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[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
6dd09645
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
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6* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
7recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
8is not supported.
9
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10* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
11frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
12
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13* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1432-bit or 64-bit register values.
15
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16* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
17
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18* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
19target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
20a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
21
e1f48ead 22* Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
f8b73d13 23of numbers.
e1f48ead 24
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25* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
26for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
f8b73d13 27only ARM and MIPS).
123dc839 28
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29* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
30iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 31
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32* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
33ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
34has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
35
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36* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
37
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38* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
39
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40* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
41layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
42segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
43
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44* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
45immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
46
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47* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
48"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
49packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
50where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
51Windows and SymbianOS).
52
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53* New commands
54
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55set remoteflow
56show remoteflow
57 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
58 when debugging using remote targets.
59
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60set mem inaccessible-by-default
61show mem inaccessible-by-default
62 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
63 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
64 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
65 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
66 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
67
68set breakpoint auto-hw
69show breakpoint auto-hw
70 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
71 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
72 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
73 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
74 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
75 including "next" and "finish".
76
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77catch exception
78catch exception unhandled
79 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
80
81catch assert
82 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
83
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84set sysroot
85show sysroot
86 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
87 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
88 an alias to "set sysroot".
89
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90info spu
91 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
92 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
93 architecture.
94
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95* New native configurations
96
97OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
98
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99set tdesc filename
100unset tdesc filename
101show tdesc filename
102 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
103 not query the target for its built-in description.
104
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105* New targets
106
54fe9172 107OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 108MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 109Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 110
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111* New remote packets
112
113QPassSignals:
114 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
115 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
116
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117qXfer:features:read:
118 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
119 features.
6dd09645 120
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121qXfer:spu:read:
122qXfer:spu:write:
123 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
124 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
125
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126qXfer:libraries:read:
127 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
128 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
129 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
130 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
131
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132* Removed targets
133
134Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
135
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136alpha*-*-osf1*
137alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 138d10v-*-*
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139hppa*-*-hiux*
140i[34567]86-ncr-*
141i[34567]86-*-dgux*
142i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
143i[34567]86-*-netware*
144i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
145i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
146i[34567]86-*-sco*
147i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
148i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
149i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
150i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
151i[34567]86-*-unixware*
152i[34567]86-*-sysv*
153i[34567]86-*-isc*
154m68*-cisco*-*
155m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 156mips*-*-pe
483367ee 157rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 158sh*-*-pe
483367ee 159
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160* Other removed features
161
162target abug
163target cpu32bug
164target est
165target rom68k
166
167 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
168
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169target hms
170target e7000
171target sh3
172target sh3e
173
174 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
175 H8/300.
176
177target ocd
178
179 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
180 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
181 interfaces.
182
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183DWARF 1 support
184
185 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
186 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
187
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188Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
189
190 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
191 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
192 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
193 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
194
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195MIPS ".pdr" sections
196
197 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
198 in debugging information.
199
200Scheme support
201
202 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
203 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
204
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205set mips stack-arg-size
206set mips saved-gpreg-size
207
208 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
209
6dd09645 210*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 211
ca3bf3bd
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212* New targets
213
214Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 215Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 216
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217* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
218(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
219running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
220
221* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
222Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
223supported.
224
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225* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
226broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
227
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228* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
229stub provides the required support.
230
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231* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
232longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
233
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234* New commands
235
236set substitute-path
237unset substitute-path
238show substitute-path
239 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
240 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
241 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
242 between compilation and debugging.
243
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244set trace-commands
245show trace-commands
246 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
247 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
248 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
249
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250* REMOVED features
251
252The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
253
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254Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
255an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
256
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257The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
258
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259* New remote packets
260
261qSupported:
262 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
263 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
264 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
265 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
266 target.
267
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268qXfer:auxv:read:
269 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
270 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
271
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272qXfer:memory-map:read:
273 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
274 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
275
276vFlashErase:
277vFlashWrite:
278vFlashDone:
279 Erase and program a flash memory device.
280
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281* Removed remote packets
282
283qPart:auxv:read:
284 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
285 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
286
e374b601 287*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 288
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MS
289* New targets
290
291Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
292
293Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
294
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295* New commands
296
297init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
298 only if it doesn't already have a value.
299
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300The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
301
302checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
303
304restart <n> Return the program state to a
305 previously saved state.
306
307info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
308
309delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
310
311set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
312 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
313
314info forks List forks of the user program that
315 are available to be debugged.
316
317fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
318 forks of the user program that are
319 available to be debugged.
320
321delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
322 that are available to be debugged (and
323 kill the forked process).
324
325detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
326 that are available to be debugged (and
327 allow the process to continue).
328
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329* New architecture
330
331Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
332
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333* Improved Windows host support
334
335GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
336native console support, and remote communications using either
337network sockets or serial ports.
338
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339* Improved Modula-2 language support
340
341GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
342basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
343pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
344printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
345written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
346GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
347
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348* REMOVED features
349
350The ARM rdi-share module.
