* x86-64-tdep.c (amd64_push_arguments): Add struct_return
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.0:
5
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6* Revised SPARC target
7
8The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
9FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
10support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped.
11
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12* New C++ demangler
13
14GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
15names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
16with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
17programs.
18
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19* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
20
21GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
22arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
23encountered these.
24
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25* New native configurations
26
27NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
28
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29* New debugging protocols
30
31M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
32
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33* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
34
35The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
36and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
37tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
38
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39* OBSOLETE configurations and files
40
41Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
42been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
43configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
44permanently REMOVED.
45
46Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
47Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
48Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
49Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
50Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
51AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
52Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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53decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
54riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
55sonymips mips-sony-*
56sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 57
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58* REMOVED configurations and files
59
60SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
61SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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62Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
63Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
64H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
65HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
66HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
67HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
68PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
69Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
70 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
71 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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72SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
73SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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74Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
75Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 76
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77*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
78
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79* Objective-C
80
81Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
82integrated into GDB.
83
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84* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
85
86DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
87information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
88By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
89backtraces.
90
91The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
92have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
93DWARF 2 CFI support.
94
95* Hosted file I/O.
96
97GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
98file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
99remote protocol documentation for details.
100
101* All targets using the new architecture framework.
102
103All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
104architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
105to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
106ppc32 on ppc64).
107
108* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
109
110GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
111per-thread variables.
112
113* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
114
115GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
116GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
117
118* Separate debug info.
119
120GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
121automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
122of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
123system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
124and optional debug files.
125
126* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
127
128DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
129describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
130debugger.
131
132GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
133for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
134
135* Java
136
137A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
138Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
139considered "useable".
140
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141* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
142
143The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
144commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
145kernel.
146
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147* GDB supports logging output to a file
148
149There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
150used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 151
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152* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
153
154The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
155disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
156command.
157
e286caf2 158* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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159
160The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
161registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
162
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163* Profiling support
164
165A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
166be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
167session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
168"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
169data, for more informative profiling results.
170
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171* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
172
173The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
174option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 175"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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176
177Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
178removed.
179
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180Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
181Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
182Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
183 in a subsequent -var-update.
184
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185* New native configurations.
186
187FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
188
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189* Multi-arched targets.
190
b4263afa 191HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 192Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 193
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194* OBSOLETE configurations and files
195
196Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
197been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
198configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
199permanently REMOVED.
200
8b0e5691 201Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 202Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 203H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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204HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
205HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
206HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 207PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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208Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
209 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
210 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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211Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
212Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 213
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214* REMOVED configurations and files
215
216V850EA ISA
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217Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
218IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
219i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
220i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
221i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
222HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
223 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
224 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
225Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
226Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
227Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
228OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
229I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 230
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231* MIPS $fp behavior changed
232
233The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
234the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
235context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
236address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
237The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
238
299ffc64 239*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 240
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241* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
242
243When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
244`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
245in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
246library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
247shared libs like mad''.
248
b9d14705 249* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 250
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251Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
252the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
253arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
254powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 255
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256* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
257
258GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
259and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
260they expand.
261
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262The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
263invocations in expression, and shows the result.
264
265The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
266macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
267
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268Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
269information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
270your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
271information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
272
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273* Multi-arched targets.
274
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275DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
276DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 277NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 278National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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279Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
280Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 281
cd9bfe15 282* New targets.
e33ce519 283
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284Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
285
e33ce519 286
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287* New native configurations
288
289Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 290SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 291MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 292UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 293
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294* OBSOLETE configurations and files
295
296Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
297been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
298configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
299permanently REMOVED.
300
92eb23c5 301Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 302OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 303IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 304Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 305Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 306Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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307i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
308i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
309i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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310HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
311 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
312 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 313I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 314
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315* OBSOLETE languages
316
317CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
318
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319* REMOVED configurations and files
320
321AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
322A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
323AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
324AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
325AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
326
327testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
328
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329* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
330
331This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
332commands. The default is 1024.
333
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334* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
335
336Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
337
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338* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
339
340These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
341to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
342from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 343
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344* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
345
346The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
347including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
348of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
349
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350*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
351
352* New targets.
