*** empty log message ***
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
6dd09645
JB
4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
6* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
8
c9bb8148
DJ
9* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1032-bit or 64-bit register values.
11
0d5de010
DJ
12* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
13
23181151
DJ
14* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
17
c9bb8148
DJ
18* New commands
19
20set mem inaccessible-by-default
21show mem inaccessible-by-default
22 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
23 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
24 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
25 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
26 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
27
28set breakpoint auto-hw
29show breakpoint auto-hw
30 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
31 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
32 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
33 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
34 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
35 including "next" and "finish".
36
0e420bd8
JB
37catch exception
38catch exception unhandled
39 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
40
41catch assert
42 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
43
f822c95b
DJ
44set sysroot
45show sysroot
46 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
47 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
48 an alias to "set sysroot".
49
bd372731
MK
50* New native configurations
51
52OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
53
23181151
DJ
54set tdesc filename
55unset tdesc filename
56show tdesc filename
57 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
58 not query the target for its built-in description.
59
c9bb8148
DJ
60* New targets
61
54fe9172 62OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148
DJ
63MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
64
6dd09645
JB
65* New remote packets
66
67QPassSignals:
68 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
69 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
70
23181151
DJ
71qXfer:features:read:
72 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
73 features.
6dd09645
JB
74
75*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 76
ca3bf3bd
DJ
77* New targets
78
79Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 80Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 81
6aec2e11
DJ
82* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
83(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
84running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
85
86* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
87Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
88supported.
89
17218d91
DJ
90* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
91broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
92
7d3d3ece
DJ
93* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
94longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
95
4f8253f3
JB
96* New commands
97
98set substitute-path
99unset substitute-path
100show substitute-path
101 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
102 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
103 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
104 between compilation and debugging.
105
9fa66fd7
AS
106set trace-commands
107show trace-commands
108 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
109 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
110 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
111
1f5befc1
DJ
112* REMOVED features
113
114The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
115
2ec3381a
DJ
116Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
117an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
118
3d00d119
DJ
119The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
120
be2a5f71
DJ
121* New remote packets
122
123qSupported:
124 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
125 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
126 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
127 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
128 target.
129
0876f84a
DJ
130qXfer:auxv:read:
131 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
132 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
133
134* Removed remote packets
135
136qPart:auxv:read:
137 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
138 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
139
e374b601 140*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 141
96309189
MS
142* New targets
143
144Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
145
146Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
147
53e5f3cf
AS
148* New commands
149
150init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
151 only if it doesn't already have a value.
152
ac264b3b
MS
153The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
154
155checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
156
157restart <n> Return the program state to a
158 previously saved state.
159
160info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
161
162delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
163
164set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
165 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
166
167info forks List forks of the user program that
168 are available to be debugged.
169
170fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
171 forks of the user program that are
172 available to be debugged.
173
174delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
175 that are available to be debugged (and
176 kill the forked process).
177
178detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
179 that are available to be debugged (and
180 allow the process to continue).
181
3950dc3f
NS
182* New architecture
183
184Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
185
0ea3f30e
DJ
186* Improved Windows host support
187
188GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
189native console support, and remote communications using either
190network sockets or serial ports.
191
f79daebb
GM
192* Improved Modula-2 language support
193
194GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
195basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
196pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
197printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
198written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
199GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
200
acab6ab2
MM
201* REMOVED features
202
203The ARM rdi-share module.
204
f4267320
DJ
205The Netware NLM debug server.
206
53e5f3cf 207*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 208
e0ecbda1
MK
209* New native configurations
210
02a677ac 211OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
212OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
213
d64a6579
KB
214* New targets
215
216Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
217
b33a6190
AS
218* New command line options
219
220--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
221--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
222 the child (debugged) program exited with.
223--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
224 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
225 specified multiple times and in conjunction
226 with the --command (-x) option.
227
11dced61
AC
228* Deprecated commands removed
229
230The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
231removed:
232
233 Command Replacement
234 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
235 othernames set arm disassembler
236 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
237 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
238 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
239 regs info registers
240
6fe85783
MK
241* New BSD user-level threads support
242
243It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
244library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
245configurations are:
246
247FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
248FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
249OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
250
251Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
252are not yet supported.
253
5260ca71
MS
254* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
255(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
256
e84ecc99
AC
257* REMOVED configurations and files
258
259VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 260Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 261National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 262
31e35378
JB
263* New "set print array-indexes" command
264
265After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
266when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
267behavior.
268
e85e5c83
MK
269* VAX floating point support
270
271GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
272
d91e9901
AS
273* User-defined command support
274
275In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
276to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
277section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
278
f2cb65ca
MC
279*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
280
f47b1503
AS
281* New command line option
282
283GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
284debugging.