351
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352The Netware NLM debug server.
353
53e5f3cf 354*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 355
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356* New native configurations
357
02a677ac 358OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
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359OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
360
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361* New targets
362
363Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
364
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365* New command line options
366
367--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
368--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
369 the child (debugged) program exited with.
370--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
371 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
372 specified multiple times and in conjunction
373 with the --command (-x) option.
374
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375* Deprecated commands removed
376
377The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
378removed:
379
380 Command Replacement
381 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
382 othernames set arm disassembler
383 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
384 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
385 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
386 regs info registers
387
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388* New BSD user-level threads support
389
390It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
391library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
392configurations are:
393
394FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
395FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
396OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
397
398Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
399are not yet supported.
400
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401* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
402(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
403
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404* REMOVED configurations and files
405
406VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 407Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 408National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 409
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410* New "set print array-indexes" command
411
412After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
413when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
414behavior.
415
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416* VAX floating point support
417
418GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
419
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420* User-defined command support
421
422In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
423to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
424section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
425
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426*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
427
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428* New command line option
429
430GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
431debugging.
432
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433* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
434
435GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
436information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
437by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
438proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
439to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 440
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441* Internationalization
442
443When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
444internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
445continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
446
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447* Ada
448
449Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
450implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
451into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
452
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453* New native configurations
454
455GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
456
457* Remote 'p' packet
458
459GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
460packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
461
462* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
463
464GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
465The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
466features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
467i386 application).
468
469GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
470compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
471continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
472configurations:
473
474hppa-*-hpux
475ia64-*-aix
476mips-*-irix*
477*-*-lynx
478mips-*-linux-gnu
479sds protocol
480xdr protocol
481powerpc bdm protocol
482
483Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
484made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
485
486* OBSOLETE configurations and files
487
488Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
489been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
490configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
491permanently REMOVED.
492
493h8300-*-*
494mcore-*-*
495mn10300-*-*
496ns32k-*-*
497sh64-*-*
498v850-*-*
499
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500*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
501
502* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
503
504When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
505heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
506been fixed.
507
508* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
509
510When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
511fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
512IRIX long double values).
513
514* VAX and "next"
515
516A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
517command. This problem has been fixed.
518
860660cb 519*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 520
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521* Fix for ``many threads''
522
523On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
524rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
525error message:
526
527 ptrace: No such process.
528 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
529
530This problem has been fixed.
531
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532* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
533
534Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
535GDB to dump core).
536
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537* New ``start'' command.
538
539This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
540
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541* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
542
543Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
544live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
545platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
546
547FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
548FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
549NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
550NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
551NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
552OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
553OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
554OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
555OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
556
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557* Signal trampoline code overhauled
558
559Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
560These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
561of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
562call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
563signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
564
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565Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
566features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
567include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 568
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569* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
570
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571* New native configurations
572
97dc871c 573GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 574OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
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575OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
576OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 577OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 578NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 579OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 580
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581* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
582
583GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
584The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
585including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
586migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
587compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
588work, was also included.
589
590GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
591module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
592
593h8300-*-*
594mcore-*-*
595mn10300-*-*
596ns32k-*-*
597sh64-*-*
598v850-*-*
599xstormy16-*-*
600
601Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
602made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
603
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604* REMOVED configurations and files
605
606Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
607Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
608Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
609Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
610Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
611AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
612Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
613decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
614riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
615sonymips mips-sony-*
616sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
617
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618*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
619
620* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
621
622The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
623GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
624command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
625program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
626with GDB".
627
628* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
629
630Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
631libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
632cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
633GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
634shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
635the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
636are created.
637
638Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
639
640* Fixed ISO-C build problems
641
642The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
643non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
644compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
645
646* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
647
648Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
649wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
650
651* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
652
653The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
654permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
655systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
656
657* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
658
659Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
660has been updated to use constant array sizes.
661
662* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
663
664GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
665its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
666panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
667
668* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
669
670When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
671by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
672not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
673
faae5abe 674*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 675
9175c9a3
MC
676* Removed --with-mmalloc
677
678Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
679conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
680
3cc87ec0
MK
681* Changes in AMD64 configurations
682
683The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
684the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
685and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
686you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
687
f0424ef6
MK
688* Revised SPARC target
689
690The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
691FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
692support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
693from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
694(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 695
59659be2
ILT
696* New C++ demangler
697
698GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
699names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
700with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
701programs.
702
9e08b29b
DJ
703* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
704
705GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
706arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
707encountered these.
708
8dfe8985
DC
709* C++ nested types and namespaces
710
711GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
712improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
713is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
714Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
715namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
716"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
717frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
718if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
719GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
720
cced5e27
MK
721* New native configurations
722
723NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 724OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 725OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
726OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
727OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 728
b4b4b794
KI
729* New debugging protocols
730
731M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
732
7989c619
AC
733* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
734
735The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
736and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
737tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
738
5994185b
AC
739* OBSOLETE configurations and files
740
741Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
742been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
743configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
744permanently REMOVED.
