Add new function to access gdb_program_name.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.6
5
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6* New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
7 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
8 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
9 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
10 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
11 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
12 "void".
13
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14* The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
15
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16* The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
17
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18* Python scripting
19
20 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
21
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22* New targets
23
24Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
25Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
42059f0e 26Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
a1217d97 27
bd712aed 28* New commands:
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29catch rethrow
30 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
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31maint check-psymtabs
32 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
33maint check-symtabs
34 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
35maint expand-symtabs
36 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
b340913d 37
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38show configuration
39 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
40
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41maint set|show per-command
42maint set|show per-command space
43maint set|show per-command time
44maint set|show per-command symtab
45 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
46
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47* New options
48
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49set print raw frame-arguments
50show print raw frame-arguments
51 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
52 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
53
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54set remote trace-status-packet
55show remote trace-status-packet
56 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
57
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58set debug nios2
59show debug nios2
60 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
61
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62set range-stepping
63show range-stepping
64 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
65
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66* You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
67 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
68 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
69 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
70 "set height 0".
71
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72* New command-line options
73--configuration
74 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
75
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76* The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
77 buffer in Common Trace Format.
78
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79* Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
80 GDB command gcore.
81
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82* GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
83
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84* The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
85 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
86
87* The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
88 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
89
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90* MI changes
91
92 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
93 Trace Format now.
94
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95 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
96
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97 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
98 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
99 are displayed.
100
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101 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
102 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
103
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104 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
105 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
106 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
107
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108* New system-wide configuration scripts
109 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
110 configuration scripts for the following systems:
111 ** ElinOS
112 ** Wind River Linux
113
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114* GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
115 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
116 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
117 below.
118
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119* GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
120 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
121
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122* On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
123 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
124 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
125
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126* New remote packets
127
128vCont;r
129
130 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
131 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
132 involvemement at each single-step.
133
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134qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
135 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
136 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
137 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
138 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
139 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
140 speedup.
141
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142* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
143
144 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
145 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
146
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147 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
148 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
149 trace state variables.
150
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151 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
152 target.
153
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154* New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
155 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
156
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157* GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
158
2d450646 159*** Changes in GDB 7.6
80c8d323 160
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161* Target record has been renamed to record-full.
162 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
163 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
164 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
165
166set|show record full insn-number-max
167set|show record full stop-at-limit
168set|show record full memory-query
169
170* A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
171 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
172 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
173 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
174 This new recording method can be enabled using:
175
176record btrace
177
178 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
179 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
180
181* Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
182 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
183 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
184
185record instruction-history prints the execution history at
186 instruction granularity
187
188record function-call-history prints the execution history at
189 function granularity
190
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191* New native configurations
192
51d66578 193ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 194FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
4f4352f7 195x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 196Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
543bf33d 197
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198* New targets
199
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200ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
201ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
249729c4 202Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
3c095f49 203x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
ea5f3910 204Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
249729c4 205
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206* If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
207 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
208 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
209 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
210 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
211 --data-directory command-line option.
212
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213* New command line options:
214
215-nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
216 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
217
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218* Removed command line options
219
220-epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
221 Emacs.
222
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223* The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
224 type formatting.
225
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226* 'info proc' now works on some core files.
227
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228* Python scripting
229
230 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
231
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232 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
233
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234 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
235
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236 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
237
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238 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
239 of architecture in the Python API.
240
241 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
242 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
243
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244* New Python-based convenience functions:
245
246 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
247 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
248 ** $_strlen(str)
249 ** $_regex(str, regex)
250
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251* The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
252 given an argument.
253
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254* The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
255 default for GCC since November 2000.
256
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257* The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
258
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259* The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
260 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
261
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262* New configure options
263
264--enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
265 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
266 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
267 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
268 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
269 options allow the user to override that default.
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270--with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
271 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
272 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
23a80689 273
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274* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
275
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276catch signal
277 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
278 conditions to be attached.
279
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280maint info bfds
281 List the BFDs known to GDB.
282
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283python-interactive [command]
284pi [command]
285 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
286 and print the result of expressions.
287
288py [command]
289 "py" is a new alias for "python".
290
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291enable type-printer [name]...
292disable type-printer [name]...
293 Enable or disable type printers.
294
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295* Removed commands
296
297 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
298 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
299 instead.
300
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301* New options
302
303set print type methods (on|off)
304show print type methods
305 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
306 The default is to show them.
307
308set print type typedefs (on|off)
309show print type typedefs
310 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
311 The default is to show them.
312
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313set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
314show filename-display
315 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
316 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
317
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318set trace-buffer-size
319show trace-buffer-size
320 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
321
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322set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
323show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
324 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
325
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326set debug aarch64
327show debug aarch64
328 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
329 The default is off.
330
331set debug coff-pe-read
332show debug coff-pe-read
333 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
334 exported symbols.
335
336set debug mach-o
337show debug mach-o
338 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
339 processing.
340
341set debug notification
342show debug notification
343 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
344
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345* MI changes
346
347 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
348 "=cmd-param-changed".
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349 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
350 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
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351 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
352 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
353 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
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354 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
355 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
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356 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
357 "=memory-changed".
ed8a1c2d 358 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
ec83d211 359 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
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360 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
361 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
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362 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
363 library load/unload events.
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364 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
365 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
366 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
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367 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
368 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
369 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
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370 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
371 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
5b9afe8a 372
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373* GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
374 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
375 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
376 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
377
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378* New remote packets
379
380QTBuffer:size
381 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
382 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
383
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384Qbtrace:bts
385 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
386 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
387 qSupported query.
388
389Qbtrace:off
390 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
391 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
392
393qXfer:btrace:read
394 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
395 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
396
80c8d323 397*** Changes in GDB 7.5
d6e00af6 398
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399* GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
400 for more x32 ABI info.
401
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402* GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
403
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404* GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
405
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406* The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
407 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
408 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
409 "info os files" lists file descriptors
410 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
411 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
412 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
413 "info os msg" lists message queues
414 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
415
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416* GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
417 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
418 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
419 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
420 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
421 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
422
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423* GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
424 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
425 record/replay support.
426
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427* The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
428
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429* Python scripting
430
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431 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
432 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
433
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434 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
435
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436 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
437 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
438
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439 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
440
441 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
442 the source at which the symbol was defined.
443
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444 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
445 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
446 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
447 symbol's value.
448
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449 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
450 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
451
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452 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
453 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
454 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
455
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456 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
457 object associated with a PC value.
458
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459 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
460 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
461
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462* Go language support.
463 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
464 language.
465
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466* GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
467 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
468
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469* The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
470 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
471
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472* GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
473 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
474 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
475 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
476 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
477 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
478
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479* The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
480 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
481 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
482 build/libcpp/expr.c.
483
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484* The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
485 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
486
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487* The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
488 since December 2007.
