gdb.base/foll-exec.exp: Update the expected output of a couple
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
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6* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
7remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
8with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
9the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
10
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11* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
12now complete on file names.
13
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14* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
15completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
16For instance, consider:
17
18 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
19 # struct example variable;
20 (gdb) p variable.
21
22If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
23completions will be "f1" and "f2".
24
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25* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
26operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
27macros.
28
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29* New remote packets
30
31qSearch:memory:
32 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
33
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34QStartNoAckMode
35 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
36 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
37 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
38
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39* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
40
41 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
42 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
43 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
44
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45* The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
46source+assembly.
47
c055b101 48* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 49DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
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50
51* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
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52and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
53`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 54
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55* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
56with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
57
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58* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
59
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60* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
61
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62* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
63which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
64
1fddbabb 65* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 66list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 67
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68* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
69conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
70have also been fixed.
71
bfb8797a 72* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
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73From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
74are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 75
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76* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
77
78 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
79 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
80
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81 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
82 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
83 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
84
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85 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
86 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
87
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88* Python scripting
89
90 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
91 available is determined at configure time.
92
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93* Ada tasking support
94
95 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
96 been introduced:
97
98 info tasks
99 Print the list of Ada tasks.
100 info task N
101 Print detailed information about task number N.
102 task
103 Print the task number of the current task.
104 task N
105 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
106
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107* New commands
108
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109find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
110 val1 [, val2, ...]
111 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
112
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113maint set python print-stack
114maint show python print-stack
115 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
116
117python [CODE]
118 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
119
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120set print symbol-loading
121show print symbol-loading
122 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
123
e0a3ce09 124set debug timestamp
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125show debug timestamp
126 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
127
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128set exec-wrapper
129show exec-wrapper
130unset exec-wrapper
131 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 132
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133set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
134show multiple-symbols
135 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
136 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
137 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
138
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139set breakpoint always-inserted
140show breakpoint always-inserted
141 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
142 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
143 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
144
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145set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
146show arm fallback-mode
147set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
148show arm force-mode
149 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
150 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
151 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
152 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
153
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154set disable-randomization
155show disable-randomization
156 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
157 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
158 multiple debugging sessions.
159
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160set target-async
161 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
162 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
163 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
164 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
165
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166macro define
167macro list
168macro undef
169 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
170 interactively.
171
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172* New targets
173
174x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
175
75feb17d 176*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 177
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178* New native configurations
179
180NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 181Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
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182
183* New targets
184
185NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 186Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 187
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188* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
189
190 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
191 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
192 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
193 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
194
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195* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
196(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
197
fe6fbf8b 198* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 199is resolved.
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200
201* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
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202including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
203and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 204
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205* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
206accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
207more than one contiguous range of addresses.
208
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209* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
210
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211* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
212registers on PowerPC targets.
213
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214* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
215targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
216
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217* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
218commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
219
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220* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
221extended-remote mode.
222
24a836bd 223* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
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224The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
225error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
226The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 227
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228* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
229building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
230target architectures.
231
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232* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
233Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
234now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
235stored in two consecutive float registers.
236
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237* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
238breakpoints now.
239
b93b6ca7 240* Improved support for debugging Ada
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241Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
242include:
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243 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
244 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
245 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
246 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
247 of an assignment
248 - Improved command completion in Ada
249 - Several bug fixes
250
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251* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
252process.
253
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254* New commands
255
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256set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
257show print frame-arguments
258 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
259 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
260
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261remote put
262remote get
263remote delete
264 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
265
266* New MI commands
267
268-target-file-put
269-target-file-get
270-target-file-delete
271 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
272
273* New remote packets
274
275vFile:open:
276vFile:close:
277vFile:pread:
278vFile:pwrite:
279vFile:unlink:
280 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 281
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282vAttach
283 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
284 mode.
285
286vRun
287 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
288
8d5f9c6f 289*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 290
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291* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
292bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
293Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
294
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295* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
296symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
297-Bsymbolic linker option.
298
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299* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
300recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
301is not supported.
302
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303* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
304frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
305
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306* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
30732-bit or 64-bit register values.
308
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309* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
310
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311* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
312target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
313a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
314
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315* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
316automatically displayed as character or string data.
317
318* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
319arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
320as strings.
e1f48ead 321
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322* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
323for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 324only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 325
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326* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
327iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 328
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329* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
330ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
331has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
332
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333* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
334
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335* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
336
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337* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
338layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
339segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
340
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341* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
342immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
343
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344* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
345"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
346packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
347where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
348Windows and SymbianOS).
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349
350* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
351(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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352
353* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
354according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 355
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356* New commands
357
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358set remoteflow
359show remoteflow
360 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
361 when debugging using remote targets.
362
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363set mem inaccessible-by-default
364show mem inaccessible-by-default
365 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
366 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
367 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
368 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
369 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
370
371set breakpoint auto-hw
372show breakpoint auto-hw
373 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
374 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
375 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
376 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
377 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
378 including "next" and "finish".
379
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380catch exception
381catch exception unhandled
382 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
383
384catch assert
385 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
386
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387set sysroot
388show sysroot
389 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
390 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
391 an alias to "set sysroot".
392
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393info spu
394 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
395 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
396 architecture.
397
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398* New native configurations
399
400OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
401
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402set tdesc filename
403unset tdesc filename
404show tdesc filename
405 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
406 not query the target for its built-in description.
407
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408* New targets
409
54fe9172 410OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 411MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 412Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 413
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414* New remote packets
415
416QPassSignals:
417 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
418 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
419
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420qXfer:features:read:
421 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
422 features.