285
f2cb65ca
MC
286* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
287
288GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
289information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
290by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
291proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
292to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 293
d08c0230
AC
294* Internationalization
295
296When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
297internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
298continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
299
117ea3cf
PH
300* Ada
301
302Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
303implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
304into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
305
d08c0230
AC
306* New native configurations
307
308GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
309
310* Remote 'p' packet
311
312GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
313packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
314
315* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
316
317GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
318The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
319features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
320i386 application).
321
322GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
323compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
324continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
325configurations:
326
327hppa-*-hpux
328ia64-*-aix
329mips-*-irix*
330*-*-lynx
331mips-*-linux-gnu
332sds protocol
333xdr protocol
334powerpc bdm protocol
335
336Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
337made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
338
339* OBSOLETE configurations and files
340
341Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
342been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
343configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
344permanently REMOVED.
345
346h8300-*-*
347mcore-*-*
348mn10300-*-*
349ns32k-*-*
350sh64-*-*
351v850-*-*
352
ebb7c577
AC
353*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
354
355* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
356
357When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
358heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
359been fixed.
360
361* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
362
363When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
364fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
365IRIX long double values).
366
367* VAX and "next"
368
369A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
370command. This problem has been fixed.
371
860660cb 372*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 373
0dea2468
AC
374* Fix for ``many threads''
375
376On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
377rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
378error message:
379
380 ptrace: No such process.
381 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
382
383This problem has been fixed.
384
2c07db7a
AC
385* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
386
387Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
388GDB to dump core).
389
c23968a2
JB
390* New ``start'' command.
391
392This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
393
71009278
MK
394* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
395
396Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
397live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
398platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
399
400FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
401FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
402NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
403NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
404NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
405OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
406OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
407OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
408OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
409
3c0b7db2
AC
410* Signal trampoline code overhauled
411
412Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
413These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
414of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
415call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
416signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
417
73cc75f3
AC
418Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
419features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
420include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 421
7243600a
BF
422* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
423
6f606e1c
MK
424* New native configurations
425
97dc871c 426GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 427OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
428OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
429OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 430OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 431NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 432OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 433
a1b461bf
AC
434* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
435
436GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
437The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
438including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
439migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
440compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
441work, was also included.
442
443GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
444module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
445
446h8300-*-*
447mcore-*-*
448mn10300-*-*
449ns32k-*-*
450sh64-*-*
451v850-*-*
452xstormy16-*-*
453
454Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
455made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
456
3c7012f5
AC
457* REMOVED configurations and files
458
459Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
460Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
461Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
462Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
463Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
464AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
465Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
466decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
467riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
468sonymips mips-sony-*
469sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
470
e5fe55f7
AC
471*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
472
473* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
474
475The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
476GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
477command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
478program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
479with GDB".
480
481* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
482
483Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
484libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
485cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
486GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
487shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
488the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
489are created.
490
491Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
492
493* Fixed ISO-C build problems
494
495The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
496non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
497compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
498
499* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
500
501Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
502wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
503
504* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
505
506The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
507permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
508systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
509
510* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
511
512Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
513has been updated to use constant array sizes.
514
515* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
516
517GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
518its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
519panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
520
521* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
522
523When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
524by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
525not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
526
faae5abe 527*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 528
9175c9a3
MC
529* Removed --with-mmalloc
530
531Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
532conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
533
3cc87ec0
MK
534* Changes in AMD64 configurations
535
536The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
537the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
538and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
539you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
540
f0424ef6
MK
541* Revised SPARC target
542
543The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
544FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
545support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
546from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
547(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 548
59659be2
ILT
549* New C++ demangler
550
551GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
552names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
553with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
554programs.
555
9e08b29b
DJ
556* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
557
558GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
559arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
560encountered these.
561
8dfe8985
DC
562* C++ nested types and namespaces
563
564GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
565improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
566is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
567Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
568namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
569"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
570frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
571if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
572GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
573
cced5e27
MK
574* New native configurations
575
576NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 577OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 578OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
579OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
580OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 581
b4b4b794
KI
582* New debugging protocols
583
584M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
585
7989c619
AC
586* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
587
588The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
589and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
590tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
591
5994185b
AC
592* OBSOLETE configurations and files
593
594Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
595been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
596configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
597permanently REMOVED.
598
599Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
600Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
601Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
602Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
603Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
604AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
605Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
606decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
607riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
608sonymips mips-sony-*
609sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 610
0ddabb4c
AC
611* REMOVED configurations and files
612
613SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
614SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
615Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
616Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
617H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
618HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
619HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
620HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
621PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 622386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
623Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
624 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
625 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
626SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
627SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
628Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
629Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 630
c7f1390e
DJ
631*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
632
1fe43d45
AC
633* Objective-C
634
635Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
636integrated into GDB.
637
e6beb428
AC
638* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
639
640DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
641information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
642By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
643backtraces.
644
645The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
646have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
647DWARF 2 CFI support.
648
649* Hosted file I/O.
650
651GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
652file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
653remote protocol documentation for details.