489
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490* The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
491 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
492 command does. For instance:
493
494 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
495
496 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
497 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
498 created, using the "condition" command.
499
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500* The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
501 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
502
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503* GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
504
505* The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
506 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
507 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
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508 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
509 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
510 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
511 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
512 files with older .gdb_index sections.
481860b3 513
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514 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
515 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
516 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
517 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
518 the .gdb_index section.
519
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520* Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
521
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522* GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
523 target.
524
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525* MI changes
526
527 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
528
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529 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
530
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531* New commands
532
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533 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
534 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
535 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
536
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537 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
538 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
539
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540 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
541 several hits.
542
57651221 543 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
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544 C++ and Java objects.
545
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546 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
547 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
548 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
549 configured with '--with-python'.
550
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551 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
552 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
553 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
554 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
555 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
556 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
557 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
558
559 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
560 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
561 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
562 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
563
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564 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
565 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
566 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
567 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
568
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569 ** "set print symbol"
570 "show print symbol"
571 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
572 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
573 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
574
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575* Deprecated commands
576
577 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
578 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
579
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580* New targets
581
582Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
60c9a3c0 583HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
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585* GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
586 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
587 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
588 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
589 evaluates to true.
590
591* New options
592
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593set mips compression
594show mips compression
595 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
596 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
597 mips16
598 micromips
599 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
600
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601set breakpoint condition-evaluation
602show breakpoint condition-evaluation
cf65ecd3 603 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
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604 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
605 available mode.
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606 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
607 target.
608
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609set auto-load off
610 Disable auto-loading globally.
611
612show auto-load
613 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
614
615set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
616show auto-load gdb-scripts
617 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
618
619set auto-load python-scripts on|off
620show auto-load python-scripts
621 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
622
623set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
624show auto-load local-gdbinit
625 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
626
627set auto-load libthread-db on|off
628show auto-load libthread-db
629 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
630
7349ff92 631set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
9cc815f5 632show auto-load scripts-directory
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633 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
634 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
635 of the directories listed by this option.
636 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
637
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638set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
639show auto-load safe-path
640 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
641 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
642
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643set debug auto-load on|off
644show debug auto-load
645 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
646
d3ce09f5 647set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
e7e0cddf 648show dprintf-style
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649 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
650 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
651 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
652 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
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653
654set dprintf-function <expr>
655show dprintf-function
656set dprintf-channel <expr>
657show dprintf-channel
658 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
659 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
660
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661set disconnected-dprintf on|off
662show disconnected-dprintf
663 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
664 after GDB disconnects.
665
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666* New configure options
667
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668--with-auto-load-dir
669 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
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670 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
671 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
672 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
673 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
7349ff92 674
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675--with-auto-load-safe-path
676 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
7349ff92 677 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
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678
679--without-auto-load-safe-path
680 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
681 security feature.
682
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683* New remote packets
684
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PA
685z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
686
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687 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
688 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
689 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
690 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
691
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692QProgramSignals:
693
694 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
695 program without GDB involvement.
696
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697* New command line options
698
699--init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
700 before loading inferior.
701--init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
702 execute it before loading inferior.
703
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JB
704*** Changes in GDB 7.4
705
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TT
706* GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
707 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
708 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
709 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
710 inferior changes.
711
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712* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
713 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
714
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PW
715* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
716 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
717 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
718 target hardware watchpoint.
719
720 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
721 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
722 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
723 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
724
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725* Python scripting
726
32d1c362 727 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 728 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
32d1c362
DE
729 existing one.
730
3a7bf607 731 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
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DE
732 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
733 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
734 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
735 now "message", which just prints the error message without
736 the stack trace.
3a7bf607 737
baacfb07 738 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 739 Python API.
713389e0 740
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PM
741 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
742 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 743 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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744 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
745 corresponding value.
746
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747 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
748 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
749 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
750 on GDB start-up.
751
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752 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
753 static_block will return the global and static blocks
754 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
755 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
756
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DE
757 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
758
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KP
759 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
760 "gdb.breakpoints".
761
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KP
762 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
763 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
764 available in the CLI.
765
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PK
766 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
767 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
768 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
769 "some_type.items()".
770
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KP
771 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
772 new object file.
773
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PK
774 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
775 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
776 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
777 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
778 any anonymous fields.
779
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TT
780* MI changes
781
782 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
783 "solib-event".
784
785 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
786 "=breakpoint-modified".
787
788 ** New command -ada-task-info.
789
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DE
790* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
791 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
792 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
793 lives.
794
795 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
796 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
797 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
798 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
799 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
800
801 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
802 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
803
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DE
804* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
805 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
806 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
807 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
808 use this option to specify where to find it.
809
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TJB
810* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
811 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
812 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
813 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
814 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
815 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
816 section in the user manual for more details.
817
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JK
818* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
819 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
820 become available after that.
821
71eba9c2 822* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 823
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JK
824* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
825 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
826 gcc version 4.7.
827
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DE
828* New commands
829
830!SHELL COMMAND
831 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
832 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
833
9c06b0b4
TJB
834* Changed commands
835
836watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
837 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
838 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
839
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DE
840info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
841 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
842 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
843
71eba9c2 844info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
845 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
846 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
847 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
848 name starts with a hyphen.
849
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SS
850collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
851 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
852 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
853 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
854 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
855 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
856 number of bytes that will be collected.
857
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SS
858tstart [NOTES]
859 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
860 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
861 setting the variable trace-notes.
862
863tstop [NOTES]
864 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
865 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
866 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
867 trace-stop-notes.
868
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KY
869* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
870 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
871 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
872 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
873 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
874 is running.
875
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SS
876* Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
877 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
878 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
879
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JK
880* New options
881
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DE
882set debug dwarf2-read
883show debug dwarf2-read
884 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
885 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
886
887set debug symtab-create
888show debug symtab-create
889 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
890 creation. The default is off.
891
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892set extended-prompt
893show extended-prompt
894 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
895 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
896 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
897 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
898 prompt is displayed.
899
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JK
900set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
901show print entry-values
902 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
903 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
904 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
905
906set debug entry-values
907show debug entry-values
908 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
909 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
910
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DE
911set basenames-may-differ
912show basenames-may-differ
913 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
914 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
915 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
916 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
917 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
918 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
919 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
920 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
921
f196051f
SS
922set trace-user
923show trace-user
924set trace-notes
925show trace-notes
926 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
927 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
928 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
929 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
930
931set trace-stop-notes
932show trace-stop-notes
933 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
934 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
935 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
936 started by someone else.
937
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KY
938* New remote packets
939
940QTEnable
941
942 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
943
944QTDisable
945
946 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
947
f196051f
SS
948QTNotes
949
950 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
951
952qTP
953
954 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
955
405f8e94
SS
956qTMinFTPILen
957
958 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
959 be placed.