6dd09645 423
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424qXfer:spu:read:
425qXfer:spu:write:
426 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
427 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
428
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429qXfer:libraries:read:
430 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
431 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
432 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
433 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
434
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435* Removed targets
436
437Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
438
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439alpha*-*-osf1*
440alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 441d10v-*-*
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442hppa*-*-hiux*
443i[34567]86-ncr-*
444i[34567]86-*-dgux*
445i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
446i[34567]86-*-netware*
447i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
448i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
449i[34567]86-*-sco*
450i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
451i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
452i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
453i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
454i[34567]86-*-unixware*
455i[34567]86-*-sysv*
456i[34567]86-*-isc*
457m68*-cisco*-*
458m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 459mips*-*-pe
483367ee 460rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 461sh*-*-pe
483367ee 462
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463* Other removed features
464
465target abug
466target cpu32bug
467target est
468target rom68k
469
470 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
471
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472target hms
473target e7000
474target sh3
475target sh3e
476
477 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
478 H8/300.
479
480target ocd
481
482 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
483 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
484 interfaces.
485
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486DWARF 1 support
487
488 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
489 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
490
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491Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
492
493 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
494 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
495 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
496 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
497
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498MIPS ".pdr" sections
499
500 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
501 in debugging information.
502
503Scheme support
504
505 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
506 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
507
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508set mips stack-arg-size
509set mips saved-gpreg-size
510
511 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
512
6dd09645 513*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 514
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515* New targets
516
517Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 518Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 519
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520* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
521(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
522running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
523
524* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
525Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
526supported.
527
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528* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
529broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
530
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531* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
532stub provides the required support.
533
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534* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
535longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
536
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537* New commands
538
539set substitute-path
540unset substitute-path
541show substitute-path
542 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
543 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
544 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
545 between compilation and debugging.
546
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547set trace-commands
548show trace-commands
549 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
550 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
551 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
552
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553* REMOVED features
554
555The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
556
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557Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
558an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
559
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560The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
561
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562* New remote packets
563
564qSupported:
565 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
566 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
567 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
568 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
569 target.
570
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571qXfer:auxv:read:
572 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
573 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
574
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575qXfer:memory-map:read:
576 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
577 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
578
579vFlashErase:
580vFlashWrite:
581vFlashDone:
582 Erase and program a flash memory device.
583
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584* Removed remote packets
585
586qPart:auxv:read:
587 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
588 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
589
e374b601 590*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 591
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592* New targets
593
594Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
595
596Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
597
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598* New commands
599
600init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
601 only if it doesn't already have a value.
602
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603The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
604
605checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
606
607restart <n> Return the program state to a
608 previously saved state.
609
610info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
611
612delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
613
614set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
615 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
616
617info forks List forks of the user program that
618 are available to be debugged.
619
620fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
621 forks of the user program that are
622 available to be debugged.
623
624delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
625 that are available to be debugged (and
626 kill the forked process).
627
628detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
629 that are available to be debugged (and
630 allow the process to continue).
631
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632* New architecture
633
634Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
635
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636* Improved Windows host support
637
638GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
639native console support, and remote communications using either
640network sockets or serial ports.
641
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642* Improved Modula-2 language support
643
644GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
645basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
646pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
647printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
648written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
649GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
650
acab6ab2
MM
651* REMOVED features
652
653The ARM rdi-share module.
654
f4267320
DJ
655The Netware NLM debug server.
656
53e5f3cf 657*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 658
e0ecbda1
MK
659* New native configurations
660
02a677ac 661OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
662OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
663
d64a6579
KB
664* New targets
665
666Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
667
b33a6190
AS
668* New command line options
669
670--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
671--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
672 the child (debugged) program exited with.
673--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
674 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
675 specified multiple times and in conjunction
676 with the --command (-x) option.
677
11dced61
AC
678* Deprecated commands removed
679
680The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
681removed:
682
683 Command Replacement
684 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
685 othernames set arm disassembler
686 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
687 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
688 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
689 regs info registers
690
6fe85783
MK
691* New BSD user-level threads support
692
693It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
694library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
695configurations are:
696
697FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
698FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
699OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
700
701Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
702are not yet supported.
703
5260ca71
MS
704* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
705(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
706
e84ecc99
AC
707* REMOVED configurations and files
708
709VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 710Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 711National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 712
31e35378
JB
713* New "set print array-indexes" command
714
715After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
716when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
717behavior.
718
e85e5c83
MK
719* VAX floating point support
720
721GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
722
d91e9901
AS
723* User-defined command support
724
725In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
726to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
727section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
728
f2cb65ca
MC
729*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
730
f47b1503
AS
731* New command line option
732
733GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
734debugging.
735
f2cb65ca
MC
736* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
737
738GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
739information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
740by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
741proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
742to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 743
d08c0230
AC
744* Internationalization
745
746When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
747internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
748continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
749
117ea3cf
PH
750* Ada
751
752Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
753implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
754into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
755
d08c0230
AC
756* New native configurations
757
758GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
759
760* Remote 'p' packet
761
762GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
763packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
764
765* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
766
767GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
768The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
769features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
770i386 application).
771
772GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
773compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
774continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
775configurations:
776
777hppa-*-hpux
778ia64-*-aix
779mips-*-irix*
780*-*-lynx
781mips-*-linux-gnu
782sds protocol
783xdr protocol
784powerpc bdm protocol
785
786Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
787made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
788
789* OBSOLETE configurations and files
790
791Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
792been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
793configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
794permanently REMOVED.