654
655* All targets using the new architecture framework.
656
657All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
658architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
659to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
660ppc32 on ppc64).
661
662* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
663
664GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
665per-thread variables.
666
667* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
668
669GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
670GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
671
672* Separate debug info.
673
674GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
675automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
676of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
677system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
678and optional debug files.
679
680* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
681
682DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
683describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
684debugger.
685
686GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
687for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
688
689* Java
690
691A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
692Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
693considered "useable".
694
85f8f974
DJ
695* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
696
697The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
698commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
699kernel.
700
0fac0b41
DJ
701* GDB supports logging output to a file
702
703There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
704used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 705
6ad8ae5c
DJ
706* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
707
708The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
709disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
710command.
711
e286caf2 712* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
713
714The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
715registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
716
d28f9cdf
DJ
717* Profiling support
718
719A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
720be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
721session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
722"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
723data, for more informative profiling results.
724
da0f9dcd
AC
725* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
726
727The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
728option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 729"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
730
731Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
732removed.
733
fb9b6b35
JJ
734Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
735Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
736Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
737 in a subsequent -var-update.
738
954a4db8
MK
739* New native configurations.
740
741FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
742
6760f9e6
JB
743* Multi-arched targets.
744
b4263afa 745HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 746Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 747
1b831c93
AC
748* OBSOLETE configurations and files
749
750Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
751been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
752configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
753permanently REMOVED.
754
8b0e5691 755Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 756Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 757H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
758HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
759HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
760HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 761PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
762Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
763 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
764 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
765Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
766Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 767
5835abe7
NC
768* REMOVED configurations and files
769
770V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
771Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
772IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
773i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
774i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
775i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
776HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
777 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
778 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
779Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
780Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
781Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
782OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
783I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 784
a094c6fb
AC
785* MIPS $fp behavior changed
786
787The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
788the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
789context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
790address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
791The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
792
299ffc64 793*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 794
46248966
AC
795* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
796
797When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
798`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
799in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
800library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
801shared libs like mad''.
802
b9d14705 803* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 804
b9d14705
DJ
805Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
806the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
807arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
808powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 809
e0e9281e
JB
810* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
811
812GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
813and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
814they expand.
815
dd73b9bb
AC
816The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
817invocations in expression, and shows the result.
818
819The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
820macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
821
e0e9281e
JB
822Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
823information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
824your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
825information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
826
2250ee0c
CV
827* Multi-arched targets.
828
6e3ba3b8
JT
829DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
830DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 831NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 832National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
833Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
834Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 835
cd9bfe15 836* New targets.
e33ce519 837
456f8b9d
DB
838Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
839
e33ce519 840
da8ca43d
JT
841* New native configurations
842
843Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 844SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 845MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 846UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 847
cd9bfe15
AC
848* OBSOLETE configurations and files
849
850Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
851been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
852configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
853permanently REMOVED.
854
92eb23c5 855Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 856OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 857IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 858Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 859Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 860Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
861i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
862i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
863i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
864HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
865 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
866 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 867I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 868
db034ac5
AC
869* OBSOLETE languages
870
871CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
872
cd9bfe15
AC
873* REMOVED configurations and files
874
875AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
876A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
877AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
878AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
879AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
880
881testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
882
20f01a46
DH
883* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
884
885This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
886commands. The default is 1024.
887
a5941fbf
MK
888* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
889
890Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
891
89743e04
MS
892* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
893
894These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
895to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
896from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 897
9fb14e79
JB
898* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
899
900The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
901including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
902of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
903
2037aebb
AC
904*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
905
906* New targets.
907
908Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
909
910* Bug fixes
911
912gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
913mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
914Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
915
916gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
917dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
918Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
919
920Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
921Surprisingly enough, it works now.
922By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
923
924i386 hardware watchpoint support:
925avoid misses on second run for some targets.
926By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
927
37057839 928*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 929
1a703748
MS
930* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
931
932This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
933really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
934In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
935target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
936This can be a significant performance improvement on some
937(notably embedded) targets.
938
cefd4ef5
MS
939* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
940
55241689
AC
941This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
942process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
943GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
944hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 945
352ed7b4
MS
946* New command line option
947
948GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
949
950* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
951
952There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
953command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
954a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
955be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
956open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
957issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
958a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
959it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
960GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
961is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
962
fe419ffc
RE
963* Changes in ARM configurations.
964
965Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
966configuration is fully multi-arch.
967
eb7cedd9
MK
968* New native configurations
969
fe419ffc 970ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 971x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 972AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 973Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 974
c9f63e6b
CV
975* New targets
976
977Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
978
9b4ff276
AC
979* OBSOLETE configurations and files
980
981Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
982been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
983configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
984permanently REMOVED.