353
354Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
355
356* Bug fixes
357
358gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
359mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
360Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
361
362gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
363dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
364Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
365
366Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
367Surprisingly enough, it works now.
368By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
369
370i386 hardware watchpoint support:
371avoid misses on second run for some targets.
372By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
373
37057839 374*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 375
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376* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
377
378This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
379really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
380In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
381target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
382This can be a significant performance improvement on some
383(notably embedded) targets.
384
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385* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
386
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387This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
388process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
389GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
390hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 391
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392* New command line option
393
394GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
395
396* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
397
398There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
399command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
400a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
401be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
402open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
403issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
404a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
405it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
406GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
407is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
408
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409* Changes in ARM configurations.
410
411Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
412configuration is fully multi-arch.
413
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414* New native configurations
415
fe419ffc 416ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 417x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 418AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 419Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 420
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421* New targets
422
423Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
424
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425* OBSOLETE configurations and files
426
427Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
428been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
429configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
430permanently REMOVED.
431
432AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
433A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
434AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
435AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
436AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
437
b4ceaee6 438testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 439
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440* REMOVED configurations and files
441
442TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 443WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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444PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
445PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
446PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 447Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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448Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
449 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 450SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 451Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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452Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
453ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 454Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 455
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456* Changes to command line processing
457
458The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
459for the inferior from gdb's command line.
460
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461* Changes to key bindings
462
463There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
464
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465*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
466
467Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
468
469Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
470corrupted.
471
472Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
473
474Numerous documentation fixes.
475
476Numerous testsuite fixes.
477
34f47bc4 478*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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479
480* New native configurations
481
482Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
483x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 484MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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485MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
486ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 487s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 488
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489* New targets
490
def90278 491Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 492CRIS cris-axis
55241689 493UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 494
17e78a56 495* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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496
497x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 498Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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499Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
500 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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501TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
502WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 503Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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504PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
505PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
506PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 507SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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508Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
509ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 510Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 511
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512stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
513kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
514
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515Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
516been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
517configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
518permanently REMOVED.
519
a196c81c 520* REMOVED configurations and files
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521
522Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
523Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
524Pyramid pyramid-*-*
525ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
526Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 527ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 528
6d6b80e5 529* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 530
6d6b80e5 531GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
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532sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
533present.
534
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535* Other news:
536
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537* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
538
539* The MI enabled by default.
540
541The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
542revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
543engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
544using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
545which is now deprecated.
546
547* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
548
549GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
550main features are supported:
551
552 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
553
554 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
555 extension;
556
557 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
558
559 - a Pascal expression parser.
560
561However, some important features are not yet supported.
562
563 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
564
565 - there are some problems with boolean types;
566
567 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
568 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
569
570 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
571
572 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
573
574* Changes in completion.
575
576Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
577to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
578users expect at the shell prompt.
579
580Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
581`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
582program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
583files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
584be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
585considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
586name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
587
588`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
589
590* New platform-independent commands:
591
592It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
593hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
594documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
595
596* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
597
d7275149
MK
598Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
599revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
600many threads as your system allows you to have.
601
e23194cb
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602Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
603
d7275149
MK
604Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
605multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
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606
607* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
608
609Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
610
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611GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
612debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
613supported.)
614
615* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
616
617Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
618breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
619implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
620put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
621and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
622registers.
623
624The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
625debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
626watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
627
628* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
629
630New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
631the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
632
633New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
634display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
635IDT.
636
637New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
638from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
639New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
640a given linear address.
641
642GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
643program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
644which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
645
646DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
647
6c56c069
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648It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
649
e23194cb
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650* Changes in documentation.
651
652All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
653Documentation License.
654
655Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
656manual.
657
658TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
659
660Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
661manual.
662
663The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
664documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
665hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
666
5d6640b1
AC
667* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
668
669The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
670``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
671contents of this file.
672
1a1d8446
AC
673* gdba.el deleted
674
675GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 676
9debab2f 677*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 678
c63ce875
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679* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
680
681Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
682programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
683displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
684greater level of detail.
685
686* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
687
688It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
689bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
690on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
691written.
692
693* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
694
695The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
696necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
697machines ``out of the box''.
698
699The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
700possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
701signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
702would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
703interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
704
705It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
706standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
707even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
708and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
709terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
710
711The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
712enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
713also works.