795
796h8300-*-*
797mcore-*-*
798mn10300-*-*
799ns32k-*-*
800sh64-*-*
801v850-*-*
802
ebb7c577
AC
803*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
804
805* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
806
807When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
808heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
809been fixed.
810
811* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
812
813When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
814fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
815IRIX long double values).
816
817* VAX and "next"
818
819A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
820command. This problem has been fixed.
821
860660cb 822*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 823
0dea2468
AC
824* Fix for ``many threads''
825
826On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
827rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
828error message:
829
830 ptrace: No such process.
831 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
832
833This problem has been fixed.
834
2c07db7a
AC
835* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
836
837Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
838GDB to dump core).
839
c23968a2
JB
840* New ``start'' command.
841
842This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
843
71009278
MK
844* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
845
846Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
847live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
848platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
849
850FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
851FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
852NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
853NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
854NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
855OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
856OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
857OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
858OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
859
3c0b7db2
AC
860* Signal trampoline code overhauled
861
862Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
863These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
864of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
865call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
866signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
867
73cc75f3
AC
868Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
869features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
870include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 871
7243600a
BF
872* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
873
6f606e1c
MK
874* New native configurations
875
97dc871c 876GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 877OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
878OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
879OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 880OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 881NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 882OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 883
a1b461bf
AC
884* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
885
886GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
887The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
888including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
889migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
890compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
891work, was also included.
892
893GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
894module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
895
896h8300-*-*
897mcore-*-*
898mn10300-*-*
899ns32k-*-*
900sh64-*-*
901v850-*-*
902xstormy16-*-*
903
904Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
905made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
906
3c7012f5
AC
907* REMOVED configurations and files
908
909Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
910Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
911Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
912Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
913Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
914AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
915Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
916decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
917riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
918sonymips mips-sony-*
919sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
920
e5fe55f7
AC
921*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
922
923* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
924
925The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
926GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
927command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
928program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
929with GDB".
930
931* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
932
933Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
934libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
935cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
936GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
937shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
938the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
939are created.
940
941Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
942
943* Fixed ISO-C build problems
944
945The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
946non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
947compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
948
949* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
950
951Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
952wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
953
954* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
955
956The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
957permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
958systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
959
960* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
961
962Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
963has been updated to use constant array sizes.
964
965* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
966
967GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
968its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
969panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
970
971* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
972
973When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
974by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
975not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
976
faae5abe 977*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 978
9175c9a3
MC
979* Removed --with-mmalloc
980
981Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
982conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
983
3cc87ec0
MK
984* Changes in AMD64 configurations
985
986The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
987the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
988and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
989you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
990
f0424ef6
MK
991* Revised SPARC target
992
993The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
994FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
995support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
996from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
997(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 998
59659be2
ILT
999* New C++ demangler
1000
1001GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1002names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1003with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1004programs.
1005
9e08b29b
DJ
1006* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1007
1008GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1009arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1010encountered these.
1011
8dfe8985
DC
1012* C++ nested types and namespaces
1013
1014GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1015improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1016is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1017Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1018namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1019"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1020frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1021if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1022GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1023
cced5e27
MK
1024* New native configurations
1025
1026NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 1027OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 1028OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
1029OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1030OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 1031
b4b4b794
KI
1032* New debugging protocols
1033
1034M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1035
7989c619
AC
1036* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1037
1038The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1039and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1040tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1041
5994185b
AC
1042* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1043
1044Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1045been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1046configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1047permanently REMOVED.
1048
1049Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1050Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1051Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1052Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1053Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1054AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1055Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
1056decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1057riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1058sonymips mips-sony-*
1059sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 1060
0ddabb4c
AC
1061* REMOVED configurations and files
1062
1063SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1064SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
1065Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1066Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1067H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1068HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1069HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1070HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1071PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 1072386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
1073Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1074 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1075 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
1076SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1077SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
1078Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1079Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 1080
c7f1390e
DJ
1081*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1082
1fe43d45
AC
1083* Objective-C
1084
1085Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1086integrated into GDB.
1087
e6beb428
AC
1088* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1089
1090DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1091information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1092By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1093backtraces.
1094
1095The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1096have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1097DWARF 2 CFI support.
1098
1099* Hosted file I/O.
1100
1101GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1102file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1103remote protocol documentation for details.
1104
1105* All targets using the new architecture framework.
1106
1107All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1108architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1109to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1110ppc32 on ppc64).
1111
1112* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1113
1114GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1115per-thread variables.
1116
1117* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1118
1119GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1120GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1121
1122* Separate debug info.
1123
1124GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1125automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1126of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1127system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1128and optional debug files.
1129
1130* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1131
1132DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1133describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1134debugger.
1135
1136GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1137for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1138
1139* Java
1140
1141A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1142Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1143considered "useable".
1144
85f8f974
DJ
1145* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1146
1147The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1148commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1149kernel.
1150
0fac0b41
DJ
1151* GDB supports logging output to a file
1152
1153There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1154used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 1155
6ad8ae5c
DJ
1156* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1157
1158The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1159disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1160command.
1161
e286caf2 1162* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
1163
1164The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1165registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1166
d28f9cdf
DJ
1167* Profiling support
1168
1169A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1170be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1171session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1172"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1173data, for more informative profiling results.
1174
da0f9dcd
AC
1175* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1176
1177The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1178option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 1179"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
1180
1181Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1182removed.
1183
fb9b6b35
JJ
1184Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1185Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1186Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1187 in a subsequent -var-update.
1188
954a4db8
MK
1189* New native configurations.
1190
1191FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1192
6760f9e6
JB
1193* Multi-arched targets.