985
986AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
987A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
988AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
989AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
990AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
991
b4ceaee6 992testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 993
e2caac18
AC
994* REMOVED configurations and files
995
996TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 997WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
998PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
999PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1000PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1001Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1002Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1003 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1004SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1005Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1006Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1007ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1008Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1009
c2a727fa
TT
1010* Changes to command line processing
1011
1012The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1013for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1014
467d8519
TT
1015* Changes to key bindings
1016
1017There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1018
7072a954
AC
1019*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1020
1021Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1022
1023Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1024corrupted.
1025
1026Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1027
1028Numerous documentation fixes.
1029
1030Numerous testsuite fixes.
1031
34f47bc4 1032*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1033
1034* New native configurations
1035
1036Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1037x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1038MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1039MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1040ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1041s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1042
bf64bfd6
AC
1043* New targets
1044
def90278 1045Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1046CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1047UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1048
17e78a56 1049* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1050
1051x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1052Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1053Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1054 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1055TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1056WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1057Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1058PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1059PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1060PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1061SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1062Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1063ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1064Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1065
17e78a56
AC
1066stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1067kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1068
7fcca85b
AC
1069Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1070been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1071configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1072permanently REMOVED.
1073
a196c81c 1074* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1075
1076Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1077Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1078Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1079ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1080Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1081ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1082
6d6b80e5 1083* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1084
6d6b80e5 1085GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1086sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1087present.
1088
bf64bfd6
AC
1089* Other news:
1090
e23194cb
EZ
1091* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1092
1093* The MI enabled by default.
1094
1095The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1096revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1097engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1098using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1099which is now deprecated.
1100
1101* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1102
1103GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1104main features are supported:
1105
1106 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1107
1108 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1109 extension;
1110
1111 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1112
1113 - a Pascal expression parser.
1114
1115However, some important features are not yet supported.
1116
1117 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1118
1119 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1120
1121 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1122 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1123
1124 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1125
1126 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1127
1128* Changes in completion.
1129
1130Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1131to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1132users expect at the shell prompt.
1133
1134Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1135`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1136program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1137files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1138be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1139considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1140name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1141
1142`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1143
1144* New platform-independent commands:
1145
1146It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1147hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1148documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1149
1150* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1151
d7275149
MK
1152Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1153revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1154many threads as your system allows you to have.
1155
e23194cb
EZ
1156Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1157
d7275149
MK
1158Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1159multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1160
1161* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1162
1163Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1164
e23194cb
EZ
1165GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1166debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1167supported.)
1168
1169* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1170
1171Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1172breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1173implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1174put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1175and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1176registers.
1177
1178The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1179debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1180watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1181
1182* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1183
1184New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1185the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1186
1187New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1188display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1189IDT.
1190
1191New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1192from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1193New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1194a given linear address.
1195
1196GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1197program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1198which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1199
1200DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1201
6c56c069
EZ
1202It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1203
e23194cb
EZ
1204* Changes in documentation.
1205
1206All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1207Documentation License.
1208
1209Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1210manual.
1211
1212TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1213
1214Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1215manual.
1216
1217The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1218documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1219hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1220
5d6640b1
AC
1221* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1222
1223The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1224``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1225contents of this file.
1226
1a1d8446
AC
1227* gdba.el deleted
1228
1229GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1230
9debab2f 1231*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1232
c63ce875
EZ
1233* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1234
1235Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1236programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1237displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1238greater level of detail.
1239
1240* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1241
1242It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1243bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1244on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1245written.
1246
1247* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1248
1249The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1250necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1251machines ``out of the box''.
1252
1253The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1254possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1255signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1256would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1257interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1258
1259It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1260standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1261even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1262and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1263terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1264
1265The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1266enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1267also works.
1268
1269DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1270GDB.
1271
1272It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1273directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1274times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1275breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1276
ed9a39eb
JM
1277* New native configurations
1278
1279ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1280PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1281
7a292a7a
SS
1282* New targets
1283
96baa820 1284Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1285x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1286PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1287TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1288
085dd6e6
JM
1289* OBSOLETE configurations
1290
1291Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1292Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1293Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1294ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1295Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1296
9debab2f
AC
1297Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1298but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1299these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1300be permanently REMOVED.
1301
5330533d
SS
1302* Gould support removed
1303
1304Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1305
bc9e5bbf
AC
1306* New features for SVR4
1307
1308On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1309without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1310load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1311
1312* Many C++ enhancements
1313
1314C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1315in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1316
adf40b2e
JM
1317* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1318
1319A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1320sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1321with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1322``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1323
1324 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1325 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1326
43e526b9
JM
1327* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1328
1329A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1330expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1331instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1332
1333The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1334added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1335
96baa820
JM
1336* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1337
1338The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1339``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1340include ``set remote P-packet''.
1341
11cf8741
JM
1342* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1343
1344The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1345accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1346``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1347
7876dd43
DB
1348* ``apropos'' command added.