960
1a532630
PP
961* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
962 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
963
11315641
YQ
964* New targets
965
966Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
967
87326c78
DD
968* New Simulators
969
970Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
971
e8d56f18
JB
972*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
973
974* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
975
d6e00af6 976*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 977
60f98dde
MS
978* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
979 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
980 matches the given regular expression.
981
eee5b35e
DD
982* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
983
b716877b
AB
984* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
985 dumping the instruction opcodes.
986
aae1c79a
DE
987* New command line options
988
989-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
990 This is mostly for testing purposes.
991
a86caf66
DE
992* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
993 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
994
99e7ae30
DE
995* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
996 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
997 source path list instead of augmenting it.
998
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TT
999* GDB now understands thread names.
1000
1001 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1002 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1003
1004 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1005 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1006
f4b8a18d
KW
1007* OpenCL C
1008 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1009 has been integrated into GDB.
1010
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PM
1011* Python scripting
1012
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PM
1013 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1014 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1015 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1016
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PM
1017 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1018 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1019 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1020 and allows for more dynamic content.
1021
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1022 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1023 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1024 have an is_valid method.
1025
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PM
1026 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1027 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1028 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1029
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DE
1030 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1031
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PM
1032 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1033 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1034 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1035 that function like so:
1036
1037 result = some_value (10,20)
1038
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DE
1039 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1040 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1041 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1042
7b51bc51
DE
1043 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1044 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1045 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1046 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1047 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1048
1049 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1050 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1051
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DE
1052 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1053
d8e22779
TT
1054 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1055 selected thread.
1056
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TT
1057 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1058 holds the thread's name.
1059
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SW
1060 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1061 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 1062 occurring in the process being debugged.
c17a9e46
HZ
1063 The following events are currently supported:
1064 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1065 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1066 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1067
def98928
TT
1068* C++ Improvements:
1069
1070 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1071 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1072
1073 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1074
1075 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1076 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1077 was added to GCC 4.5.
1078
66cb8159
TT
1079 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1080 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1081 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1082 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1083 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1084 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1085
4aac0db7
UW
1086* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1087 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1088 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1089 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1090 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1091
283e6a52
TT
1092* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1093 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1094 execution to a label.
1095
1096* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1097 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1098 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1099 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1100
b56df873 1101* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 1102 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
b56df873
TT
1103 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1104 of scope.
1105
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PA
1106* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1107
1108 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1109 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1110 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1111 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1112 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1113 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1114
1115 (gdb) info threads
1116 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1117
1118 While now you see this:
1119
1120 (gdb) info threads
1121 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1122
1123 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1124 dumps.
1125
1126 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1127 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1128 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1129 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1130
f1310107
TJB
1131* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1132 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1133 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1134 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1135 section in the user manual for more details.
1136
248c9dbc
JB
1137* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1138
1aee7009
JB
1139 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1140 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 1141
eb826dc6
MF
1142 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1143
44603653
JB
1144* New native configurations
1145
1146ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1147
91021223
MF
1148* New targets:
1149
1150Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1151
6e1bb179
JB
1152* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1153 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1154 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1155 in the GDB user manual.
1156
50c97f38
TT
1157* Guile support was removed.
1158
448a92bf
MF
1159* New features in the GNU simulator
1160
1161 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1162
66ee2731
MF
1163 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1164
76b8507d 1165*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 1166
ba25b921
PA
1167* Shared library support for remote targets by default
1168
1169 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1170 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1171 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1172 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1173 was always disabled for such configurations.
1174
4656f5c6
SW
1175* C++ Improvements:
1176
1177 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1178
1179 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1180 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1181 For example:
1182 namespace A
1183 {
1184 class B { };
1185 void foo (B) { }
1186 }
1187 ...
1188 A::B b
1189 foo(b)
1190 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1191 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1192 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1193
1194 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1195
1196 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1197 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1198 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1199 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1200 entry.
1201 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1202 mentioned flavors of operators.
1203
254e6b9e
DE
1204 ** static const class members
1205
1206 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1207 class definition has been fixed.
1208
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PM
1209* Windows Thread Information Block access.
1210
1211 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1212 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1213 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1214 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1215 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1216 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1217
0fb4aa4b
PA
1218* Static tracepoints
1219
1220 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1221 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1222 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1223 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1224 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1225 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1226 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1227 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1228 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1229 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1230 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1231 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1232 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1233 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1234 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1235 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1236 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1237 the "New remote packets" section below.
1238
ca11e899
SS
1239* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1240
1241 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1242 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1243 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1244 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1245
1246* Observer mode
1247
1248 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1249 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1250 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1251 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1252 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1253 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1254 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1255
1256* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1257 current thread.
1258
711e434b
PM
1259* New remote packets
1260
1261qGetTIBAddr
1262
1263 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1264
dde08ee1
PA
1265qRelocInsn
1266
1267 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1268 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1269 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1270 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1271 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1272 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1273
0fb4aa4b
PA
1274qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1275
1276 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1277
1278qTSTMat
1279
1280 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1281 program.
1282
1283qXfer:statictrace:read
1284
1285 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1286 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1287 to gdb's qSupported query.
1288
ca11e899
SS
1289QAllow
1290
1291 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1292
1293QTDPsrc
1294
1295 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1296 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1297
3f7b2faa
DE
1298* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1299 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1300 a directory.
1301
d337e9f0
PA
1302* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1303
0fb4aa4b
PA
1304 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1305 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1306 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1307 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1308
1309 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1310 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1311 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1312 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1313 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1314 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1315 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1316
1317 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1318 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 1319
c24d0242
PM
1320 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1321
c8d5aac9
L
1322* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1323 it understands register description.
1324
7c953934
TT
1325* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1326
8685c86f
L
1327* X86 general purpose registers
1328
1329 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1330 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1331 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1332 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1333 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1334
95a42b64 1335* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
86b17b60
PA
1336 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1337 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1338 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1339 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1340 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 1341
8bd10a10
CM
1342* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1343 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1344 in the specified file.
1345
ab38a727
PA
1346* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1347 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1348 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1349 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1350 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1351 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1352 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1353 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1354 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1355 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1356
6149aea9
PA
1357* New commands
1358
f1421989
HZ
1359eval template, expressions...
1360 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1361 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1362
ab38a727
PA
1363set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1364show target-file-system-kind
1365 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1366 names.
1367
6149aea9
PA
1368save breakpoints <filename>
1369 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1370 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1371 definitions, use the `source' command.
1372
1373`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1374is now deprecated.