1194
b4263afa 1195HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 1196Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 1197
1b831c93
AC
1198* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1199
1200Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1201been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1202configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1203permanently REMOVED.
1204
8b0e5691 1205Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 1206Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 1207H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
1208HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1209HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1210HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 1211PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
1212Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1213 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1214 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
1215Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1216Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 1217
5835abe7
NC
1218* REMOVED configurations and files
1219
1220V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
1221Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1222IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1223i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1224i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1225i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1226HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1227 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1228 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1229Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1230Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1231Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1232OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1233I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 1234
a094c6fb
AC
1235* MIPS $fp behavior changed
1236
1237The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1238the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1239context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1240address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1241The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1242
299ffc64 1243*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 1244
46248966
AC
1245* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1246
1247When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1248`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1249in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1250library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1251shared libs like mad''.
1252
b9d14705 1253* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 1254
b9d14705
DJ
1255Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1256the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1257arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1258powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 1259
e0e9281e
JB
1260* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1261
1262GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1263and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1264they expand.
1265
dd73b9bb
AC
1266The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1267invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1268
1269The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1270macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1271
e0e9281e
JB
1272Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1273information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1274your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1275information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1276
2250ee0c
CV
1277* Multi-arched targets.
1278
6e3ba3b8
JT
1279DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1280DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 1281NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 1282National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
1283Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1284Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1285
cd9bfe15 1286* New targets.
e33ce519 1287
456f8b9d
DB
1288Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1289
e33ce519 1290
da8ca43d
JT
1291* New native configurations
1292
1293Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1294SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1295MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1296UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1297
cd9bfe15
AC
1298* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1299
1300Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1301been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1302configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1303permanently REMOVED.
1304
92eb23c5 1305Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1306OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1307IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1308Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1309Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1310Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1311i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1312i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1313i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1314HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1315 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1316 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1317I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1318
db034ac5
AC
1319* OBSOLETE languages
1320
1321CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1322
cd9bfe15
AC
1323* REMOVED configurations and files
1324
1325AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1326A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1327AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1328AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1329AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1330
1331testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1332
20f01a46
DH
1333* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1334
1335This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1336commands. The default is 1024.
1337
a5941fbf
MK
1338* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1339
1340Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1341
89743e04
MS
1342* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1343
1344These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1345to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1346from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1347
9fb14e79
JB
1348* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1349
1350The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1351including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1352of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1353
2037aebb
AC
1354*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1355
1356* New targets.
1357
1358Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1359
1360* Bug fixes
1361
1362gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1363mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1364Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1365
1366gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1367dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1368Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1369
1370Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1371Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1372By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1373
1374i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1375avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1376By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1377
37057839 1378*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1379
1a703748
MS
1380* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1381
1382This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1383really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1384In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1385target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1386This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1387(notably embedded) targets.
1388
cefd4ef5
MS
1389* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1390
55241689
AC
1391This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1392process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1393GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1394hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1395
352ed7b4
MS
1396* New command line option
1397
1398GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1399
1400* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1401
1402There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1403command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1404a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1405be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1406open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1407issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1408a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1409it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1410GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1411is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1412
fe419ffc
RE
1413* Changes in ARM configurations.
1414
1415Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1416configuration is fully multi-arch.
1417
eb7cedd9
MK
1418* New native configurations
1419
fe419ffc 1420ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1421x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1422AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1423Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1424
c9f63e6b
CV
1425* New targets
1426
1427Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1428
9b4ff276
AC
1429* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1430
1431Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1432been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1433configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1434permanently REMOVED.
1435
1436AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1437A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1438AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1439AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1440AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1441
b4ceaee6 1442testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1443
e2caac18
AC
1444* REMOVED configurations and files
1445
1446TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1447WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1448PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1449PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1450PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1451Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1452Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1453 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1454SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1455Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1456Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1457ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1458Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1459
c2a727fa
TT
1460* Changes to command line processing
1461
1462The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1463for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1464
467d8519
TT
1465* Changes to key bindings
1466
1467There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1468
7072a954
AC
1469*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1470
1471Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1472
1473Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1474corrupted.
1475
1476Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1477
1478Numerous documentation fixes.
1479
1480Numerous testsuite fixes.
1481
34f47bc4 1482*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1483
1484* New native configurations
1485
1486Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1487x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1488MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1489MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1490ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1491s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1492
bf64bfd6
AC
1493* New targets
1494
def90278 1495Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1496CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1497UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1498
17e78a56 1499* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1500
1501x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1502Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1503Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1504 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1505TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1506WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1507Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1508PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1509PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1510PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1511SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1512Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1513ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1514Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1515
17e78a56
AC
1516stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1517kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1518
7fcca85b
AC
1519Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1520been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1521configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1522permanently REMOVED.
1523
a196c81c 1524* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1525
1526Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1527Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1528Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1529ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1530Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1531ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1532
6d6b80e5 1533* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1534
6d6b80e5 1535GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1536sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1537present.
1538
bf64bfd6
AC
1539* Other news:
1540
e23194cb
EZ
1541* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1542
1543* The MI enabled by default.
1544
1545The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1546revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1547engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1548using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1549which is now deprecated.
1550
1551* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1552
1553GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1554main features are supported:
1555
1556 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1557
1558 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1559 extension;
1560
1561 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1562
1563 - a Pascal expression parser.
1564
1565However, some important features are not yet supported.
1566
1567 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1568
1569 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1570
1571 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1572 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1573
1574 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1575
1576 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1577
1578* Changes in completion.
1579
1580Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1581to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1582users expect at the shell prompt.
1583
1584Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1585`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1586program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1587files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1588be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1589considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1590name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1591
1592`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1593
1594* New platform-independent commands:
1595
1596It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1597hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1598documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1599
1600* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1601
d7275149
MK
1602Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1603revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1604many threads as your system allows you to have.