1349
1350The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1351documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1352try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1353
bc9e5bbf
AC
1354* New MI interface
1355
1356A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1357interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1358process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1359"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1360enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1361
1362 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1363
c906108c
SS
1364*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1365
1366* New native configurations
1367
1368HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1369HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1370M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1371
1372* New targets
1373
1374Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1375Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1376Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1377
1378* OBSOLETE configurations
1379
1380Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1381
1382Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1383but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1384these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1385be permanently REMOVED.
1386
1387* ANSI/ISO C
1388
1389As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1390buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1391containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1392use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1393available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1394configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1395information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1396already.
1397
1398* Readline 2.2
1399
1400GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1401
1402* set extension-language
1403
1404You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1405languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1406you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1407 set extension-language .c c++
1408The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1409and their associated languages.
1410
1411* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1412
1413When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1414you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1415PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1416
1417 set processor NAME
1418
1419sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1420following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1421
1422 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1423 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1424 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1425 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1426 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1427 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1428 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1429 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1430 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1431 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1432 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1433
1434At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1435special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1436registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1437only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1438
1439* HP-UX support
1440
1441Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1442more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1443library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1444support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1445for xdb and dbx commands.
1446
1447* Catchpoints
1448
1449HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1450generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1451to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1452
1453This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1454argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1455output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1456
1457* Debugging across forks
1458
1459On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1460in the inferior.
1461
1462* TUI
1463
1464HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1465it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1466configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1467
1468* GDB remote protocol additions
1469
1470A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1471Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1472fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1473allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1474
1475For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1476full 64-bit address. The command
1477
1478 set remoteaddresssize 32
1479
1480can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1481the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1482will be discarded.
1483
1484In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1485command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1486
1487 maint packet heythere
1488
1489sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1490disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1491time.
1492
1493The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1494target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1495downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1496
1497* Tracing can collect general expressions
1498
1499You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1500further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1501doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1502
1503* mask-address variable for Mips
1504
1505For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1506a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1507of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1508
1509* Higher serial baud rates
1510
1511GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1512230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1513to achieve all of these rates.)
1514
1515* i960 simulator
1516
1517The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1518builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1519
1520
1521*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1522
1523* New native configurations
1524
1525Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1526Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1527Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1528PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1529PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1530Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1531Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1532
1533* New targets
1534
1535Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1536Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1537Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1538Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1539MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1540MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1541MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1542Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1543Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1544Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1545NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1546
1547* New debugging protocols
1548
1549ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1550M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1551DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1552PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1553PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1554Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1555
1556* DWARF 2
1557
1558All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1559format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1560information.
1561
1562* Java frontend
1563
1564GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1565only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1566
1567* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1568
1569For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1570loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1571locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1572
1573* Live range splitting
1574
1575GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1576range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1577more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1578
1579* Hurd support
1580
1581GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1582updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1583
1584* ARM Thumb support
1585
1586GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1587instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1588instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1589accordingly.
1590
1591* MIPS16 support
1592
1593GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1594instruction set.
1595
1596* Overlay support
1597
1598GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1599linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1600will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1601control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1602additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1603in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1604
1605* info symbol
1606
1607The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1608the symbol at the specified address.
1609
1610* Trace support
1611
1612The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1613asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1614extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1615includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1616file tracepoint.c for more details.
1617
1618* MIPS simulator
1619
1620Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1621by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1622of most MIPS variants.
1623
1624* Sparc simulator
1625
1626Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1627by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1628Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1629
1630* set architecture
1631
1632For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1633basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1634architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1635the possible architectures.
1636
1637*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1638
1639* New native configurations
1640
1641Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1642M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1643PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1644PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1645PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1646RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1647
1648* New targets
1649
1650ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1651I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1652MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1653MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1654PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1655Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1656Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1657
1658* PowerPC simulator
1659
1660The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1661contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1662PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1663basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1664performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1665
1666* Solaris 2.5
1667
1668GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1669
1670* Windows 95/NT native
1671
1672GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1673To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1674which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1675Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1676ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1677
1678* dont-repeat command
1679
1680If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1681command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1682useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1683extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1684
1685* Send break instead of ^C
1686
1687The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1688rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1689GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1690
1691* Remote protocol timeout
1692
1693The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1694that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1695to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1696
1697* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1698
1699By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1700loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1701stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1702when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1703in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1704
1705Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1706/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1707automatically on hpux10.
1708
1709* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1710
1711Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1712
1713* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1714
1715When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1716may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1717the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1718every character. The default value is 1050.
1719
1720* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1721
1722If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1723a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1724replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1725details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1726remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1727to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1728
1729* Speedups for remote debugging
1730
1731GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1732the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1733and more efficient S-record downloading.
1734
1735* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1736
1737GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1738Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1739
1740*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1741
1742* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1743
1744The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1745can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1746
1747* Remote targets use caching
1748
1749Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1750remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1751it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1752debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1753off' turns the the data cache off.
1754
1755* Remote targets may have threads
1756
1757The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1758in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1759gdb/remote.c for details.