1375
0fb4aa4b
PA
1376info static-tracepoint-markers
1377 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1378
1379strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1380 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1381 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1382
ca11e899
SS
1383set observer on|off
1384show observer
1385 Enable and disable observer mode.
1386
1387set may-write-registers on|off
1388set may-write-memory on|off
1389set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1390set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1391set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1392set may-interrupt on|off
1393 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1394 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1395 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1396 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1397 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1398 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1399 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1400
1401set record memory-query on|off
1402show record memory-query
1403 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1404 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1405
53a71c06
CR
1406* Changed commands
1407
1408disassemble
1409 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1410
f3e9a817
PM
1411* Python scripting
1412
9279c692
JB
1413** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1414 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1415 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1416 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1417 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1418
adc36818 1419** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
1420 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1421 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1422 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 1423
fa33c3cd 1424** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
1425 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1426
1427** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
1428
1429** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 1430
967cf477
DE
1431** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1432
8a1ea21f
DE
1433** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1434 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1435 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1436
a7bdde9e
VP
1437* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1438there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1439tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1440regular breakpoints.
1441
05071a4d
PA
1442* New targets
1443
1444ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1445
6aecb9c2
JB
1446* D language support.
1447 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1448 language.
1449
431e49aa
TJB
1450* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1451 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1452 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1453 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1454 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1455
1456* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1457 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1458 conditions of the form:
1459
1460 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1461
1462 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1463 interface mentioned above.
1464
bfbf3774 1465*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 1466
4eef138c
TT
1467* C++ Improvements
1468
1469 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
1470
1471 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1472 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1473 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1474 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1475 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1476
4eef138c
TT
1477 ** Bug Fixes
1478
1479 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1480 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1481 qualified name.
1482
1483 ** Cast Operators
1484
1485 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1486 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1487
2d1c1221
ME
1488* New targets
1489
1490Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 1491Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
1492
1493* New Simulators
1494
1495Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 1496Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 1497
6c95b8df
PA
1498* Multi-program debugging.
1499
1500 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1501 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1502 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1503 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1504 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1505 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1506 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1507 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1508
d5551862
SS
1509* New tracing features
1510
1511 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1512
1513 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
1514
1515 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1516 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1517 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1518 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1519 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1520 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1521 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1522 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1523 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1524 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 1525
d5551862 1526 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
1527
1528 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1529 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1530 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1531 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1532 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1533 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1534 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1535 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1536 the regular trace command.
1537
d5551862
SS
1538 ** Disconnected tracing
1539
1540 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1541 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1542 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1543 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1544 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1545
00bf0b85
SS
1546 ** Trace files
1547
1548 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1549 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1550 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1551 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1552 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1553 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1554 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
1555
1556 ** Circular trace buffer
1557
1558 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1559 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1560 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1561 not be available for all target agents.
1562
21a0512e
PP
1563* Changed commands
1564
1565disassemble
1566 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1567 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1568
0fe7935b
DJ
1569info variables
1570 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1571 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1572
fb2e7cb4
JB
1573source
1574 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1575 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1576 support.
1577
1578 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1579 "set script-extension" (see below).
1580
6c95b8df
PA
1581* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1582
399cd161
MS
1583record save [<FILENAME>]
1584 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1585 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1586
1587record restore <FILENAME>
1588 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1589 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1590
6c95b8df
PA
1591add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1592 Add a new inferior.
1593
1594clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1595 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1596 inferior has loaded.
1597
1598remove-inferior ID
1599 Remove an inferior.
1600
1601maint info program-spaces
1602 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1603
9a7071a8
JB
1604set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1605show remote interrupt-sequence
1606 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1607 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1608 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1609 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1610 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1611
1612set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1613show remote interrupt-on-connect
1614 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1615 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1616 Linux kernel.
1617
1618set remotebreak [on | off]
1619show remotebreak
1620Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1621
f61e138d
SS
1622tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1623 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1624
1625info tvariables
1626 List trace state variables and their values.
1627
1628delete tvariable $NAME ...
1629 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1630
6da95a67
SS
1631teval EXPR, ...
1632 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1633 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1634
7a697b8d
SS
1635ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1636 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1637
b0f02ee9
JK
1638* New expression syntax
1639
1640 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1641 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1642
6c95b8df
PA
1643* New options
1644
1645set follow-exec-mode new|same
1646show follow-exec-mode
1647 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1648 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1649 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1650
236f1d4d
SS
1651set default-collect EXPR, ...
1652show default-collect
1653 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1654 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1655 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1656
d5551862
SS
1657set disconnected-tracing
1658show disconnected-tracing
1659 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1660 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1661 upon disconnection.
1662
4daf5ac0
SS
1663set circular-trace-buffer
1664show circular-trace-buffer
1665 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1666 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1667 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1668 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1669
fb2e7cb4
JB
1670set script-extension off|soft|strict
1671show script-extension
1672 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1673 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1674 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1675 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1676 evaluation failed.
1677 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1678
2b71fc8e
JB
1679set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1680show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1681 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1682 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1683 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1684 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1685 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1686 is on.
1687
de2e5182
TT
1688* Python API Improvements
1689
1690 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1691 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1692 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1693
1694 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1695 `is_base_class' attribute.
1696
1697 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1698
1699 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1700 evaluate an expression.
1701
f61e138d
SS
1702* New remote packets
1703
1704QTDV
1705 Define a trace state variable.
1706
1707qTV
1708 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1709
d5551862
SS
1710QTDisconnected
1711 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1712
4daf5ac0
SS
1713QTBuffer:circular
1714 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1715
d5551862
SS
1716qTfP, qTsP
1717 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1718
2d483d34
MS
1719* Bug fixes
1720
1721Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1722
6e0e5977
JB
1723Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1724much more reliable. In particular:
1725 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1726 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1727 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1728 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1729 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1730 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1731 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1732 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1733 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1734 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1735 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1736 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1737 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1738 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1739 non-threaded programs.
1740
93c26624
JK
1741PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1742This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1743libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1744executable program.
1745
abc7453d 1746*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 1747
4efc6507
DE
1748* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1749dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1750them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1751for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1752"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1753
782b2b07
SS
1754* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1755breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1756or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1757the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1758for tracepoint actions.
1759
53a71c06
CR
1760* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1761raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1762modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 1763
e7a8dbfb
HZ
1764* Process record and replay
1765
1766 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1767 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1768 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1769 execute commands.
1770
64644d9b
MS
1771* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1772step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1773set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1774reverse execution.
1775
b9412953
DD
1776* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1777feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
17782.6.28 or later.
1779
6c7a06a3
TT
1780* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1781target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1782char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1783literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1784U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1785`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1786system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1787the installation instructions for more information.
1788
f1838a98
UW
1789* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1790remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1791with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1792the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1793
55333a84
DE
1794* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1795and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1796
7f6a6314
PM
1797* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1798now complete on file names.
1799
65d12d83
TT
1800* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1801completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1802For instance, consider:
1803
1804 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1805 # struct example variable;
1806 (gdb) p variable.
1807
1808If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1809completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1810
edb3359d
DJ
1811* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1812the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1813
2fae03e8
TT
1814* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1815operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1816macros.