1605
e23194cb
EZ
1606Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1607
d7275149
MK
1608Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1609multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1610
1611* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1612
1613Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1614
e23194cb
EZ
1615GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1616debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1617supported.)
1618
1619* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1620
1621Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1622breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1623implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1624put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1625and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1626registers.
1627
1628The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1629debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1630watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1631
1632* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1633
1634New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1635the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1636
1637New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1638display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1639IDT.
1640
1641New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1642from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1643New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1644a given linear address.
1645
1646GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1647program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1648which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1649
1650DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1651
6c56c069
EZ
1652It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1653
e23194cb
EZ
1654* Changes in documentation.
1655
1656All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1657Documentation License.
1658
1659Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1660manual.
1661
1662TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1663
1664Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1665manual.
1666
1667The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1668documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1669hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1670
5d6640b1
AC
1671* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1672
1673The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1674``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1675contents of this file.
1676
1a1d8446
AC
1677* gdba.el deleted
1678
1679GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1680
9debab2f 1681*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1682
c63ce875
EZ
1683* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1684
1685Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1686programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1687displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1688greater level of detail.
1689
1690* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1691
1692It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1693bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1694on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1695written.
1696
1697* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1698
1699The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1700necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1701machines ``out of the box''.
1702
1703The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1704possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1705signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1706would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1707interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1708
1709It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1710standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1711even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1712and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1713terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1714
1715The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1716enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1717also works.
1718
1719DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1720GDB.
1721
1722It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1723directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1724times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1725breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1726
ed9a39eb
JM
1727* New native configurations
1728
1729ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1730PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1731
7a292a7a
SS
1732* New targets
1733
96baa820 1734Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1735x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1736PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1737TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1738
085dd6e6
JM
1739* OBSOLETE configurations
1740
1741Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1742Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1743Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1744ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1745Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1746
9debab2f
AC
1747Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1748but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1749these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1750be permanently REMOVED.
1751
5330533d
SS
1752* Gould support removed
1753
1754Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1755
bc9e5bbf
AC
1756* New features for SVR4
1757
1758On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1759without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1760load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1761
1762* Many C++ enhancements
1763
1764C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1765in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1766
adf40b2e
JM
1767* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1768
1769A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1770sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1771with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1772``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1773
1774 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1775 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1776
43e526b9
JM
1777* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1778
1779A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1780expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1781instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1782
1783The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1784added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1785
96baa820
JM
1786* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1787
1788The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1789``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1790include ``set remote P-packet''.
1791
11cf8741
JM
1792* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1793
1794The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1795accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1796``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1797
7876dd43
DB
1798* ``apropos'' command added.
1799
1800The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1801documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1802try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1803
bc9e5bbf
AC
1804* New MI interface
1805
1806A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1807interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1808process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1809"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1810enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1811
1812 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1813
c906108c
SS
1814*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1815
1816* New native configurations
1817
1818HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1819HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1820M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1821
1822* New targets
1823
1824Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1825Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1826Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1827
1828* OBSOLETE configurations
1829
1830Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1831
1832Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1833but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1834these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1835be permanently REMOVED.
1836
1837* ANSI/ISO C
1838
1839As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1840buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1841containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1842use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1843available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1844configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1845information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1846already.
1847
1848* Readline 2.2
1849
1850GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1851
1852* set extension-language
1853
1854You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1855languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1856you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1857 set extension-language .c c++
1858The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1859and their associated languages.
1860
1861* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1862
1863When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1864you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1865PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1866
1867 set processor NAME
1868
1869sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1870following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1871
1872 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1873 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1874 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1875 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1876 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1877 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1878 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1879 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1880 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1881 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1882 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1883
1884At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1885special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1886registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1887only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1888
1889* HP-UX support
1890
1891Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1892more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1893library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1894support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1895for xdb and dbx commands.
1896
1897* Catchpoints
1898
1899HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1900generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1901to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1902
1903This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1904argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1905output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1906
1907* Debugging across forks
1908
1909On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1910in the inferior.
1911
1912* TUI
1913
1914HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1915it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1916configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1917
1918* GDB remote protocol additions
1919
1920A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1921Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1922fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1923allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1924
1925For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1926full 64-bit address. The command
1927
1928 set remoteaddresssize 32
1929
1930can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1931the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1932will be discarded.
1933
1934In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1935command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1936
1937 maint packet heythere
1938
1939sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1940disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1941time.
1942
1943The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1944target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1945downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1946
1947* Tracing can collect general expressions
1948
1949You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1950further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1951doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1952
1953* mask-address variable for Mips
1954
1955For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1956a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1957of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1958
1959* Higher serial baud rates
1960
1961GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1962230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1963to achieve all of these rates.)
1964
1965* i960 simulator
1966
1967The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1968builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1969
1970
1971*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1972
1973* New native configurations
1974
1975Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1976Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1977Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1978PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1979PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1980Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1981Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1982
1983* New targets
1984
1985Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1986Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1987Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1988Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1989MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1990MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1991MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1992Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1993Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1994Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1995NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1996
1997* New debugging protocols
1998
1999ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2000M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2001DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2002PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2003PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2004Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2005
2006* DWARF 2
2007
2008All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2009format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2010information.
2011
2012* Java frontend
2013
2014GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2015only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2016
2017* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2018
2019For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2020loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2021locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2022
2023* Live range splitting
2024
2025GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2026range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2027more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2028
2029* Hurd support
2030
2031GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2032updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2033
2034* ARM Thumb support
2035
2036GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2037instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2038instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2039accordingly.