714
715DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
716GDB.
717
718It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
719directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
720times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
721breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
722
ed9a39eb
JM
723* New native configurations
724
725ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 726PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 727
7a292a7a
SS
728* New targets
729
96baa820 730Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
731x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
732PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
733TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
734
085dd6e6
JM
735* OBSOLETE configurations
736
737Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
738Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 739Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 740ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 741Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 742
9debab2f
AC
743Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
744but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
745these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
746be permanently REMOVED.
747
5330533d
SS
748* Gould support removed
749
750Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
751
bc9e5bbf
AC
752* New features for SVR4
753
754On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
755without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
756load symbols from the running process's executable file.
757
758* Many C++ enhancements
759
760C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
761in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
762
adf40b2e
JM
763* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
764
765A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
766sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
767with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
768``|<program> <args>'' vis:
769
770 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
771 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
772
43e526b9
JM
773* MIPS 64 remote protocol
774
775A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
776expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
777instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
778
779The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
780added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
781
96baa820
JM
782* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
783
784The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
785``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
786include ``set remote P-packet''.
787
11cf8741
JM
788* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
789
790The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
791accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
792``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
793
7876dd43
DB
794* ``apropos'' command added.
795
796The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
797documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
798try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
799
bc9e5bbf
AC
800* New MI interface
801
802A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
803interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
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804process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
805"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
806enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
807
808 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
809
c906108c
SS
810*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
811
812* New native configurations
813
814HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
815HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 816M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
817
818* New targets
819
820Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
821Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
822Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
823
824* OBSOLETE configurations
825
826Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
827
828Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
829but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
830these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
831be permanently REMOVED.
832
833* ANSI/ISO C
834
835As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
836buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
837containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
838use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
839available. If this is not true, please report the affected
840configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
841information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
842already.
843
844* Readline 2.2
845
846GDB now uses readline 2.2.
847
848* set extension-language
849
850You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
851languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
852you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
853 set extension-language .c c++
854The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
855and their associated languages.
856
857* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
858
859When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
860you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
861PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
862
863 set processor NAME
864
865sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
866following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
867
868 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
869 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
870 403 IBM PowerPC 403
871 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
872 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
873 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
874 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
875 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
876 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
877 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
878 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
879
880At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
881special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
882registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
883only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
884
885* HP-UX support
886
887Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
888more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
889library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
890support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
891for xdb and dbx commands.
892
893* Catchpoints
894
895HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
896generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
897to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
898
899This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
900argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
901output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
902
903* Debugging across forks
904
905On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
906in the inferior.
907
908* TUI
909
910HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
911it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
912configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
913
914* GDB remote protocol additions
915
916A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
917Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
918fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
919allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
920
921For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
922full 64-bit address. The command
923
924 set remoteaddresssize 32
925
926can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
927the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
928will be discarded.
929
930In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
931command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
932
933 maint packet heythere
934
935sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
936disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
937time.
938
939The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
940target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
941downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
942
943* Tracing can collect general expressions
944
945You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
946further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
947doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
948
949* mask-address variable for Mips
950
951For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
952a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
953of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
954
955* Higher serial baud rates
956
957GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
958230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
959to achieve all of these rates.)
960
961* i960 simulator
962
963The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
964builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
965
966
967*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
968
969* New native configurations
970
971Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
972Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
973Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
974PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
975PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
976Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
977Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
978
979* New targets
980
981Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
982Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
983Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
984Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
985MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
986MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
987MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
988Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
989Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
990Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
991NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
992
993* New debugging protocols
994
995ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
996M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
997DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
998PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
999PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1000Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1001
1002* DWARF 2
1003
1004All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1005format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1006information.
1007
1008* Java frontend
1009
1010GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1011only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1012
1013* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1014
1015For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1016loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1017locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1018
1019* Live range splitting
1020
1021GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1022range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1023more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1024
1025* Hurd support
1026
1027GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1028updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1029
1030* ARM Thumb support
1031
1032GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1033instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1034instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1035accordingly.
1036
1037* MIPS16 support
1038
1039GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1040instruction set.
1041
1042* Overlay support
1043
1044GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1045linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1046will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1047control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1048additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1049in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1050
1051* info symbol
1052
1053The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1054the symbol at the specified address.