745
746Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
747Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
748Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
749Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
750Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
751AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
752Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
753decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
754riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
755sonymips mips-sony-*
756sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 757
0ddabb4c
AC
758* REMOVED configurations and files
759
760SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
761SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
762Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
763Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
764H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
765HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
766HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
767HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
768PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 769386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
770Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
771 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
772 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
773SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
774SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
775Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
776Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 777
c7f1390e
DJ
778*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
779
1fe43d45
AC
780* Objective-C
781
782Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
783integrated into GDB.
784
e6beb428
AC
785* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
786
787DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
788information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
789By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
790backtraces.
791
792The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
793have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
794DWARF 2 CFI support.
795
796* Hosted file I/O.
797
798GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
799file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
800remote protocol documentation for details.
801
802* All targets using the new architecture framework.
803
804All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
805architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
806to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
807ppc32 on ppc64).
808
809* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
810
811GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
812per-thread variables.
813
814* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
815
816GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
817GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
818
819* Separate debug info.
820
821GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
822automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
823of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
824system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
825and optional debug files.
826
827* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
828
829DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
830describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
831debugger.
832
833GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
834for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
835
836* Java
837
838A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
839Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
840considered "useable".
841
85f8f974
DJ
842* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
843
844The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
845commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
846kernel.
847
0fac0b41
DJ
848* GDB supports logging output to a file
849
850There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
851used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 852
6ad8ae5c
DJ
853* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
854
855The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
856disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
857command.
858
e286caf2 859* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
860
861The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
862registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
863
d28f9cdf
DJ
864* Profiling support
865
866A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
867be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
868session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
869"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
870data, for more informative profiling results.
871
da0f9dcd
AC
872* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
873
874The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
875option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 876"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
877
878Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
879removed.
880
fb9b6b35
JJ
881Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
882Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
883Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
884 in a subsequent -var-update.
885
954a4db8
MK
886* New native configurations.
887
888FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
889
6760f9e6
JB
890* Multi-arched targets.
891
b4263afa 892HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 893Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 894
1b831c93
AC
895* OBSOLETE configurations and files
896
897Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
898been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
899configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
900permanently REMOVED.
901
8b0e5691 902Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 903Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 904H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
905HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
906HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
907HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 908PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
909Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
910 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
911 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
912Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
913Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 914
5835abe7
NC
915* REMOVED configurations and files
916
917V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
918Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
919IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
920i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
921i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
922i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
923HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
924 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
925 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
926Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
927Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
928Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
929OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
930I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 931
a094c6fb
AC
932* MIPS $fp behavior changed
933
934The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
935the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
936context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
937address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
938The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
939
299ffc64 940*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 941
46248966
AC
942* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
943
944When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
945`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
946in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
947library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
948shared libs like mad''.
949
b9d14705 950* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 951
b9d14705
DJ
952Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
953the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
954arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
955powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 956
e0e9281e
JB
957* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
958
959GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
960and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
961they expand.
962
dd73b9bb
AC
963The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
964invocations in expression, and shows the result.
965
966The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
967macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
968
e0e9281e
JB
969Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
970information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
971your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
972information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
973
2250ee0c
CV
974* Multi-arched targets.
975
6e3ba3b8
JT
976DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
977DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 978NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 979National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
980Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
981Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 982
cd9bfe15 983* New targets.
e33ce519 984
456f8b9d
DB
985Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
986
e33ce519 987
da8ca43d
JT
988* New native configurations
989
990Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 991SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 992MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 993UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 994
cd9bfe15
AC
995* OBSOLETE configurations and files
996
997Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
998been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
999configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1000permanently REMOVED.
1001
92eb23c5 1002Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1003OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1004IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1005Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1006Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1007Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1008i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1009i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1010i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1011HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1012 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1013 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1014I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1015
db034ac5
AC
1016* OBSOLETE languages
1017
1018CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1019
cd9bfe15
AC
1020* REMOVED configurations and files
1021
1022AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1023A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1024AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1025AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1026AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1027
1028testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1029
20f01a46
DH
1030* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1031
1032This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1033commands. The default is 1024.
1034
a5941fbf
MK
1035* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1036
1037Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1038
89743e04
MS
1039* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1040
1041These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1042to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1043from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1044
9fb14e79
JB
1045* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1046
1047The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1048including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1049of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1050
2037aebb
AC
1051*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1052
1053* New targets.
1054
1055Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1056
1057* Bug fixes
1058
1059gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1060mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1061Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1062
1063gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1064dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1065Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1066
1067Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1068Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1069By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1070
1071i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1072avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1073By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1074
37057839 1075*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1076
1a703748
MS
1077* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1078
1079This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1080really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1081In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1082target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1083This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1084(notably embedded) targets.
1085
cefd4ef5
MS
1086* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1087
55241689
AC
1088This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1089process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1090GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1091hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1092
352ed7b4
MS
1093* New command line option
1094
1095GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1096
1097* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1098
1099There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1100command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1101a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1102be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1103open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1104issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1105a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1106it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1107GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1108is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1109
fe419ffc
RE
1110* Changes in ARM configurations.