2040
2041* MIPS16 support
2042
2043GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2044instruction set.
2045
2046* Overlay support
2047
2048GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2049linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2050will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2051control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2052additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2053in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2054
2055* info symbol
2056
2057The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2058the symbol at the specified address.
2059
2060* Trace support
2061
2062The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2063asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2064extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2065includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2066file tracepoint.c for more details.
2067
2068* MIPS simulator
2069
2070Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2071by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2072of most MIPS variants.
2073
2074* Sparc simulator
2075
2076Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2077by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2078Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2079
2080* set architecture
2081
2082For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2083basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2084architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2085the possible architectures.
2086
2087*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2088
2089* New native configurations
2090
2091Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2092M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2093PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2094PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2095PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2096RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2097
2098* New targets
2099
2100ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2101I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2102MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2103MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2104PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2105Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2106Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2107
2108* PowerPC simulator
2109
2110The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2111contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2112PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2113basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2114performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2115
2116* Solaris 2.5
2117
2118GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2119
2120* Windows 95/NT native
2121
2122GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2123To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2124which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2125Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2126ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2127
2128* dont-repeat command
2129
2130If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2131command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2132useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2133extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2134
2135* Send break instead of ^C
2136
2137The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2138rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2139GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2140
2141* Remote protocol timeout
2142
2143The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2144that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2145to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2146
2147* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2148
2149By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2150loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2151stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2152when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2153in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2154
2155Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2156/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2157automatically on hpux10.
2158
2159* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2160
2161Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2162
2163* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2164
2165When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2166may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2167the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2168every character. The default value is 1050.
2169
2170* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2171
2172If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2173a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2174replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2175details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2176remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2177to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2178
2179* Speedups for remote debugging
2180
2181GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2182the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2183and more efficient S-record downloading.
2184
2185* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2186
2187GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2188Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2189
2190*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2191
2192* Psymtabs for XCOFF
2193
2194The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2195can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2196
2197* Remote targets use caching
2198
2199Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2200remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2201it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2202debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2203off' turns the the data cache off.
2204
2205* Remote targets may have threads
2206
2207The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2208in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2209gdb/remote.c for details.
2210
2211* NetROM support
2212
2213If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2214support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2215acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2216write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2217support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2218another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2219sequence is something like
2220
2221 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2222 load <prog>
2223 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2224
2225* Macintosh host
2226
2227GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2228may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2229it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2230available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2231device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2232directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2233scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2234mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2235
2236* Autoconf
2237
2238GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2239but does simplify configuration and building.
2240
2241* hpux10
2242
2243GDB now supports hpux10.
2244
2245*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2246
2247* New native configurations
2248
2249x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2250x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2251NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2252Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2253
2254* New targets
2255
2256A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2257HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2258CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2259PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2260WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2261
2262* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2263
2264GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2265possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2266filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2267the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2268if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2269
2270* Arguments to user-defined commands
2271
2272User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2273Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2274trivial example:
2275define adder
2276 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2277
2278To execute the command use:
2279adder 1 2 3
2280
2281Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2282Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2283use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2284
2285* New `if' and `while' commands
2286
2287This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2288commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2289expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2290execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2291terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2292`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2293if the expression is zero.
2294
2295* Fortran source language mode
2296
2297GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2298Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2299variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2300with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2301Fortran compilers.
2302
2303* Better HPUX support
2304
2305Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2306running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2307processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2308for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2309that behavior do the following before running the program:
2310
2311 adb -w a.out
2312 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2313 control-d
2314
2315This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2316To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2317
2318 adb -w a.out
2319 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2320 control-d
2321
2322You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2323the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2324external linkage.
2325
2326GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2327HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2328
2329* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2330
2331You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2332commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2333current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2334"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2335associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2336configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2337
2338* New DOS host serial code
2339
2340This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2341no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2342a PC's serial port.
2343
2344*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2345
2346* New "complete" command
2347
2348This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2349were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2350
2351* Trailing space optional in prompt
2352
2353"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2354allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2355
2356* Breakpoint hit counts
2357
2358"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2359has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2360can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2361to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2362less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2363that breakpoint.
2364
2365* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2366
2367"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2368an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2369arrays actually contain only short strings.
2370
2371* Shared library breakpoints
2372
2373In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2374breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2375
2376* Hardware watchpoints
2377
2378There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2379targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2380
55241689 2381Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2382
2383* Annotations
2384
2385Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2386and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2387
2388* Improved Irix 5 support
2389
2390GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2391
2392* Improved HPPA support
2393
2394GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2395
2396* New native configurations
2397
2398Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2399HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2400Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2401RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2402
2403* New targets
2404
2405OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2406MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2407Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2408
2409* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2410
2411There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2412This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2413
2414* Fixes
2415
2416As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2417and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2418
2419*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2420
2421* Irix 5 is now supported
2422
2423* HPPA support
2424
2425GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2426to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2427GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2428of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2429can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2430
2431
2432*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2433
2434* User visible changes:
2435
2436* Remote Debugging
2437
2438The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2439target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2440debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2441integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2442debugging info for the mips target).
2443
2444* DEC Alpha native support
2445
2446GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2447debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2448work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2449Alpha-specific notes.
2450
2451* Preliminary thread implementation
2452
2453GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2454
2455* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2456
2457This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2458to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2459for details).
2460
2461* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2462
2463This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2464mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2465call methods, ...etc.
2466
2467*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2468
2469 * User visible changes:
2470
2471Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2472supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2473other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2474somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2475
2476Filename completion now works.