1055
1056* Trace support
1057
1058The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1059asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1060extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1061includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1062file tracepoint.c for more details.
1063
1064* MIPS simulator
1065
1066Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1067by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1068of most MIPS variants.
1069
1070* Sparc simulator
1071
1072Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1073by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1074Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1075
1076* set architecture
1077
1078For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1079basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1080architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1081the possible architectures.
1082
1083*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1084
1085* New native configurations
1086
1087Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1088M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1089PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1090PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1091PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1092RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1093
1094* New targets
1095
1096ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1097I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1098MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1099MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1100PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1101Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1102Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1103
1104* PowerPC simulator
1105
1106The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1107contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1108PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1109basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1110performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1111
1112* Solaris 2.5
1113
1114GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1115
1116* Windows 95/NT native
1117
1118GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1119To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1120which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1121Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1122ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1123
1124* dont-repeat command
1125
1126If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1127command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1128useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1129extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1130
1131* Send break instead of ^C
1132
1133The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1134rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1135GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1136
1137* Remote protocol timeout
1138
1139The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1140that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1141to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1142
1143* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1144
1145By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1146loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1147stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1148when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1149in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1150
1151Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1152/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1153automatically on hpux10.
1154
1155* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1156
1157Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1158
1159* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1160
1161When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1162may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1163the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1164every character. The default value is 1050.
1165
1166* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1167
1168If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1169a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1170replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1171details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1172remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1173to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1174
1175* Speedups for remote debugging
1176
1177GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1178the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1179and more efficient S-record downloading.
1180
1181* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1182
1183GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1184Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1185
1186*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1187
1188* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1189
1190The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1191can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1192
1193* Remote targets use caching
1194
1195Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1196remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1197it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1198debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1199off' turns the the data cache off.
1200
1201* Remote targets may have threads
1202
1203The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1204in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1205gdb/remote.c for details.
1206
1207* NetROM support
1208
1209If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1210support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1211acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1212write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1213support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1214another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1215sequence is something like
1216
1217 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1218 load <prog>
1219 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1220
1221* Macintosh host
1222
1223GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1224may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1225it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1226available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1227device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1228directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1229scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1230mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1231
1232* Autoconf
1233
1234GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1235but does simplify configuration and building.
1236
1237* hpux10
1238
1239GDB now supports hpux10.
1240
1241*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1242
1243* New native configurations
1244
1245x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1246x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1247NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1248Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1249
1250* New targets
1251
1252A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1253HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1254CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1255PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1256WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1257
1258* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1259
1260GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1261possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1262filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1263the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1264if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1265
1266* Arguments to user-defined commands
1267
1268User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1269Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1270trivial example:
1271define adder
1272 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1273
1274To execute the command use:
1275adder 1 2 3
1276
1277Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1278Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1279use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1280
1281* New `if' and `while' commands
1282
1283This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1284commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1285expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1286execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1287terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1288`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1289if the expression is zero.
1290
1291* Fortran source language mode
1292
1293GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1294Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1295variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1296with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1297Fortran compilers.
1298
1299* Better HPUX support
1300
1301Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1302running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1303processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1304for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1305that behavior do the following before running the program:
1306
1307 adb -w a.out
1308 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1309 control-d
1310
1311This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1312To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1313
1314 adb -w a.out
1315 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1316 control-d
1317
1318You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1319the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1320external linkage.
1321
1322GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1323HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1324
1325* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1326
1327You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1328commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1329current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1330"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1331associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1332configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1333
1334* New DOS host serial code
1335
1336This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1337no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1338a PC's serial port.
1339
1340*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1341
1342* New "complete" command
1343
1344This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1345were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1346
1347* Trailing space optional in prompt
1348
1349"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1350allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1351
1352* Breakpoint hit counts
1353
1354"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1355has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1356can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1357to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1358less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1359that breakpoint.
1360
1361* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1362
1363"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1364an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1365arrays actually contain only short strings.
