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4046when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4047
4048 * Internal improvements
4049
4050GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4051debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4052
4053GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4054Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4055symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4056contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4057shared code that handles any of them.
4058
4059 * New command line options
4060
4061We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4062
4063 * Mmalloc licensing
4064
4065The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4066General Public License.
4067
4068*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4069
4070 * Host/native/target split
4071
4072GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4073hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4074target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4075local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4076ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4077
4078The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4079GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4080is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4081code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4082any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4083built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4084handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4085
4086GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4087It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4088plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4089
4090 * New hosts supported
4091
4092HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4093386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4094386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4095
4096 * New targets supported
4097
4098Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
409968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4100
4101 * New native hosts supported
4102
4103386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4104 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4105386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4106
4107 * New file formats supported
4108
4109BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4110supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4111format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4112
4113 * New commands
4114
4115`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4116`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4117These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4118
4119`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4120
4121You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4122scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4123prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4124executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4125
4126 * C++ improvements
4127
4128We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4129info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4130symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4131
4132Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4133
4134 * Major bug fixes
4135
4136The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4137fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4138by the compiler.
4139
4140We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4141support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4142
4143John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4144slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4145that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4146purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4147the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4148mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4149
4150Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4151about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4152completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4153we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4154
4155 * AMD 29k support
4156
4157A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4158specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4159calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4160usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4161in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4162
4163We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4164Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4165of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4166resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4167
4168 * Remote interfaces
4169
4170We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4171with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4172message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4173This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4174needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4175breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4176each instruction being stepped through.
4177
4178The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4179registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4180
4181There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4182find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4183Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4184processor with a serial port.
4185
4186 * Configuration
4187
4188Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4189`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4190supported, and what files each one uses.
4191
4192 * Library changes
4193
4194There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4195disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4196Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4197disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4198
4199The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4200Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4201can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4202grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4203
4204 * Documentation
4205
4206The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4207reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4208as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4209encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4210system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4211bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4212
4213And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4214
4215
4216*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4217
4218 * Better support for C++ function names
4219
4220GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4221names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4222(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4223single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4224Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4225
4226GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4227the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4228You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4229lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4230for the list of formats.
4231
4232 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4233
4234Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4235C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4236directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4237can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4238usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4239about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4240this problem.)
4241
4242 * New 'maintenance' command
4243
4244All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4245the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4246can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4247
4248 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4249 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4250 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4251 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4252 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4253 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4254
4255The following commands are new:
4256
4257 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4258 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4259 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4260
4261 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4262
4263We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4264(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4265be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4266read after argv processing.
4267
4268 * New hosts supported
4269
4270Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4271
55241689 4272GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4273
4274We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4275is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4276for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4277masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4278fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4279It costs extra.
4280
4281 * New targets supported
4282
4283Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4284
4285 * More smarts about finding #include files
4286
4287GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4288all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4289greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4290especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4291the one that contains your sources.
4292
4293We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4294breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4295try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4296
4297 * Interesting infernals change
4298
4299GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4300section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4301target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4302stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4303
4304 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4305
4306There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4307 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4308 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4309
4310See the ChangeLog for details.
4311
4312*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4313
4314 * New machines supported (host and target)
4315
4316IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4317
4318SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4319
4320 * New malloc package
4321
4322GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4323Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4324capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4325This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4326pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4327more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4328
4329 * info proc
4330
4331The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4332'help info proc' for details.
4333
4334 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4335
4336The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4337Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4338possible.
4339
4340 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4341
4342Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4343support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4344conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4345environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4346that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4347in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4348
4349 * Cross byte order fixes
4350
4351Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4352targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4353
4354 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4355
4356If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4357system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4358`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4359program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4360called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4361Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4362and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4363the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4364option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4365starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4366
4367You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4368the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4369information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4370slower, but makes future operations faster.
4371
4372The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4373build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4374A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4375use is:
4376
4377 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4378
4379The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4380It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4381shared across multiple host platforms.
4382
4383 * longjmp() handling
4384
4385GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4386siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4387all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4388platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4389
4390 * Solaris 2.0
4391
4392Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4393this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4394reading symbols.
4395
4396 * Bug fixes
4397
4398As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4399People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4400crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4401
4402*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4403
4404 * New machines supported (host and target)
4405
4406SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4407 (except core files)
4408BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4409Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4410
4411 * New machines supported (target)
4412
4413AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4414
4415 * C++ support
4416
4417GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4418The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4419per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4420
4421GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4422`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4423extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4424good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4425will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4426released.