1111
1112Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1113configuration is fully multi-arch.
1114
eb7cedd9
MK
1115* New native configurations
1116
fe419ffc 1117ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1118x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1119AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1120Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1121
c9f63e6b
CV
1122* New targets
1123
1124Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1125
9b4ff276
AC
1126* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1127
1128Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1129been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1130configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1131permanently REMOVED.
1132
1133AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1134A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1135AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1136AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1137AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1138
b4ceaee6 1139testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1140
e2caac18
AC
1141* REMOVED configurations and files
1142
1143TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1144WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1145PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1146PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1147PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1148Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1149Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1150 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1151SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1152Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1153Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1154ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1155Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1156
c2a727fa
TT
1157* Changes to command line processing
1158
1159The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1160for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1161
467d8519
TT
1162* Changes to key bindings
1163
1164There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1165
7072a954
AC
1166*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1167
1168Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1169
1170Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1171corrupted.
1172
1173Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1174
1175Numerous documentation fixes.
1176
1177Numerous testsuite fixes.
1178
34f47bc4 1179*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1180
1181* New native configurations
1182
1183Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1184x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1185MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1186MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1187ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1188s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1189
bf64bfd6
AC
1190* New targets
1191
def90278 1192Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1193CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1194UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1195
17e78a56 1196* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1197
1198x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1199Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1200Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1201 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1202TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1203WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1204Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1205PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1206PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1207PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1208SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1209Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1210ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1211Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1212
17e78a56
AC
1213stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1214kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1215
7fcca85b
AC
1216Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1217been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1218configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1219permanently REMOVED.
1220
a196c81c 1221* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1222
1223Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1224Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1225Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1226ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1227Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1228ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1229
6d6b80e5 1230* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1231
6d6b80e5 1232GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1233sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1234present.
1235
bf64bfd6
AC
1236* Other news:
1237
e23194cb
EZ
1238* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1239
1240* The MI enabled by default.
1241
1242The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1243revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1244engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1245using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1246which is now deprecated.
1247
1248* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1249
1250GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1251main features are supported:
1252
1253 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1254
1255 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1256 extension;
1257
1258 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1259
1260 - a Pascal expression parser.
1261
1262However, some important features are not yet supported.
1263
1264 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1265
1266 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1267
1268 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1269 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1270
1271 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1272
1273 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1274
1275* Changes in completion.
1276
1277Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1278to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1279users expect at the shell prompt.
1280
1281Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1282`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1283program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1284files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1285be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1286considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1287name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1288
1289`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1290
1291* New platform-independent commands:
1292
1293It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1294hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1295documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1296
1297* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1298
d7275149
MK
1299Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1300revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1301many threads as your system allows you to have.
1302
e23194cb
EZ
1303Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1304
d7275149
MK
1305Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1306multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1307
1308* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1309
1310Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1311
e23194cb
EZ
1312GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1313debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1314supported.)
1315
1316* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1317
1318Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1319breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1320implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1321put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1322and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1323registers.
1324
1325The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1326debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1327watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1328
1329* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1330
1331New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1332the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1333
1334New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1335display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1336IDT.
1337
1338New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1339from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1340New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1341a given linear address.
1342
1343GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1344program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1345which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1346
1347DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1348
6c56c069
EZ
1349It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1350
e23194cb
EZ
1351* Changes in documentation.
1352
1353All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1354Documentation License.
1355
1356Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1357manual.
1358
1359TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1360
1361Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1362manual.
1363
1364The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1365documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1366hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1367
5d6640b1
AC
1368* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1369
1370The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1371``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1372contents of this file.
1373
1a1d8446
AC
1374* gdba.el deleted
1375
1376GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1377
9debab2f 1378*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1379
c63ce875
EZ
1380* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1381
1382Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1383programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1384displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1385greater level of detail.
1386
1387* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1388
1389It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1390bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1391on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1392written.
1393
1394* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1395
1396The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1397necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1398machines ``out of the box''.
1399
1400The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1401possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1402signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1403would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1404interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1405
1406It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1407standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1408even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1409and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1410terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1411
1412The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1413enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1414also works.
1415
1416DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1417GDB.
1418
1419It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1420directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1421times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1422breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1423
ed9a39eb
JM
1424* New native configurations
1425
1426ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1427PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1428
7a292a7a
SS
1429* New targets
1430
96baa820 1431Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1432x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1433PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1434TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1435
085dd6e6
JM
1436* OBSOLETE configurations
1437
1438Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1439Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1440Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1441ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1442Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1443
9debab2f
AC
1444Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1445but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1446these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1447be permanently REMOVED.
1448
5330533d
SS
1449* Gould support removed
1450
1451Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1452
bc9e5bbf
AC
1453* New features for SVR4
1454
1455On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1456without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1457load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1458
1459* Many C++ enhancements
1460
1461C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1462in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1463
adf40b2e
JM
1464* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1465
1466A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1467sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1468with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1469``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1470
1471 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1472 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1473
43e526b9
JM
1474* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1475
1476A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1477expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1478instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1479
1480The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1481added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1482
96baa820
JM
1483* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1484
1485The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1486``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1487include ``set remote P-packet''.