1366
1367* Shared library breakpoints
1368
1369In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1370breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1371
1372* Hardware watchpoints
1373
1374There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1375targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1376
55241689 1377Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1378
1379* Annotations
1380
1381Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1382and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1383
1384* Improved Irix 5 support
1385
1386GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1387
1388* Improved HPPA support
1389
1390GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1391
1392* New native configurations
1393
1394Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1395HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1396Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1397RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1398
1399* New targets
1400
1401OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1402MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1403Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1404
1405* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1406
1407There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1408This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1409
1410* Fixes
1411
1412As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1413and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1414
1415*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1416
1417* Irix 5 is now supported
1418
1419* HPPA support
1420
1421GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1422to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1423GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1424of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1425can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1426
1427
1428*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1429
1430* User visible changes:
1431
1432* Remote Debugging
1433
1434The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1435target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1436debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1437integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1438debugging info for the mips target).
1439
1440* DEC Alpha native support
1441
1442GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1443debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1444work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1445Alpha-specific notes.
1446
1447* Preliminary thread implementation
1448
1449GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1450
1451* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1452
1453This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1454to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1455for details).
1456
1457* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1458
1459This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1460mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1461call methods, ...etc.
1462
1463*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1464
1465 * User visible changes:
1466
1467Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1468supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1469other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1470somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1471
1472Filename completion now works.
1473
1474When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1475arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1476addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1477
1478All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1479vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1480should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1481your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1482to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1483
1484 * DEC alpha support
1485
1486This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1487cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1488
1489
1490*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1491
1492 * Testsuite
1493
1494This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1495The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1496via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1497
1498 * C++ demangling
1499
1500'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1501emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1502Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1503disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1504use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1505
1506 * Simulators
1507
1508GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1509So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1510Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1511
1512 * New targets supported
1513
1514H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1515H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1516SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1517Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1518IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1519
1520Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1521version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1522GO32 memory extender.
1523
1524 * New remote protocols
1525
1526MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1527
1528 * New source languages supported
1529
1530This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1531used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1532into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1533
1534
1535*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1536
1537 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1538
1539GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1540version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1541University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1542compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1543format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1544(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1545
1546Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1547
1548 * Faster and better demangling
1549
1550We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1551demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1552character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1553only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1554This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1555increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1556symbol lookups.
1557
1558`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1559from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1560compiler does not actually implement.
1561
1562 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1563
1564In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1565inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1566recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1567very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1568The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1569circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1570fix.
1571
1572The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1573release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1574
1575 * Improved configure script
1576
1577The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1578you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1579host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1580done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1581
1582We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1583version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1584`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1585The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1586only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1587We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1588
1589 * Documentation improvements
1590
1591There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1592produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1593before submitting changes.
1594
1595The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1596M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1597`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1598you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1599a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1600
1601*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1602We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1603been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1604or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1605`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1606around this problem.
1607
1608 * New features
1609
1610GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1611the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1612`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1613the target program.
1614
1615The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1616how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1617
1618 * New native hosts supported
1619
1620HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1621386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1622
1623 * New targets supported
1624
1625AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1626
1627 * New file formats supported
1628
1629BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1630HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1631
1632 * Major bug fixes
1633
1634Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1635
1636We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1637printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1638
1639We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1640for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1641release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1642
1643You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1644will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1645
1646We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1647for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1648especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1649libraries.
1650
1651The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1652information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1653command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1654any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1655when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1656
1657 * Internal improvements
1658
1659GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1660debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1661
1662GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1663Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1664symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1665contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1666shared code that handles any of them.
1667
1668 * New command line options
1669
1670We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1671
1672 * Mmalloc licensing
1673
1674The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1675General Public License.
1676
1677*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1678
1679 * Host/native/target split
1680
1681GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1682hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1683target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1684local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1685ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1686
1687The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1688GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1689is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1690code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1691any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1692built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1693handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1694
1695GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1696It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1697plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1698
1699 * New hosts supported
1700
1701HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1702386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1703386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1704
1705 * New targets supported
1706
1707Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
170868030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1709
1710 * New native hosts supported
1711
1712386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1713 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1714386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1715
1716 * New file formats supported
1717
1718BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1719supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1720format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1721
1722 * New commands
1723
1724`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1725`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1726These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1727
1728`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1729
1730You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1731scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1732prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1733executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1734
1735 * C++ improvements
1736
1737We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1738info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1739symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1740
1741Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1742
1743 * Major bug fixes
1744
1745The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1746fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1747by the compiler.