1817
47a3467a 1818* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1819the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1820implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1821
1822* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1823registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1824can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1825and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1826
08388c79
DE
1827* New remote packets
1828
1829qSearch:memory:
1830 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1831
a6f3e723
SL
1832QStartNoAckMode
1833 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1834 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1835 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1836
d7713ae0
EZ
1837vKill
1838 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1839 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1840
07e059b5
VP
1841qXfer:osdata:read
1842 Obtains additional operating system information
1843
47a3467a
PA
1844qXfer:siginfo:read
1845qXfer:siginfo:write
1846 Read or write additional signal information.
1847
060871df
PA
1848* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1849
1850 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1851 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1852 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1853
c055b101 1854* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1855DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1856
1857* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1858and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1859`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1860
31fffb02
CS
1861* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1862with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1863
88d8a8e0
JB
1864* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1865
7f99b190
JB
1866* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1867
ccd213ac
DJ
1868* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1869which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1870
1fddbabb 1871* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1872list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1873
a0ef4274
DJ
1874* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1875conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1876have also been fixed.
1877
bfb8797a 1878* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1879From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1880are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1881
71c25dea
TT
1882* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1883example, given:
1884
1885 template<typename T> class C { };
1886 C<char const *> c;
1887
1888GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1889
1890 ptype C<char const *>
1891 ptype C<char const*>
1892 ptype C<const char *>
1893 ptype C<const char*>
1894
ccd213ac
DJ
1895* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1896
1897 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1898 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1899
7ae0e2a2
UW
1900 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1901 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1902 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1903
a6f3e723
SL
1904 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1905 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1906
da8bd9a3
DJ
1907 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1908 gdbserver.
1909
d70e31dd
DE
1910 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1911 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1912
1913 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1914 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1915 as appropriate.
1916
d57a3c85
TJB
1917* Python scripting
1918
1919 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1920 available is determined at configure time.
1921
d8906c6f
TJB
1922 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1923
aadc346a
JB
1924* Ada tasking support
1925
1926 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1927 been introduced:
1928
1929 info tasks
1930 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1931 info task N
1932 Print detailed information about task number N.
1933 task
1934 Print the task number of the current task.
1935 task N
1936 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1937
adb483fe
DJ
1938* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1939add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1940
2277426b
PA
1941* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1942
1943 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1944 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1945 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1946 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1947 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1948 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1949 below.
1950
08d16641
PA
1951* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1952"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1953information.
1954
e35359c5
UW
1955* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1956to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1957architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1958See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1959more information.
1960
85e747d2
UW
1961* Multi-architecture debugging.
1962
1963 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1964 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1965 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1966 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1967 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1968
1969* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1970use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1971Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1972powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1973--enable-targets configure option.
1974
11ade57a
PA
1975* Non-stop mode debugging.
1976
1977 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1978 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1979 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1980 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1981 section in the user manual for more information.
1982
1983 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1984 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1985 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1986 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1987 extensions on linux targets.
1988
d7713ae0 1989* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1990
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1991catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1992 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1993 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1994 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1995 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1996 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1997 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1998 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1999 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2000
08388c79
DE
2001find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2002 val1 [, val2, ...]
2003 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2004
d57a3c85
TJB
2005maint set python print-stack
2006maint show python print-stack
2007 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2008
2009python [CODE]
2010 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2011
d7713ae0
EZ
2012macro define
2013macro list
2014macro undef
2015 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2016 interactively.
2017
2018info os processes
2019 Show operating system information about processes.
2020
2277426b
PA
2021info inferiors
2022 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2023
2024inferior NUM
2025 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2026
2027detach inferior NUM
2028 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2029
2030kill inferior NUM
2031 Kill inferior number NUM.
2032
d7713ae0
EZ
2033* New options
2034
3285f3fe
UW
2035set spu stop-on-load
2036show spu stop-on-load
2037 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2038
ff1a52c6
UW
2039set spu auto-flush-cache
2040show spu auto-flush-cache
2041 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2042 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2043
d7713ae0
EZ
2044set sh calling-convention
2045show sh calling-convention
2046 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2047
e0a3ce09 2048set debug timestamp
75feb17d 2049show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
2050 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2051
2052set disassemble-next-line
2053show disassemble-next-line
2054 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2055 the debuggee stops.
2056
2057set remote noack-packet
2058show remote noack-packet
2059 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2060 under "New remote packets."
2061
2062set remote query-attached-packet
2063show remote query-attached-packet
2064 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2065
2066set remote read-siginfo-object
2067show remote read-siginfo-object
2068 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2069 packet.
2070
2071set remote write-siginfo-object
2072show remote write-siginfo-object
2073 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2074 packet.
2075
40ab02ce
MS
2076set remote reverse-continue
2077show remote reverse-continue
2078 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2079
2080set remote reverse-step
2081show remote reverse-step
2082 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2083
d7713ae0
EZ
2084set displaced-stepping
2085show displaced-stepping
2086 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2087 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2088 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2089
2090set debug displaced
2091show debug displaced
2092 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2093
2094maint set internal-error
2095maint show internal-error
2096 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2097
2098maint set internal-warning
2099maint show internal-warning
2100 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 2101
ccd213ac
DJ
2102set exec-wrapper
2103show exec-wrapper
2104unset exec-wrapper
2105 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 2106
aad4b048
JB
2107set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2108show multiple-symbols
2109 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2110 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2111 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2112
74960c60
VP
2113set breakpoint always-inserted
2114show breakpoint always-inserted
2115 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2116 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2117 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2118
0428b8f5
DJ
2119set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2120show arm fallback-mode
2121set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2122show arm force-mode
2123 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2124 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2125 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2126 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2127
10568435
JK
2128set disable-randomization
2129show disable-randomization
2130 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2131 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2132 multiple debugging sessions.
2133
d7713ae0
EZ
2134set non-stop
2135show non-stop
2136 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2137 a breakpoint.
2138
b3eb342c 2139set target-async
d7713ae0 2140show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
2141 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2142 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2143 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2144 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2145
6c7a06a3
TT
2146set target-wide-charset
2147show target-wide-charset
2148 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2149 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2150
84603566
SL
2151set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2152show tcp auto-retry
2153set tcp connect-timeout
2154show tcp connect-timeout
2155 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2156 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2157 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2158
17a37d48
PP
2159set libthread-db-search-path
2160show libthread-db-search-path
2161 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2162 libthread_db.
2163
d4db2f36
PA
2164set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2165show schedule-multiple
2166 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2167 the current process.
2168
4e5d721f
DE
2169set stack-cache
2170show stack-cache
2171 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2172 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2173 affecting correctness.
2174
910c5da8
JB
2175set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2176show interactive-mode
2177 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2178 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2179 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2180 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2181 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2182
2277426b
PA
2183* Removed commands
2184
2185info forks
2186 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2187 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2188 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2189 command.