1488
11cf8741
JM
1489* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1490
1491The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1492accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1493``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1494
7876dd43
DB
1495* ``apropos'' command added.
1496
1497The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1498documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1499try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1500
bc9e5bbf
AC
1501* New MI interface
1502
1503A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1504interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1505process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1506"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1507enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1508
1509 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1510
c906108c
SS
1511*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1512
1513* New native configurations
1514
1515HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1516HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1517M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1518
1519* New targets
1520
1521Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1522Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1523Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1524
1525* OBSOLETE configurations
1526
1527Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1528
1529Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1530but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1531these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1532be permanently REMOVED.
1533
1534* ANSI/ISO C
1535
1536As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1537buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1538containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1539use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1540available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1541configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1542information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1543already.
1544
1545* Readline 2.2
1546
1547GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1548
1549* set extension-language
1550
1551You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1552languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1553you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1554 set extension-language .c c++
1555The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1556and their associated languages.
1557
1558* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1559
1560When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1561you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1562PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1563
1564 set processor NAME
1565
1566sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1567following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1568
1569 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1570 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1571 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1572 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1573 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1574 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1575 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1576 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1577 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1578 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1579 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1580
1581At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1582special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1583registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1584only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1585
1586* HP-UX support
1587
1588Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1589more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1590library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1591support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1592for xdb and dbx commands.
1593
1594* Catchpoints
1595
1596HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1597generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1598to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1599
1600This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1601argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1602output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1603
1604* Debugging across forks
1605
1606On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1607in the inferior.
1608
1609* TUI
1610
1611HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1612it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1613configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1614
1615* GDB remote protocol additions
1616
1617A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1618Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1619fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1620allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1621
1622For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1623full 64-bit address. The command
1624
1625 set remoteaddresssize 32
1626
1627can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1628the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1629will be discarded.
1630
1631In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1632command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1633
1634 maint packet heythere
1635
1636sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1637disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1638time.
1639
1640The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1641target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1642downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1643
1644* Tracing can collect general expressions
1645
1646You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1647further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1648doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1649
1650* mask-address variable for Mips
1651
1652For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1653a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1654of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1655
1656* Higher serial baud rates
1657
1658GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1659230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1660to achieve all of these rates.)
1661
1662* i960 simulator
1663
1664The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1665builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1666
1667
1668*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1669
1670* New native configurations
1671
1672Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1673Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1674Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1675PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1676PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1677Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1678Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1679
1680* New targets
1681
1682Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1683Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1684Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1685Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1686MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1687MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1688MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1689Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1690Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1691Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1692NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1693
1694* New debugging protocols
1695
1696ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1697M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1698DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1699PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1700PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1701Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1702
1703* DWARF 2
1704
1705All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1706format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1707information.
1708
1709* Java frontend
1710
1711GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1712only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1713
1714* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1715
1716For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1717loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1718locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1719
1720* Live range splitting
1721
1722GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1723range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1724more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1725
1726* Hurd support
1727
1728GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1729updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1730
1731* ARM Thumb support
1732
1733GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1734instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1735instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1736accordingly.
1737
1738* MIPS16 support
1739
1740GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1741instruction set.
1742
1743* Overlay support
1744
1745GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1746linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1747will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1748control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1749additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1750in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1751
1752* info symbol
1753
1754The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1755the symbol at the specified address.
1756
1757* Trace support
1758
1759The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1760asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1761extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1762includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1763file tracepoint.c for more details.
1764
1765* MIPS simulator
1766
1767Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1768by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1769of most MIPS variants.
1770
1771* Sparc simulator
1772
1773Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1774by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1775Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1776
1777* set architecture
1778
1779For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1780basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1781architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1782the possible architectures.
1783
1784*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1785
1786* New native configurations
1787
1788Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1789M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1790PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1791PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1792PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1793RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1794
1795* New targets
1796
1797ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1798I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1799MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1800MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1801PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1802Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1803Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1804
1805* PowerPC simulator
1806
1807The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1808contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1809PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1810basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1811performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1812
1813* Solaris 2.5
1814
1815GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1816
1817* Windows 95/NT native
1818
1819GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1820To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1821which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1822Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1823ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1824
1825* dont-repeat command
1826
1827If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1828command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1829useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1830extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1831
1832* Send break instead of ^C
1833
1834The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1835rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1836GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1837
1838* Remote protocol timeout
1839
1840The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1841that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1842to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1843
1844* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1845
1846By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1847loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1848stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1849when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1850in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1851
1852Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1853/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1854automatically on hpux10.
1855
1856* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1857
1858Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1859
1860* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1861
1862When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1863may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1864the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1865every character. The default value is 1050.
1866
1867* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1868
1869If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1870a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1871replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1872details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1873remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1874to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1875
1876* Speedups for remote debugging
1877
1878GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1879the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1880and more efficient S-record downloading.