2477
2478When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2479arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2480addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2481
2482All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2483vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2484should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2485your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2486to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2487
2488 * DEC alpha support
2489
2490This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2491cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2492
2493
2494*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2495
2496 * Testsuite
2497
2498This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2499The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2500via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2501
2502 * C++ demangling
2503
2504'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2505emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2506Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2507disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2508use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2509
2510 * Simulators
2511
2512GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2513So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2514Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2515
2516 * New targets supported
2517
2518H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2519H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2520SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2521Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2522IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2523
2524Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2525version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2526GO32 memory extender.
2527
2528 * New remote protocols
2529
2530MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2531
2532 * New source languages supported
2533
2534This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2535used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2536into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2537
2538
2539*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2540
2541 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2542
2543GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2544version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2545University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2546compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2547format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2548(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2549
2550Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2551
2552 * Faster and better demangling
2553
2554We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2555demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2556character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2557only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2558This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2559increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2560symbol lookups.
2561
2562`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2563from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2564compiler does not actually implement.
2565
2566 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2567
2568In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2569inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2570recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2571very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2572The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2573circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2574fix.
2575
2576The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2577release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2578
2579 * Improved configure script
2580
2581The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2582you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2583host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2584done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2585
2586We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2587version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2588`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2589The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2590only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2591We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2592
2593 * Documentation improvements
2594
2595There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2596produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2597before submitting changes.
2598
2599The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2600M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2601`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2602you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2603a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2604
2605*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2606We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2607been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2608or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2609`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2610around this problem.
2611
2612 * New features
2613
2614GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2615the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2616`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2617the target program.
2618
2619The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2620how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2621
2622 * New native hosts supported
2623
2624HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2625386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2626
2627 * New targets supported
2628
2629AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2630
2631 * New file formats supported
2632
2633BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2634HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2635
2636 * Major bug fixes
2637
2638Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2639
2640We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2641printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2642
2643We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2644for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2645release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2646
2647You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2648will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2649
2650We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2651for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2652especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2653libraries.
2654
2655The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2656information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2657command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2658any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2659when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2660
2661 * Internal improvements
2662
2663GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2664debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2665
2666GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2667Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2668symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2669contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2670shared code that handles any of them.
2671
2672 * New command line options
2673
2674We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2675
2676 * Mmalloc licensing
2677
2678The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2679General Public License.
2680
2681*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2682
2683 * Host/native/target split
2684
2685GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2686hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2687target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2688local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2689ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2690
2691The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2692GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2693is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2694code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2695any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2696built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2697handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2698
2699GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2700It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2701plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2702
2703 * New hosts supported
2704
2705HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2706386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2707386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2708
2709 * New targets supported
2710
2711Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
271268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2713
2714 * New native hosts supported
2715
2716386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2717 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2718386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2719
2720 * New file formats supported
2721
2722BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2723supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2724format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2725
2726 * New commands
2727
2728`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2729`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2730These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2731
2732`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2733
2734You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2735scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2736prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2737executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2738
2739 * C++ improvements
2740
2741We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2742info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2743symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2744
2745Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2746
2747 * Major bug fixes
2748
2749The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2750fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2751by the compiler.
2752
2753We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2754support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2755
2756John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2757slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2758that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2759purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2760the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2761mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2762
2763Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2764about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2765completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2766we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2767
2768 * AMD 29k support
2769
2770A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2771specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2772calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2773usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2774in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2775
2776We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2777Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2778of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2779resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2780
2781 * Remote interfaces
2782
2783We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2784with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2785message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2786This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2787needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2788breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2789each instruction being stepped through.
2790
2791The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2792registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2793
2794There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2795find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2796Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2797processor with a serial port.
2798
2799 * Configuration
2800
2801Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2802`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2803supported, and what files each one uses.
2804
2805 * Library changes
2806
2807There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2808disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2809Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2810disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2811
2812The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2813Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2814can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2815grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2816
2817 * Documentation
2818
2819The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2820reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2821as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2822encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2823system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2824bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2825
2826And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2827
2828
2829*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2830
2831 * Better support for C++ function names
2832
2833GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2834names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2835(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2836single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2837Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2838
2839GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2840the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2841You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2842lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2843for the list of formats.
2844
2845 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2846
2847Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2848C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2849directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2850can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2851usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2852about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2853this problem.)
2854
2855 * New 'maintenance' command
2856
2857All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2858the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2859can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2860
2861 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2862 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2863 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2864 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2865 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2866 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2867
2868The following commands are new:
2869
2870 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2871 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2872 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2873
2874 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2875
2876We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2877(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2878be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2879read after argv processing.
2880
2881 * New hosts supported
2882
2883Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2884
55241689 2885GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2886
2887We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2888is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2889for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2890masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2891fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2892It costs extra.
2893
2894 * New targets supported
2895
2896Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2897
2898 * More smarts about finding #include files
2899
2900GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2901all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2902greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2903especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2904the one that contains your sources.
2905
2906We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2907breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2908try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2909
2910 * Interesting infernals change
2911
2912GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2913section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2914target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2915stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2916
2917 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2918
2919There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2920 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2921 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2922
2923See the ChangeLog for details.
2924
2925*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2926
2927 * New machines supported (host and target)
2928
2929IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2930
2931SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2932
2933 * New malloc package
2934
2935GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2936Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2937capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2938This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2939pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2940more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2941
2942 * info proc
2943
2944The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2945'help info proc' for details.
2946
2947 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2948
2949The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2950Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2951possible.