2190
2191fork NUM
2192 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2193 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2194 alias for the `fork' command.
2195
2196process PID
2197 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2198 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2199 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2200
2201delete fork NUM
2202 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2203 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2204 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2205 fork' command.
2206
2207detach fork NUM
2208 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2209 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2210 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2211 fork' command.
2212
a80b95ba
TG
2213* New native configurations
2214
2215x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2216
b8bfd3ed
JB
2217x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2218
75a2d5e7
TT
2219* New targets
2220
c28c63d8 2221Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 2222x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 2223x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 2224S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 2225
6de3146c
PA
2226* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2227 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2228
d5cbbe6e
JB
2229* Removed commands
2230
2231catch load
2232catch unload
2233 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2234
75feb17d 2235*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 2236
af5ca30d
NH
2237* New native configurations
2238
2239NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 2240Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
2241
2242* New targets
2243
2244NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 2245Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 2246
7a404eba
PA
2247* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2248
2249 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2250 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2251 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2252 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2253
430ebac9
PA
2254* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2255(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2256
fe6fbf8b 2257* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 2258is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
2259
2260* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
2261including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2262and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 2263
10665d76
JB
2264* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2265accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2266more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2267
7cc46491
DJ
2268* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2269
d71340b8
DJ
2270* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2271registers on PowerPC targets.
2272
523c4513
DJ
2273* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2274targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2275
a6b151f1
DJ
2276* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2277commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2278
2d717e4f
DJ
2279* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2280extended-remote mode.
2281
24a836bd 2282* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
2283The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2284error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2285The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 2286
d0c678e6
UW
2287* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2288building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2289target architectures.
2290
d64a946d
TJB
2291* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2292Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2293now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2294stored in two consecutive float registers.
2295
ee163bf5
VP
2296* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2297breakpoints now.
2298
b93b6ca7 2299* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
2300Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2301include:
b93b6ca7
JB
2302 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2303 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2304 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2305 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2306 of an assignment
2307 - Improved command completion in Ada
2308 - Several bug fixes
2309
d001be7a
DJ
2310* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2311process.
2312
a6b151f1
DJ
2313* New commands
2314
6d53d0af
JB
2315set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2316show print frame-arguments
2317 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2318 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2319
a6b151f1
DJ
2320remote put
2321remote get
2322remote delete
2323 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2324
2325* New MI commands
2326
2327-target-file-put
2328-target-file-get
2329-target-file-delete
2330 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2331
2332* New remote packets
2333
2334vFile:open:
2335vFile:close:
2336vFile:pread:
2337vFile:pwrite:
2338vFile:unlink:
2339 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 2340
2d717e4f
DJ
2341vAttach
2342 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2343 mode.
2344
2345vRun
2346 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2347
8d5f9c6f 2348*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 2349
19d378fc
MS
2350* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2351bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2352Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2353
3a40aaa0
UW
2354* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2355symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2356-Bsymbolic linker option.
2357
a6ec25f2
BW
2358* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2359recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2360is not supported.
2361
6dd09645
JB
2362* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2363frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2364
c9bb8148
DJ
2365* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
236632-bit or 64-bit register values.
2367
0d5de010
DJ
2368* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2369
23181151
DJ
2370* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2371target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2372a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2373
ea37ba09
DJ
2374* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2375automatically displayed as character or string data.
2376
2377* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2378arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2379as strings.
e1f48ead 2380
123dc839
DJ
2381* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2382for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 2383only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 2384
05a4558a
DJ
2385* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2386iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 2387
7c963485
PA
2388* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2389ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2390has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2391
b18be20d
DJ
2392* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2393
0ca420ce
UW
2394* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2395
31d99776
DJ
2396* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2397layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2398segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2399
a4642986
MR
2400* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2401immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2402
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2403* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2404"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2405packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2406where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2407Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
2408
2409* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2410(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
2411
2412* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2413according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 2414
c9bb8148
DJ
2415* New commands
2416
23776285
MR
2417set remoteflow
2418show remoteflow
2419 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2420 when debugging using remote targets.
2421
c9bb8148
DJ
2422set mem inaccessible-by-default
2423show mem inaccessible-by-default
2424 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2425 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2426 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2427 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2428 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2429
2430set breakpoint auto-hw
2431show breakpoint auto-hw
2432 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2433 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2434 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2435 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2436 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2437 including "next" and "finish".
2438
0e420bd8
JB
2439catch exception
2440catch exception unhandled
2441 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2442
2443catch assert
2444 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2445
f822c95b
DJ
2446set sysroot
2447show sysroot
2448 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2449 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2450 an alias to "set sysroot".
2451
83cc5c53
UW
2452info spu
2453 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2454 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2455 architecture.
2456
bd372731
MK
2457* New native configurations
2458
2459OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2460
23181151
DJ
2461set tdesc filename
2462unset tdesc filename
2463show tdesc filename
2464 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2465 not query the target for its built-in description.
2466
c9bb8148
DJ
2467* New targets
2468
54fe9172 2469OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 2470MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 2471Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 2472
6dd09645
JB
2473* New remote packets
2474
2475QPassSignals:
2476 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2477 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2478
23181151
DJ
2479qXfer:features:read:
2480 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2481 features.
6dd09645 2482
83cc5c53
UW
2483qXfer:spu:read:
2484qXfer:spu:write:
2485 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2486 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2487
cfa9d6d9
DJ
2488qXfer:libraries:read:
2489 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2490 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2491 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2492 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2493
483367ee
DJ
2494* Removed targets
2495
2496Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2497
d08950c4
UW
2498alpha*-*-osf1*
2499alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 2500d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
2501hppa*-*-hiux*
2502i[34567]86-ncr-*
2503i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2504i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2505i[34567]86-*-netware*
2506i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2507i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2508i[34567]86-*-sco*
2509i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2510i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2511i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2512i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2513i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2514i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2515i[34567]86-*-isc*
2516m68*-cisco*-*
2517m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 2518mips*-*-pe
483367ee 2519rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 2520sh*-*-pe
483367ee 2521
7ce59000
DJ
2522* Other removed features
2523
2524target abug
2525target cpu32bug
2526target est
2527target rom68k
2528
2529 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2530
ea35711c
DJ
2531target hms
2532target e7000
2533target sh3
2534target sh3e
2535
2536 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2537 H8/300.
2538
2539target ocd
2540
2541 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2542 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2543 interfaces.
2544
7ce59000
DJ
2545DWARF 1 support
2546
2547 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2548 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2549
54d61198
DJ
2550Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2551
2552 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2553 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2554 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2555 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2556
ea35711c
DJ
2557MIPS ".pdr" sections
2558
2559 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2560 in debugging information.