1881
1882* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1883
1884GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1885Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1886
1887*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1888
1889* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1890
1891The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1892can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1893
1894* Remote targets use caching
1895
1896Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1897remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1898it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1899debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1900off' turns the the data cache off.
1901
1902* Remote targets may have threads
1903
1904The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1905in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1906gdb/remote.c for details.
1907
1908* NetROM support
1909
1910If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1911support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1912acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1913write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1914support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1915another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1916sequence is something like
1917
1918 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1919 load <prog>
1920 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1921
1922* Macintosh host
1923
1924GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1925may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1926it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1927available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1928device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1929directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1930scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1931mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1932
1933* Autoconf
1934
1935GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1936but does simplify configuration and building.
1937
1938* hpux10
1939
1940GDB now supports hpux10.
1941
1942*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1943
1944* New native configurations
1945
1946x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1947x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1948NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1949Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1950
1951* New targets
1952
1953A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1954HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1955CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1956PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1957WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1958
1959* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1960
1961GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1962possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1963filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1964the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1965if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1966
1967* Arguments to user-defined commands
1968
1969User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1970Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1971trivial example:
1972define adder
1973 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1974
1975To execute the command use:
1976adder 1 2 3
1977
1978Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1979Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1980use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1981
1982* New `if' and `while' commands
1983
1984This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1985commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1986expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1987execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1988terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1989`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1990if the expression is zero.
1991
1992* Fortran source language mode
1993
1994GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1995Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1996variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1997with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1998Fortran compilers.
1999
2000* Better HPUX support
2001
2002Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2003running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2004processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2005for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2006that behavior do the following before running the program:
2007
2008 adb -w a.out
2009 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2010 control-d
2011
2012This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2013To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2014
2015 adb -w a.out
2016 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2017 control-d
2018
2019You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2020the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2021external linkage.
2022
2023GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2024HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2025
2026* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2027
2028You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2029commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2030current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2031"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2032associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2033configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2034
2035* New DOS host serial code
2036
2037This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2038no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2039a PC's serial port.
2040
2041*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2042
2043* New "complete" command
2044
2045This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2046were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2047
2048* Trailing space optional in prompt
2049
2050"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2051allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2052
2053* Breakpoint hit counts
2054
2055"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2056has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2057can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2058to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2059less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2060that breakpoint.
2061
2062* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2063
2064"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2065an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2066arrays actually contain only short strings.
2067
2068* Shared library breakpoints
2069
2070In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2071breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2072
2073* Hardware watchpoints
2074
2075There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2076targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2077
55241689 2078Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2079
2080* Annotations
2081
2082Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2083and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2084
2085* Improved Irix 5 support
2086
2087GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2088
2089* Improved HPPA support
2090
2091GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2092
2093* New native configurations
2094
2095Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2096HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2097Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2098RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2099
2100* New targets
2101
2102OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2103MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2104Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2105
2106* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2107
2108There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2109This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2110
2111* Fixes
2112
2113As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2114and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2115
2116*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2117
2118* Irix 5 is now supported
2119
2120* HPPA support
2121
2122GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2123to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2124GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2125of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2126can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2127
2128
2129*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2130
2131* User visible changes:
2132
2133* Remote Debugging
2134
2135The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2136target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2137debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2138integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2139debugging info for the mips target).
2140
2141* DEC Alpha native support
2142
2143GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2144debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2145work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2146Alpha-specific notes.
2147
2148* Preliminary thread implementation
2149
2150GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2151
2152* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2153
2154This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2155to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2156for details).
2157
2158* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2159
2160This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2161mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2162call methods, ...etc.
2163
2164*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2165
2166 * User visible changes:
2167
2168Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2169supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2170other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2171somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2172
2173Filename completion now works.
2174
2175When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2176arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2177addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2178
2179All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2180vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2181should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2182your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2183to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2184
2185 * DEC alpha support
2186
2187This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2188cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2189
2190
2191*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2192
2193 * Testsuite
2194
2195This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2196The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2197via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2198
2199 * C++ demangling
2200
2201'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2202emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2203Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2204disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2205use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2206
2207 * Simulators
2208
2209GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2210So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2211Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2212
2213 * New targets supported
2214
2215H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2216H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2217SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2218Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2219IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2220
2221Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2222version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2223GO32 memory extender.
2224
2225 * New remote protocols
2226
2227MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2228
2229 * New source languages supported
2230
2231This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2232used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2233into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2234
2235
2236*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2237
2238 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2239
2240GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2241version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2242University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2243compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2244format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2245(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2246
2247Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2248
2249 * Faster and better demangling
2250
2251We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2252demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2253character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2254only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2255This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2256increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2257symbol lookups.
2258
2259`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2260from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2261compiler does not actually implement.
2262
2263 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2264
2265In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2266inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2267recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2268very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2269The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2270circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2271fix.
2272
2273The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2274release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2275
2276 * Improved configure script
2277
2278The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2279you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2280host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2281done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2282
2283We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2284version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2285`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2286The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2287only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2288We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2289
2290 * Documentation improvements
2291
2292There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2293produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2294before submitting changes.