2952
2953 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2954
2955Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2956support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2957conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2958environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2959that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2960in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2961
2962 * Cross byte order fixes
2963
2964Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2965targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2966
2967 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2968
2969If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2970system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2971`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2972program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2973called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2974Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2975and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2976the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2977option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2978starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2979
2980You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2981the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2982information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2983slower, but makes future operations faster.
2984
2985The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2986build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2987A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2988use is:
2989
2990 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2991
2992The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2993It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2994shared across multiple host platforms.
2995
2996 * longjmp() handling
2997
2998GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2999siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3000all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3001platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3002
3003 * Solaris 2.0
3004
3005Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3006this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3007reading symbols.
3008
3009 * Bug fixes
3010
3011As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3012People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3013crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3014
3015*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3016
3017 * New machines supported (host and target)
3018
3019SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3020 (except core files)
3021BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3022Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3023
3024 * New machines supported (target)
3025
3026AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3027
3028 * C++ support
3029
3030GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3031The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3032per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3033
3034GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3035`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3036extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3037good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3038will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3039released.
3040
3041 * New features for SVR4
3042
3043GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3044shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3045only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3046
3047The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3048on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3049it prints the address mappings of the process.
3050
3051If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3052bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3053
3054 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3055
3056Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3057now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3058skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3059make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3060same code linked statically.
3061
3062 * New Getopt
3063
3064GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3065version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3066continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3067Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3068added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3069future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3070
3071 * Bugs fixed
3072
3073The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3074Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3075See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3076
3077
3078*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3079
3080 * New machines supported (host and target)
3081
3082Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3083NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3084Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3085
3086 * Almost SCO Unix support
3087
3088We had hoped to support:
3089SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3090(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3091that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3092about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3093
3094 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3095
3096GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3097debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3098is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3099send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3100reqired (if any).
3101
3102 * New Readline
3103
3104GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3105is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3106required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3107
3108 * Bugs fixed
3109
3110The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3111Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3112See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3113
3114 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3115
3116GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3117supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3118symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3119
3120Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3121mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3122debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3123mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3124version 2.
3125
3126Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3127really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3128line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3129variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3130situation somewhat.
3131
3132When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3133However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3134methods.
3135
3136We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3137DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3138encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3139
3140
3141*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3142
3143 * Improved configuration
3144
3145Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3146Porting BFD is simpler.
3147
3148 * Stepping improved
3149
3150The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3151of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3152in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3153function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3154
3155 * Bug fixing
3156
3157Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3158
3159 * New host supported (not target)
3160
3161Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3162
3163
3164*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3165
3166 * Multiple source language support
3167
3168GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3169It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3170and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3171language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3172You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3173`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3174
3175 * GDB and Modula-2
3176
3177GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3178currently under development at the State University of New York at
3179Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3180continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3181
3182Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3183debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3184symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3185
3186There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3187in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3188
3189 * set write on/off
3190
3191GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3192a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3193the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3194by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3195effect immediately.
3196
3197 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3198
3199When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3200shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3201The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3202examining core files.
3203
3204 * set listsize
3205
3206You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3207The default is 10.
3208
3209 * New machines supported (host and target)
3210
3211SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3212Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3213Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3214
3215 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3216
3217IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3218
3219 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3220
3221AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3222AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3223Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3224
3225 * New remote interfaces
3226
3227AMD 29000 Adapt
3228AMD 29000 Minimon
3229
3230
3231*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3232
3233 * New Facilities
3234
3235Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3236
3237Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3238target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3239is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3240remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3241remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3242also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3243using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3244stub on the target system.
3245
3246New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3247
3248GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3249library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3250object file types such as a.out and coff.
3251
3252There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3253refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3254
3255
3256 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3257
3258All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3259by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3260
3261For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3262``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3263Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3264
3265What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3266print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3267will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3268all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3269
3270confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3271 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3272 it is already running. Default is ON.
3273
3274editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3275 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3276 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3277 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3278 Default is ON.
3279
3280history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3281 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3282 or the value of the environment variable
3283 GDBHISTFILE.
3284
3285history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3286 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3287 HISTSIZE.
3288
3289history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3290 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3291 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3292
3293history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3294 history expansion will be performed on
3295 command line input. The default is OFF.
3296
3297radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3298 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3299 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3300
3301height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3302 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3303 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3304 variable TERM.
3305
3306width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3307 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3308 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3309 variable TERM.
3310
3311Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3312``set width'' instead.
3313
3314print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3315 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3316 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3317 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3318
3319print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3320 is OFF.
3321
3322print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3323 "raw" form if off.
3324
3325print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3326 like instructions.
3327
3328print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3329
3330
3331 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3332
3333The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3334new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3335are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3336window.
3337
3338
3339 * Support for Shared Libraries
3340
3341GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3342Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3343before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3344happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3345At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3346from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3347shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3348It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3349
3350sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3351 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3352 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3353
3354info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3355
3356
3357 * Watchpoints
3358
3359A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3360expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3361tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3362quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3363problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3364more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3365
3366watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3367
3368info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3369
3370delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3371disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3372enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3373
3374
3375 * C++ multiple inheritance
3376
3377When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3378for C++ programs.
3379
3380 * C++ exception handling
3381
3382Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3383ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3384the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3385handler's context).
3386
3387catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3388 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3389 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3390
3391info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3392 current stack frame.
3393
3394
3395 * Minor command changes
3396
3397The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3398command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3399is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3400
3401The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3402at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3403frames without printing.
3404
3405 * New directory command
3406
3407'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3408The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3409about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3410with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3411find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3412
3413 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3414
3415For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3416for more details.
3417
3418GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3419two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3420Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3421where the program that you are debugging will run.
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