1760
1761* NetROM support
1762
1763If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1764support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1765acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1766write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1767support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1768another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1769sequence is something like
1770
1771 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1772 load <prog>
1773 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1774
1775* Macintosh host
1776
1777GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1778may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1779it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1780available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1781device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1782directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1783scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1784mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1785
1786* Autoconf
1787
1788GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1789but does simplify configuration and building.
1790
1791* hpux10
1792
1793GDB now supports hpux10.
1794
1795*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1796
1797* New native configurations
1798
1799x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1800x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1801NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1802Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1803
1804* New targets
1805
1806A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1807HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1808CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1809PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1810WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1811
1812* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1813
1814GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1815possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1816filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1817the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1818if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1819
1820* Arguments to user-defined commands
1821
1822User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1823Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1824trivial example:
1825define adder
1826 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1827
1828To execute the command use:
1829adder 1 2 3
1830
1831Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1832Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1833use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1834
1835* New `if' and `while' commands
1836
1837This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1838commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1839expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1840execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1841terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1842`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1843if the expression is zero.
1844
1845* Fortran source language mode
1846
1847GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1848Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1849variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1850with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1851Fortran compilers.
1852
1853* Better HPUX support
1854
1855Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1856running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1857processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1858for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1859that behavior do the following before running the program:
1860
1861 adb -w a.out
1862 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1863 control-d
1864
1865This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1866To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1867
1868 adb -w a.out
1869 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1870 control-d
1871
1872You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1873the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1874external linkage.
1875
1876GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1877HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1878
1879* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1880
1881You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1882commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1883current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1884"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1885associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1886configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1887
1888* New DOS host serial code
1889
1890This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1891no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1892a PC's serial port.
1893
1894*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1895
1896* New "complete" command
1897
1898This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1899were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1900
1901* Trailing space optional in prompt
1902
1903"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1904allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1905
1906* Breakpoint hit counts
1907
1908"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1909has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1910can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1911to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1912less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1913that breakpoint.
1914
1915* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1916
1917"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1918an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1919arrays actually contain only short strings.
1920
1921* Shared library breakpoints
1922
1923In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1924breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1925
1926* Hardware watchpoints
1927
1928There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1929targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1930
55241689 1931Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1932
1933* Annotations
1934
1935Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1936and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1937
1938* Improved Irix 5 support
1939
1940GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1941
1942* Improved HPPA support
1943
1944GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1945
1946* New native configurations
1947
1948Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1949HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1950Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1951RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1952
1953* New targets
1954
1955OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1956MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1957Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1958
1959* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1960
1961There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1962This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1963
1964* Fixes
1965
1966As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1967and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1968
1969*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1970
1971* Irix 5 is now supported
1972
1973* HPPA support
1974
1975GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1976to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1977GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1978of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1979can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1980
1981
1982*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1983
1984* User visible changes:
1985
1986* Remote Debugging
1987
1988The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1989target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1990debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1991integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1992debugging info for the mips target).
1993
1994* DEC Alpha native support
1995
1996GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1997debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1998work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1999Alpha-specific notes.
2000
2001* Preliminary thread implementation
2002
2003GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2004
2005* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2006
2007This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2008to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2009for details).
2010
2011* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2012
2013This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2014mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2015call methods, ...etc.
2016
2017*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2018
2019 * User visible changes:
2020
2021Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2022supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2023other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2024somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2025
2026Filename completion now works.
2027
2028When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2029arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2030addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2031
2032All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2033vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2034should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2035your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2036to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2037
2038 * DEC alpha support
2039
2040This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2041cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2042
2043
2044*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2045
2046 * Testsuite
2047
2048This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2049The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2050via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2051
2052 * C++ demangling
2053
2054'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2055emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2056Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2057disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2058use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2059
2060 * Simulators
2061
2062GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2063So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2064Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2065
2066 * New targets supported
2067
2068H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2069H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2070SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2071Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2072IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2073
2074Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2075version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2076GO32 memory extender.
2077
2078 * New remote protocols
2079
2080MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2081
2082 * New source languages supported
2083
2084This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2085used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2086into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2087
2088
2089*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2090
2091 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2092
2093GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2094version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2095University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2096compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2097format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2098(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2099
2100Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2101
2102 * Faster and better demangling
2103
2104We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2105demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2106character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2107only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2108This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2109increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2110symbol lookups.
2111
2112`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2113from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2114compiler does not actually implement.
2115
2116 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2117
2118In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2119inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2120recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2121very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2122The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2123circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2124fix.
2125
2126The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2127release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2128
2129 * Improved configure script
2130
2131The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2132you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2133host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2134done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2135
2136We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2137version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2138`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2139The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2140only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2141We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2142
2143 * Documentation improvements
2144
2145There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2146produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2147before submitting changes.
2148
2149The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2150M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2151`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2152you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2153a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2154
2155*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2156We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2157been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2158or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2159`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2160around this problem.