2295
2296The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2297M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2298`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2299you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2300a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2301
2302*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2303We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2304been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2305or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2306`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2307around this problem.
2308
2309 * New features
2310
2311GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2312the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2313`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2314the target program.
2315
2316The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2317how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2318
2319 * New native hosts supported
2320
2321HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2322386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2323
2324 * New targets supported
2325
2326AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2327
2328 * New file formats supported
2329
2330BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2331HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2332
2333 * Major bug fixes
2334
2335Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2336
2337We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2338printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2339
2340We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2341for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2342release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2343
2344You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2345will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2346
2347We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2348for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2349especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2350libraries.
2351
2352The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2353information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2354command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2355any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2356when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2357
2358 * Internal improvements
2359
2360GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2361debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2362
2363GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2364Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2365symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2366contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2367shared code that handles any of them.
2368
2369 * New command line options
2370
2371We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2372
2373 * Mmalloc licensing
2374
2375The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2376General Public License.
2377
2378*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2379
2380 * Host/native/target split
2381
2382GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2383hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2384target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2385local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2386ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2387
2388The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2389GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2390is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2391code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2392any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2393built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2394handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2395
2396GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2397It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2398plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2399
2400 * New hosts supported
2401
2402HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2403386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2404386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2405
2406 * New targets supported
2407
2408Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
240968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2410
2411 * New native hosts supported
2412
2413386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2414 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2415386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2416
2417 * New file formats supported
2418
2419BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2420supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2421format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2422
2423 * New commands
2424
2425`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2426`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2427These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2428
2429`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2430
2431You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2432scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2433prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2434executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2435
2436 * C++ improvements
2437
2438We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2439info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2440symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2441
2442Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2443
2444 * Major bug fixes
2445
2446The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2447fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2448by the compiler.
2449
2450We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2451support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2452
2453John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2454slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2455that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2456purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2457the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2458mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2459
2460Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2461about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2462completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2463we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2464
2465 * AMD 29k support
2466
2467A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2468specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2469calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2470usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2471in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2472
2473We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2474Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2475of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2476resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2477
2478 * Remote interfaces
2479
2480We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2481with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2482message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2483This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2484needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2485breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2486each instruction being stepped through.
2487
2488The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2489registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2490
2491There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2492find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2493Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2494processor with a serial port.
2495
2496 * Configuration
2497
2498Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2499`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2500supported, and what files each one uses.
2501
2502 * Library changes
2503
2504There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2505disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2506Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2507disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2508
2509The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2510Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2511can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2512grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2513
2514 * Documentation
2515
2516The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2517reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2518as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2519encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2520system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2521bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2522
2523And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2524
2525
2526*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2527
2528 * Better support for C++ function names
2529
2530GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2531names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2532(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2533single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2534Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2535
2536GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2537the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2538You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2539lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2540for the list of formats.
2541
2542 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2543
2544Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2545C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2546directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2547can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2548usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2549about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2550this problem.)
2551
2552 * New 'maintenance' command
2553
2554All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2555the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2556can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2557
2558 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2559 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2560 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2561 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2562 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2563 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2564
2565The following commands are new:
2566
2567 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2568 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2569 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2570
2571 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2572
2573We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2574(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2575be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2576read after argv processing.
2577
2578 * New hosts supported
2579
2580Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2581
55241689 2582GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2583
2584We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2585is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2586for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2587masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2588fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2589It costs extra.
2590
2591 * New targets supported
2592
2593Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2594
2595 * More smarts about finding #include files
2596
2597GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2598all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2599greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2600especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2601the one that contains your sources.
2602
2603We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2604breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2605try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2606
2607 * Interesting infernals change
2608
2609GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2610section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2611target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2612stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2613
2614 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2615
2616There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2617 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2618 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2619
2620See the ChangeLog for details.
2621
2622*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2623
2624 * New machines supported (host and target)
2625
2626IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2627
2628SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2629
2630 * New malloc package
2631
2632GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2633Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2634capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2635This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2636pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2637more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2638
2639 * info proc
2640
2641The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2642'help info proc' for details.
2643
2644 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2645
2646The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2647Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2648possible.
2649
2650 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2651
2652Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2653support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2654conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2655environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2656that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2657in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2658
2659 * Cross byte order fixes
2660
2661Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2662targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2663
2664 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2665
2666If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2667system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2668`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2669program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2670called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2671Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2672and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2673the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2674option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2675starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2676
2677You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2678the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2679information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2680slower, but makes future operations faster.
2681
2682The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2683build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2684A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2685use is:
2686
2687 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2688
2689The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2690It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2691shared across multiple host platforms.
2692
2693 * longjmp() handling
2694
2695GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2696siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2697all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2698platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2699
2700 * Solaris 2.0
2701
2702Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2703this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2704reading symbols.