2561
2562Scheme support
2563
2564 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2565 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2566
1a69e1e4
DJ
2567set mips stack-arg-size
2568set mips saved-gpreg-size
2569
2570 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2571
6dd09645 2572*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 2573
ca3bf3bd
DJ
2574* New targets
2575
2576Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 2577Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 2578
6aec2e11
DJ
2579* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2580(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2581running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2582
2583* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2584Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2585supported.
2586
17218d91
DJ
2587* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2588broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2589
9ebce043
DJ
2590* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2591stub provides the required support.
2592
7d3d3ece
DJ
2593* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2594longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2595
4f8253f3
JB
2596* New commands
2597
2598set substitute-path
2599unset substitute-path
2600show substitute-path
2601 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2602 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2603 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2604 between compilation and debugging.
2605
9fa66fd7
AS
2606set trace-commands
2607show trace-commands
2608 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2609 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2610 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2611
1f5befc1
DJ
2612* REMOVED features
2613
2614The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2615
2ec3381a
DJ
2616Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2617an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2618
3d00d119
DJ
2619The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2620
be2a5f71
DJ
2621* New remote packets
2622
2623qSupported:
2624 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2625 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2626 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2627 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2628 target.
2629
0876f84a
DJ
2630qXfer:auxv:read:
2631 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2632 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2633
9ebce043
DJ
2634qXfer:memory-map:read:
2635 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2636 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2637
2638vFlashErase:
2639vFlashWrite:
2640vFlashDone:
2641 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2642
0876f84a
DJ
2643* Removed remote packets
2644
2645qPart:auxv:read:
2646 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2647 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2648
e374b601 2649*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 2650
96309189
MS
2651* New targets
2652
2653Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2654
2655Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2656
53e5f3cf
AS
2657* New commands
2658
2659init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2660 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2661
ac264b3b
MS
2662The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2663
2664checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2665
2666restart <n> Return the program state to a
2667 previously saved state.
2668
2669info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2670
2671delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2672
2673set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2674 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2675
2676info forks List forks of the user program that
2677 are available to be debugged.
2678
2679fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2680 forks of the user program that are
2681 available to be debugged.
2682
2683delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2684 that are available to be debugged (and
2685 kill the forked process).
2686
2687detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2688 that are available to be debugged (and
2689 allow the process to continue).
2690
3950dc3f
NS
2691* New architecture
2692
2693Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2694
0ea3f30e
DJ
2695* Improved Windows host support
2696
2697GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2698native console support, and remote communications using either
2699network sockets or serial ports.
2700
f79daebb
GM
2701* Improved Modula-2 language support
2702
2703GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2704basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2705pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2706printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2707written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2708GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2709
acab6ab2
MM
2710* REMOVED features
2711
2712The ARM rdi-share module.
2713
f4267320
DJ
2714The Netware NLM debug server.
2715
53e5f3cf 2716*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 2717
e0ecbda1
MK
2718* New native configurations
2719
02a677ac 2720OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
2721OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2722
d64a6579
KB
2723* New targets
2724
2725Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2726
b33a6190
AS
2727* New command line options
2728
2729--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2730--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2731 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2732--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2733 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2734 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2735 with the --command (-x) option.
2736
11dced61
AC
2737* Deprecated commands removed
2738
2739The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2740removed:
2741
2742 Command Replacement
2743 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2744 othernames set arm disassembler
2745 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2746 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2747 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2748 regs info registers
2749
6fe85783
MK
2750* New BSD user-level threads support
2751
2752It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2753library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2754configurations are:
2755
2756FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2757FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2758OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2759
2760Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2761are not yet supported.
2762
5260ca71
MS
2763* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2764(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2765
e84ecc99
AC
2766* REMOVED configurations and files
2767
2768VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 2769Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 2770National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 2771
31e35378
JB
2772* New "set print array-indexes" command
2773
2774After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2775when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2776behavior.
2777
e85e5c83
MK
2778* VAX floating point support
2779
2780GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2781
d91e9901
AS
2782* User-defined command support
2783
2784In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2785to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2786section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2787
f2cb65ca
MC
2788*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2789
f47b1503
AS
2790* New command line option
2791
2792GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2793debugging.
2794
f2cb65ca
MC
2795* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2796
2797GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2798information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2799by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2800proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2801to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2802
d08c0230
AC
2803* Internationalization
2804
2805When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2806internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2807continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2808
117ea3cf
PH
2809* Ada
2810
2811Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2812implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2813into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2814
d08c0230
AC
2815* New native configurations
2816
2817GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2818
2819* Remote 'p' packet
2820
2821GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2822packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2823
2824* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2825
2826GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2827The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2828features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2829i386 application).
2830
2831GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2832compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2833continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2834configurations:
2835
2836hppa-*-hpux
2837ia64-*-aix
2838mips-*-irix*
2839*-*-lynx
2840mips-*-linux-gnu
2841sds protocol
2842xdr protocol
2843powerpc bdm protocol
2844
2845Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2846made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2847
2848* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2849
2850Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2851been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2852configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2853permanently REMOVED.
2854
2855h8300-*-*
2856mcore-*-*
2857mn10300-*-*
2858ns32k-*-*
2859sh64-*-*
2860v850-*-*
2861
ebb7c577
AC
2862*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2863
2864* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2865
2866When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2867heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2868been fixed.
2869
2870* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2871
2872When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2873fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2874IRIX long double values).
2875
2876* VAX and "next"
2877
2878A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2879command. This problem has been fixed.
2880
860660cb 2881*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2882
0dea2468
AC
2883* Fix for ``many threads''
2884
2885On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2886rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2887error message:
2888
2889 ptrace: No such process.
2890 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2891
2892This problem has been fixed.
2893
2c07db7a
AC
2894* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2895
2896Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2897GDB to dump core).
2898
c23968a2
JB
2899* New ``start'' command.
2900
2901This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2902
71009278
MK
2903* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2904
2905Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2906live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2907platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2908
2909FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2910FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2911NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2912NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2913NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2914OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2915OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2916OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2917OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2918
3c0b7db2
AC
2919* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2920
2921Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2922These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2923of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2924call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2925signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2926
73cc75f3
AC
2927Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2928features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2929include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2930
7243600a
BF
2931* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2932
6f606e1c
MK
2933* New native configurations
2934
97dc871c 2935GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2936OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2937OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2938OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2939OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2940NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2941OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2942
a1b461bf
AC
2943* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2944
2945GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2946The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2947including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2948migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2949compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2950work, was also included.
2951
2952GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2953module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2954
2955h8300-*-*
2956mcore-*-*
2957mn10300-*-*
2958ns32k-*-*
2959sh64-*-*
2960v850-*-*
2961xstormy16-*-*
2962
2963Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2964made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2965
3c7012f5
AC
2966* REMOVED configurations and files
2967
2968Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2969Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2970Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2971Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2972Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2973AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2974Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2975decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2976riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2977sonymips mips-sony-*
2978sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2979
e5fe55f7
AC
2980*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2981
2982* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2983
2984The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2985GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2986command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2987program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2988with GDB".