2161
2162 * New features
2163
2164GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2165the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2166`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2167the target program.
2168
2169The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2170how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2171
2172 * New native hosts supported
2173
2174HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2175386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2176
2177 * New targets supported
2178
2179AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2180
2181 * New file formats supported
2182
2183BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2184HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2185
2186 * Major bug fixes
2187
2188Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2189
2190We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2191printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2192
2193We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2194for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2195release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2196
2197You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2198will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2199
2200We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2201for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2202especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2203libraries.
2204
2205The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2206information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2207command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2208any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2209when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2210
2211 * Internal improvements
2212
2213GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2214debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2215
2216GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2217Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2218symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2219contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2220shared code that handles any of them.
2221
2222 * New command line options
2223
2224We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2225
2226 * Mmalloc licensing
2227
2228The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2229General Public License.
2230
2231*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2232
2233 * Host/native/target split
2234
2235GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2236hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2237target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2238local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2239ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2240
2241The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2242GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2243is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2244code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2245any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2246built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2247handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2248
2249GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2250It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2251plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2252
2253 * New hosts supported
2254
2255HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2256386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2257386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2258
2259 * New targets supported
2260
2261Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
226268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2263
2264 * New native hosts supported
2265
2266386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2267 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2268386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2269
2270 * New file formats supported
2271
2272BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2273supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2274format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2275
2276 * New commands
2277
2278`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2279`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2280These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2281
2282`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2283
2284You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2285scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2286prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2287executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2288
2289 * C++ improvements
2290
2291We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2292info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2293symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2294
2295Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2296
2297 * Major bug fixes
2298
2299The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2300fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2301by the compiler.
2302
2303We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2304support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2305
2306John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2307slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2308that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2309purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2310the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2311mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2312
2313Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2314about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2315completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2316we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2317
2318 * AMD 29k support
2319
2320A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2321specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2322calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2323usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2324in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2325
2326We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2327Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2328of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2329resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2330
2331 * Remote interfaces
2332
2333We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2334with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2335message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2336This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2337needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2338breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2339each instruction being stepped through.
2340
2341The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2342registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2343
2344There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2345find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2346Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2347processor with a serial port.
2348
2349 * Configuration
2350
2351Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2352`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2353supported, and what files each one uses.
2354
2355 * Library changes
2356
2357There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2358disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2359Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2360disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2361
2362The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2363Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2364can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2365grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2366
2367 * Documentation
2368
2369The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2370reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2371as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2372encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2373system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2374bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2375
2376And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2377
2378
2379*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2380
2381 * Better support for C++ function names
2382
2383GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2384names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2385(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2386single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2387Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2388
2389GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2390the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2391You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2392lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2393for the list of formats.
2394
2395 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2396
2397Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2398C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2399directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2400can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2401usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2402about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2403this problem.)
2404
2405 * New 'maintenance' command
2406
2407All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2408the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2409can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2410
2411 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2412 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2413 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2414 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2415 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2416 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2417
2418The following commands are new:
2419
2420 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2421 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2422 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2423
2424 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2425
2426We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2427(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2428be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2429read after argv processing.
2430
2431 * New hosts supported
2432
2433Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2434
55241689 2435GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2436
2437We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2438is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2439for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2440masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2441fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2442It costs extra.
2443
2444 * New targets supported
2445
2446Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2447
2448 * More smarts about finding #include files
2449
2450GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2451all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2452greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2453especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2454the one that contains your sources.
2455
2456We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2457breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2458try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2459
2460 * Interesting infernals change
2461
2462GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2463section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2464target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2465stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2466
2467 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2468
2469There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2470 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2471 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2472
2473See the ChangeLog for details.
2474
2475*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2476
2477 * New machines supported (host and target)
2478
2479IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2480
2481SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2482
2483 * New malloc package
2484
2485GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2486Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2487capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2488This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2489pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2490more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2491
2492 * info proc
2493
2494The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2495'help info proc' for details.
2496
2497 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2498
2499The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2500Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2501possible.
2502
2503 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2504
2505Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2506support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2507conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2508environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2509that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2510in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2511
2512 * Cross byte order fixes
2513
2514Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2515targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2516
2517 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2518
2519If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2520system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2521`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2522program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2523called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2524Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2525and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2526the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2527option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2528starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2529
2530You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2531the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2532information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2533slower, but makes future operations faster.
2534
2535The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2536build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2537A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2538use is:
2539
2540 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2541
2542The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2543It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2544shared across multiple host platforms.
2545
2546 * longjmp() handling
2547
2548GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2549siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2550all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2551platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2552
2553 * Solaris 2.0
2554
2555Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2556this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2557reading symbols.