2705
2706 * Bug fixes
2707
2708As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2709People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2710crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2711
2712*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2713
2714 * New machines supported (host and target)
2715
2716SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2717 (except core files)
2718BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2719Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2720
2721 * New machines supported (target)
2722
2723AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2724
2725 * C++ support
2726
2727GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2728The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2729per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2730
2731GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2732`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2733extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2734good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2735will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2736released.
2737
2738 * New features for SVR4
2739
2740GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2741shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2742only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2743
2744The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2745on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2746it prints the address mappings of the process.
2747
2748If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2749bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2750
2751 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2752
2753Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2754now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2755skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2756make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2757same code linked statically.
2758
2759 * New Getopt
2760
2761GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2762version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2763continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2764Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2765added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2766future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2767
2768 * Bugs fixed
2769
2770The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2771Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2772See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2773
2774
2775*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2776
2777 * New machines supported (host and target)
2778
2779Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2780NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2781Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2782
2783 * Almost SCO Unix support
2784
2785We had hoped to support:
2786SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2787(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2788that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2789about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2790
2791 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2792
2793GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2794debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2795is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2796send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2797reqired (if any).
2798
2799 * New Readline
2800
2801GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2802is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2803required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2804
2805 * Bugs fixed
2806
2807The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2808Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2809See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2810
2811 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2812
2813GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2814supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2815symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2816
2817Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2818mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2819debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2820mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2821version 2.
2822
2823Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2824really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2825line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2826variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2827situation somewhat.
2828
2829When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2830However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2831methods.
2832
2833We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2834DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2835encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2836
2837
2838*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2839
2840 * Improved configuration
2841
2842Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2843Porting BFD is simpler.
2844
2845 * Stepping improved
2846
2847The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2848of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2849in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2850function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2851
2852 * Bug fixing
2853
2854Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2855
2856 * New host supported (not target)
2857
2858Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2859
2860
2861*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2862
2863 * Multiple source language support
2864
2865GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2866It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2867and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2868language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2869You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2870`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2871
2872 * GDB and Modula-2
2873
2874GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2875currently under development at the State University of New York at
2876Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2877continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2878
2879Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2880debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2881symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2882
2883There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2884in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2885
2886 * set write on/off
2887
2888GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2889a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2890the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2891by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2892effect immediately.
2893
2894 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2895
2896When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2897shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2898The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2899examining core files.
2900
2901 * set listsize
2902
2903You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2904The default is 10.
2905
2906 * New machines supported (host and target)
2907
2908SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2909Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2910Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2911
2912 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2913
2914IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2915
2916 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2917
2918AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2919AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2920Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2921
2922 * New remote interfaces
2923
2924AMD 29000 Adapt
2925AMD 29000 Minimon
2926
2927
2928*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2929
2930 * New Facilities
2931
2932Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2933
2934Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2935target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2936is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2937remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2938remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2939also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2940using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2941stub on the target system.
2942
2943New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2944
2945GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2946library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2947object file types such as a.out and coff.
2948
2949There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2950refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2951
2952
2953 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2954
2955All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2956by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2957
2958For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2959``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2960Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2961
2962What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2963print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2964will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2965all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2966
2967confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2968 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2969 it is already running. Default is ON.
2970
2971editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2972 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2973 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2974 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2975 Default is ON.
2976
2977history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2978 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2979 or the value of the environment variable
2980 GDBHISTFILE.
2981
2982history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2983 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2984 HISTSIZE.
2985
2986history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2987 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2988 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2989
2990history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2991 history expansion will be performed on
2992 command line input. The default is OFF.
2993
2994radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2995 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2996 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2997
2998height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2999 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3000 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3001 variable TERM.
3002
3003width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3004 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3005 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3006 variable TERM.
3007
3008Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3009``set width'' instead.
3010
3011print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3012 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3013 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3014 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3015
3016print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3017 is OFF.
3018
3019print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3020 "raw" form if off.
3021
3022print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3023 like instructions.
3024
3025print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3026
3027
3028 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3029
3030The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3031new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3032are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3033window.
3034
3035
3036 * Support for Shared Libraries
3037
3038GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3039Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3040before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3041happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3042At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3043from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3044shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3045It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3046
3047sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3048 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3049 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3050
3051info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3052
3053
3054 * Watchpoints
3055
3056A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3057expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3058tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3059quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3060problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3061more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3062
3063watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3064
3065info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3066
3067delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3068disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3069enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3070
3071
3072 * C++ multiple inheritance
3073
3074When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3075for C++ programs.
3076
3077 * C++ exception handling
3078
3079Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3080ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3081the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3082handler's context).
3083
3084catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3085 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3086 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3087
3088info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3089 current stack frame.
3090
3091
3092 * Minor command changes
3093
3094The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3095command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3096is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3097
3098The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3099at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3100frames without printing.
3101
3102 * New directory command
3103
3104'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3105The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3106about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3107with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3108find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3109
3110 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3111
3112For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3113for more details.
3114
3115GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3116two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3117Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3118where the program that you are debugging will run.
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