4427
4428 * New features for SVR4
4429
4430GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4431shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4432only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4433
4434The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4435on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4436it prints the address mappings of the process.
4437
4438If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4439bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4440
4441 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4442
4443Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4444now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4445skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4446make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4447same code linked statically.
4448
4449 * New Getopt
4450
4451GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4452version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4453continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4454Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4455added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4456future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4457
4458 * Bugs fixed
4459
4460The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4461Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4462See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4463
4464
4465*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4466
4467 * New machines supported (host and target)
4468
4469Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4470NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4471Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4472
4473 * Almost SCO Unix support
4474
4475We had hoped to support:
4476SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4477(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4478that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4479about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4480
4481 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4482
4483GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4484debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4485is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4486send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4487reqired (if any).
4488
4489 * New Readline
4490
4491GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4492is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4493required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4494
4495 * Bugs fixed
4496
4497The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4498Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4499See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4500
4501 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4502
4503GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4504supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4505symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4506
4507Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4508mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4509debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4510mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4511version 2.
4512
4513Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4514really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4515line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4516variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4517situation somewhat.
4518
4519When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4520However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4521methods.
4522
4523We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4524DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4525encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4526
4527
4528*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4529
4530 * Improved configuration
4531
4532Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4533Porting BFD is simpler.
4534
4535 * Stepping improved
4536
4537The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4538of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4539in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4540function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4541
4542 * Bug fixing
4543
4544Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4545
4546 * New host supported (not target)
4547
4548Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4549
4550
4551*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4552
4553 * Multiple source language support
4554
4555GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4556It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4557and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4558language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4559You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4560`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4561
4562 * GDB and Modula-2
4563
4564GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4565currently under development at the State University of New York at
4566Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4567continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4568
4569Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4570debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4571symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4572
4573There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4574in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4575
4576 * set write on/off
4577
4578GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4579a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4580the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4581by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4582effect immediately.
4583
4584 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4585
4586When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4587shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4588The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4589examining core files.
4590
4591 * set listsize
4592
4593You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4594The default is 10.
4595
4596 * New machines supported (host and target)
4597
4598SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4599Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4600Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4601
4602 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4603
4604IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4605
4606 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4607
4608AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4609AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4610Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4611
4612 * New remote interfaces
4613
4614AMD 29000 Adapt
4615AMD 29000 Minimon
4616
4617
4618*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4619
4620 * New Facilities
4621
4622Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4623
4624Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4625target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4626is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4627remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4628remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4629also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4630using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4631stub on the target system.
4632
4633New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4634
4635GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4636library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4637object file types such as a.out and coff.
4638
4639There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4640refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4641
4642
4643 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4644
4645All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4646by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4647
4648For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4649``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4650Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4651
4652What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4653print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4654will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4655all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4656
4657confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4658 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4659 it is already running. Default is ON.
4660
4661editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4662 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4663 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4664 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4665 Default is ON.
4666
4667history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4668 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4669 or the value of the environment variable
4670 GDBHISTFILE.
4671
4672history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4673 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4674 HISTSIZE.
4675
4676history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4677 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4678 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4679
4680history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4681 history expansion will be performed on
4682 command line input. The default is OFF.
4683
4684radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4685 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4686 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4687
4688height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4689 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4690 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4691 variable TERM.
4692
4693width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4694 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4695 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4696 variable TERM.
4697
4698Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4699``set width'' instead.
4700
4701print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4702 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4703 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4704 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4705
4706print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4707 is OFF.
4708
4709print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4710 "raw" form if off.
4711
4712print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4713 like instructions.
4714
4715print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4716
4717
4718 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4719
4720The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4721new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4722are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4723window.
4724
4725
4726 * Support for Shared Libraries
4727
4728GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4729Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4730before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4731happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4732At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4733from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4734shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4735It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4736
4737sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4738 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4739 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4740
4741info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4742
4743
4744 * Watchpoints
4745
4746A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4747expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4748tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4749quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4750problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4751more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4752
4753watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4754
4755info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4756
4757delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4758disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4759enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4760
4761
4762 * C++ multiple inheritance
4763
4764When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4765for C++ programs.
4766
4767 * C++ exception handling
4768
4769Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4770ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4771the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4772handler's context).
4773
4774catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4775 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4776 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4777
4778info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4779 current stack frame.
4780
4781
4782 * Minor command changes
4783
4784The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4785command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4786is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4787
4788The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4789at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4790frames without printing.
4791
4792 * New directory command
4793
4794'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4795The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4796about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4797with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4798find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4799
4800 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4801
4802For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4803for more details.
4804
4805GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4806two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4807Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4808where the program that you are debugging will run.
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