2558
2559 * Bug fixes
2560
2561As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2562People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2563crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2564
2565*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2566
2567 * New machines supported (host and target)
2568
2569SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2570 (except core files)
2571BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2572Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2573
2574 * New machines supported (target)
2575
2576AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2577
2578 * C++ support
2579
2580GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2581The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2582per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2583
2584GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2585`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2586extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2587good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2588will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2589released.
2590
2591 * New features for SVR4
2592
2593GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2594shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2595only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2596
2597The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2598on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2599it prints the address mappings of the process.
2600
2601If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2602bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2603
2604 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2605
2606Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2607now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2608skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2609make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2610same code linked statically.
2611
2612 * New Getopt
2613
2614GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2615version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2616continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2617Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2618added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2619future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2620
2621 * Bugs fixed
2622
2623The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2624Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2625See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2626
2627
2628*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2629
2630 * New machines supported (host and target)
2631
2632Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2633NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2634Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2635
2636 * Almost SCO Unix support
2637
2638We had hoped to support:
2639SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2640(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2641that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2642about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2643
2644 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2645
2646GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2647debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2648is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2649send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2650reqired (if any).
2651
2652 * New Readline
2653
2654GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2655is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2656required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2657
2658 * Bugs fixed
2659
2660The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2661Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2662See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2663
2664 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2665
2666GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2667supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2668symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2669
2670Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2671mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2672debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2673mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2674version 2.
2675
2676Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2677really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2678line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2679variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2680situation somewhat.
2681
2682When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2683However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2684methods.
2685
2686We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2687DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2688encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2689
2690
2691*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2692
2693 * Improved configuration
2694
2695Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2696Porting BFD is simpler.
2697
2698 * Stepping improved
2699
2700The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2701of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2702in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2703function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2704
2705 * Bug fixing
2706
2707Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2708
2709 * New host supported (not target)
2710
2711Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2712
2713
2714*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2715
2716 * Multiple source language support
2717
2718GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2719It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2720and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2721language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2722You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2723`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2724
2725 * GDB and Modula-2
2726
2727GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2728currently under development at the State University of New York at
2729Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2730continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2731
2732Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2733debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2734symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2735
2736There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2737in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2738
2739 * set write on/off
2740
2741GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2742a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2743the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2744by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2745effect immediately.
2746
2747 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2748
2749When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2750shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2751The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2752examining core files.
2753
2754 * set listsize
2755
2756You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2757The default is 10.
2758
2759 * New machines supported (host and target)
2760
2761SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2762Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2763Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2764
2765 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2766
2767IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2768
2769 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2770
2771AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2772AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2773Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2774
2775 * New remote interfaces
2776
2777AMD 29000 Adapt
2778AMD 29000 Minimon
2779
2780
2781*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2782
2783 * New Facilities
2784
2785Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2786
2787Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2788target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2789is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2790remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2791remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2792also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2793using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2794stub on the target system.
2795
2796New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2797
2798GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2799library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2800object file types such as a.out and coff.
2801
2802There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2803refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2804
2805
2806 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2807
2808All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2809by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2810
2811For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2812``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2813Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2814
2815What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2816print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2817will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2818all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2819
2820confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2821 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2822 it is already running. Default is ON.
2823
2824editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2825 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2826 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2827 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2828 Default is ON.
2829
2830history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2831 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2832 or the value of the environment variable
2833 GDBHISTFILE.
2834
2835history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2836 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2837 HISTSIZE.
2838
2839history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2840 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2841 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2842
2843history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2844 history expansion will be performed on
2845 command line input. The default is OFF.
2846
2847radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2848 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2849 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2850
2851height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2852 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2853 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2854 variable TERM.
2855
2856width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2857 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2858 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2859 variable TERM.
2860
2861Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2862``set width'' instead.
2863
2864print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2865 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2866 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2867 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2868
2869print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2870 is OFF.
2871
2872print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2873 "raw" form if off.
2874
2875print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2876 like instructions.
2877
2878print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2879
2880
2881 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2882
2883The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2884new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2885are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2886window.
2887
2888
2889 * Support for Shared Libraries
2890
2891GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2892Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2893before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2894happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2895At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2896from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2897shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2898It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2899
2900sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2901 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2902 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2903
2904info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2905
2906
2907 * Watchpoints
2908
2909A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2910expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2911tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2912quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2913problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2914more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2915
2916watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2917
2918info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2919
2920delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2921disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2922enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2923
2924
2925 * C++ multiple inheritance
2926
2927When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2928for C++ programs.
2929
2930 * C++ exception handling
2931
2932Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2933ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2934the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2935handler's context).
2936
2937catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2938 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2939 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2940
2941info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2942 current stack frame.
2943
2944
2945 * Minor command changes
2946
2947The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2948command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2949is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2950
2951The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2952at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2953frames without printing.
2954
2955 * New directory command
2956
2957'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2958The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2959about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2960with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2961find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2962
2963 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2964
2965For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2966for more details.
2967
2968GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2969two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2970Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2971where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.508523 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.