1748
1749We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1750support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1751
1752John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1753slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1754that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1755purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1756the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1757mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1758
1759Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1760about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1761completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1762we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1763
1764 * AMD 29k support
1765
1766A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1767specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1768calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1769usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1770in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1771
1772We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1773Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1774of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1775resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1776
1777 * Remote interfaces
1778
1779We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1780with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1781message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1782This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1783needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1784breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1785each instruction being stepped through.
1786
1787The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1788registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1789
1790There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1791find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1792Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1793processor with a serial port.
1794
1795 * Configuration
1796
1797Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1798`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1799supported, and what files each one uses.
1800
1801 * Library changes
1802
1803There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1804disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1805Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1806disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1807
1808The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1809Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1810can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1811grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1812
1813 * Documentation
1814
1815The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1816reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1817as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1818encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1819system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1820bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1821
1822And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1823
1824
1825*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1826
1827 * Better support for C++ function names
1828
1829GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1830names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1831(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1832single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1833Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1834
1835GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1836the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1837You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1838lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1839for the list of formats.
1840
1841 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1842
1843Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1844C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1845directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1846can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1847usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1848about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1849this problem.)
1850
1851 * New 'maintenance' command
1852
1853All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1854the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1855can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1856
1857 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1858 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1859 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1860 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1861 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1862 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1863
1864The following commands are new:
1865
1866 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1867 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1868 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1869
1870 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1871
1872We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1873(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1874be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1875read after argv processing.
1876
1877 * New hosts supported
1878
1879Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1880
55241689 1881GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1882
1883We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1884is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1885for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1886masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1887fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1888It costs extra.
1889
1890 * New targets supported
1891
1892Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1893
1894 * More smarts about finding #include files
1895
1896GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1897all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1898greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1899especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1900the one that contains your sources.
1901
1902We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1903breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1904try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1905
1906 * Interesting infernals change
1907
1908GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1909section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1910target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1911stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1912
1913 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1914
1915There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1916 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1917 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1918
1919See the ChangeLog for details.
1920
1921*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1922
1923 * New machines supported (host and target)
1924
1925IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1926
1927SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1928
1929 * New malloc package
1930
1931GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1932Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1933capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1934This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1935pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1936more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1937
1938 * info proc
1939
1940The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1941'help info proc' for details.
1942
1943 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1944
1945The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1946Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1947possible.
1948
1949 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1950
1951Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1952support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1953conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1954environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1955that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1956in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1957
1958 * Cross byte order fixes
1959
1960Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1961targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1962
1963 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1964
1965If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1966system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1967`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1968program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1969called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1970Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1971and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1972the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1973option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1974starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1975
1976You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1977the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1978information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1979slower, but makes future operations faster.
1980
1981The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1982build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1983A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1984use is:
1985
1986 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1987
1988The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1989It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1990shared across multiple host platforms.
1991
1992 * longjmp() handling
1993
1994GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1995siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1996all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1997platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1998
1999 * Solaris 2.0
2000
2001Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2002this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2003reading symbols.
2004
2005 * Bug fixes
2006
2007As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2008People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2009crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2010
2011*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2012
2013 * New machines supported (host and target)
2014
2015SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2016 (except core files)
2017BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2018Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2019
2020 * New machines supported (target)
2021
2022AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2023
2024 * C++ support
2025
2026GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2027The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2028per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2029
2030GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2031`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2032extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2033good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2034will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2035released.
2036
2037 * New features for SVR4
2038
2039GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2040shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2041only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2042
2043The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2044on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2045it prints the address mappings of the process.
2046
2047If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2048bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2049
2050 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2051
2052Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2053now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2054skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2055make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2056same code linked statically.
2057
2058 * New Getopt
2059
2060GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2061version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2062continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2063Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2064added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2065future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2066
2067 * Bugs fixed
2068
2069The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2070Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2071See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2072
2073
2074*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2075
2076 * New machines supported (host and target)
2077
2078Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2079NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2080Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2081
2082 * Almost SCO Unix support
2083
2084We had hoped to support:
2085SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2086(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2087that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2088about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2089
2090 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2091
2092GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2093debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2094is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2095send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2096reqired (if any).
2097
2098 * New Readline
2099
2100GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2101is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2102required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2103
2104 * Bugs fixed
2105
2106The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2107Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2108See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2109
2110 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2111
2112GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2113supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2114symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2115
2116Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2117mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2118debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2119mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2120version 2.
2121
2122Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2123really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2124line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2125variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2126situation somewhat.
2127
2128When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2129However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2130methods.
2131
2132We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2133DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2134encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2135
2136
2137*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2138
2139 * Improved configuration
2140
2141Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2142Porting BFD is simpler.
2143
2144 * Stepping improved
2145
2146The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2147of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2148in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2149function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2150
2151 * Bug fixing
2152
2153Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2154
2155 * New host supported (not target)
2156
2157Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2158
2159
2160*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2161
2162 * Multiple source language support
2163
2164GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2165It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2166and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2167language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2168You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2169`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2170
2171 * GDB and Modula-2
2172
2173GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2174currently under development at the State University of New York at
2175Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2176continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2177
2178Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2179debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2180symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2181
2182There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2183in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2184
2185 * set write on/off
2186
2187GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2188a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2189the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2190by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2191effect immediately.
2192
2193 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2194
2195When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2196shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2197The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2198examining core files.
2199
2200 * set listsize
2201
2202You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2203The default is 10.
2204
2205 * New machines supported (host and target)
2206
2207SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2208Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2209Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2210
2211 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2212
2213IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2214
2215 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2216
2217AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2218AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2219Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2220
2221 * New remote interfaces
2222
2223AMD 29000 Adapt
2224AMD 29000 Minimon
2225
2226
2227*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2228
2229 * New Facilities
2230
2231Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2232
2233Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2234target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2235is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2236remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2237remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2238also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2239using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2240stub on the target system.
2241
2242New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2243
2244GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2245library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2246object file types such as a.out and coff.
2247
2248There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2249refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2250
2251
2252 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2253
2254All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2255by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2256
2257For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2258``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2259Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2260
2261What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2262print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2263will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2264all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2265
2266confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2267 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2268 it is already running. Default is ON.
2269
2270editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2271 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2272 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2273 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2274 Default is ON.
2275
2276history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2277 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2278 or the value of the environment variable
2279 GDBHISTFILE.
2280
2281history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2282 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2283 HISTSIZE.
2284
2285history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2286 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2287 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2288
2289history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2290 history expansion will be performed on
2291 command line input. The default is OFF.
2292
2293radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2294 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2295 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2296
2297height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2298 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2299 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2300 variable TERM.
2301
2302width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2303 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2304 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2305 variable TERM.
2306
2307Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2308``set width'' instead.
2309
2310print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2311 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2312 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2313 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2314
2315print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2316 is OFF.
2317
2318print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2319 "raw" form if off.
2320
2321print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2322 like instructions.
2323
2324print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2325
2326
2327 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2328
2329The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2330new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2331are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2332window.
2333
2334
2335 * Support for Shared Libraries
2336
2337GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2338Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2339before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2340happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2341At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2342from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2343shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2344It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2345
2346sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2347 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2348 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2349
2350info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2351
2352
2353 * Watchpoints
2354
2355A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2356expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2357tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2358quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2359problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2360more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2361
2362watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2363
2364info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2365
2366delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2367disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2368enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2369
2370
2371 * C++ multiple inheritance
2372
2373When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2374for C++ programs.
2375
2376 * C++ exception handling
2377
2378Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2379ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2380the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2381handler's context).
2382
2383catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2384 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2385 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2386
2387info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2388 current stack frame.
2389
2390
2391 * Minor command changes
2392
2393The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2394command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2395is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2396
2397The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2398at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2399frames without printing.
2400
2401 * New directory command
2402
2403'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2404The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2405about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2406with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2407find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2408
2409 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2410
2411For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2412for more details.
2413
2414GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2415two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2416Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2417where the program that you are debugging will run.
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