2989
2990* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2991
2992Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2993libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2994cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2995GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2996shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2997the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2998are created.
2999
3000Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3001
3002* Fixed ISO-C build problems
3003
3004The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3005non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3006compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3007
3008* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3009
3010Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3011wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3012
3013* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3014
3015The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3016permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3017systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3018
3019* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3020
3021Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3022has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3023
3024* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3025
3026GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3027its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3028panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3029
3030* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3031
3032When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3033by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3034not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3035
faae5abe 3036*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 3037
9175c9a3
MC
3038* Removed --with-mmalloc
3039
3040Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3041conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3042
3cc87ec0
MK
3043* Changes in AMD64 configurations
3044
3045The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3046the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3047and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3048you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3049
f0424ef6
MK
3050* Revised SPARC target
3051
3052The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3053FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
3054support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3055from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3056(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 3057
59659be2
ILT
3058* New C++ demangler
3059
3060GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3061names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3062with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3063programs.
3064
9e08b29b
DJ
3065* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3066
3067GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3068arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3069encountered these.
3070
8dfe8985
DC
3071* C++ nested types and namespaces
3072
3073GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3074improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3075is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3076Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3077namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3078"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3079frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3080if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3081GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3082
cced5e27
MK
3083* New native configurations
3084
3085NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 3086OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 3087OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
3088OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3089OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 3090
b4b4b794
KI
3091* New debugging protocols
3092
3093M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3094
7989c619
AC
3095* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3096
3097The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3098and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3099tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3100
5994185b
AC
3101* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3102
3103Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3104been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3105configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3106permanently REMOVED.
3107
3108Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3109Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3110Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3111Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3112Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3113AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3114Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
3115decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3116riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3117sonymips mips-sony-*
3118sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 3119
0ddabb4c
AC
3120* REMOVED configurations and files
3121
3122SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3123SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
3124Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3125Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3126H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3127HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3128HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3129HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3130PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 3131386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
3132Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3133 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3134 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
3135SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3136SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
3137Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3138Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 3139
c7f1390e
DJ
3140*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3141
1fe43d45
AC
3142* Objective-C
3143
3144Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3145integrated into GDB.
3146
e6beb428
AC
3147* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3148
3149DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3150information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3151By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3152backtraces.
3153
3154The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3155have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3156DWARF 2 CFI support.
3157
3158* Hosted file I/O.
3159
3160GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3161file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3162remote protocol documentation for details.
3163
3164* All targets using the new architecture framework.
3165
3166All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3167architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3168to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3169ppc32 on ppc64).
3170
3171* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3172
3173GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3174per-thread variables.
3175
3176* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3177
3178GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3179GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3180
3181* Separate debug info.
3182
3183GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3184automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3185of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3186system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3187and optional debug files.
3188
3189* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3190
3191DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3192describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3193debugger.
3194
3195GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3196for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3197
3198* Java
3199
3200A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3201Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3202considered "useable".
3203
85f8f974
DJ
3204* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3205
3206The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3207commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3208kernel.
3209
0fac0b41
DJ
3210* GDB supports logging output to a file
3211
3212There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3213used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 3214
6ad8ae5c
DJ
3215* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3216
3217The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3218disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3219command.
3220
e286caf2 3221* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
3222
3223The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3224registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3225
d28f9cdf
DJ
3226* Profiling support
3227
3228A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3229be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3230session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3231"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3232data, for more informative profiling results.
3233
da0f9dcd
AC
3234* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3235
3236The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3237option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 3238"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
3239
3240Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3241removed.
3242
fb9b6b35
JJ
3243Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3244Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3245Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3246 in a subsequent -var-update.
3247
954a4db8
MK
3248* New native configurations.
3249
3250FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3251
6760f9e6
JB
3252* Multi-arched targets.
3253
b4263afa 3254HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 3255Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 3256
1b831c93
AC
3257* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3258
3259Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3260been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3261configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3262permanently REMOVED.
3263
8b0e5691 3264Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 3265Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 3266H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
3267HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3268HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3269HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 3270PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
3271Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3272 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3273 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
3274Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3275Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 3276
5835abe7
NC
3277* REMOVED configurations and files
3278
3279V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
3280Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3281IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3282i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3283i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3284i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3285HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3286 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3287 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3288Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3289Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3290Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3291OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3292I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 3293
a094c6fb
AC
3294* MIPS $fp behavior changed
3295
3296The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3297the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3298context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3299address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3300The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3301
299ffc64 3302*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 3303
46248966
AC
3304* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3305
3306When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3307`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3308in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3309library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3310shared libs like mad''.
3311
b9d14705 3312* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 3313
b9d14705
DJ
3314Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3315the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3316arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3317powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 3318
e0e9281e
JB
3319* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3320
3321GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3322and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3323they expand.
3324
dd73b9bb
AC
3325The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3326invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3327
3328The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3329macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3330
e0e9281e
JB
3331Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3332information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3333your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3334information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3335
2250ee0c
CV
3336* Multi-arched targets.
3337
6e3ba3b8
JT
3338DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3339DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 3340NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 3341National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
3342Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3343Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 3344
cd9bfe15 3345* New targets.
e33ce519 3346
456f8b9d
DB
3347Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3348
e33ce519 3349
da8ca43d
JT
3350* New native configurations
3351
3352Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 3353SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 3354MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 3355UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 3356
cd9bfe15
AC
3357* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3358
3359Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3360been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3361configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3362permanently REMOVED.
3363
92eb23c5 3364Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 3365OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 3366IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 3367Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 3368Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 3369Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
3370i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3371i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3372i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
3373HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3374 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3375 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 3376I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 3377
db034ac5
AC
3378* OBSOLETE languages
3379
3380CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3381
cd9bfe15
AC
3382* REMOVED configurations and files
3383
3384AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3385A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3386AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3387AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3388AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3389
3390testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3391
20f01a46
DH
3392* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3393
3394This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3395commands. The default is 1024.
3396
a5941fbf
MK
3397* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3398
3399Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3400
89743e04
MS
3401* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3402
3403These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3404to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3405from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 3406
9fb14e79
JB
3407* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3408
3409The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3410including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3411of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3412
2037aebb
AC
3413*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3414
3415* New targets.
3416
3417Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3418
3419* Bug fixes
3420
3421gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3422mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3423Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3424
3425gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3426dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3427Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3428
3429Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3430Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3431By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3432
3433i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3434avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3435By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3436
37057839 3437*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 3438
1a703748
MS
3439* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3440
3441This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3442really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3443In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3444target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3445This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3446(notably embedded) targets.
3447
cefd4ef5
MS
3448* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3449
55241689
AC
3450This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3451process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3452GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3453hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 3454
352ed7b4
MS
3455* New command line option
3456
3457GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3458
3459* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3460
3461There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3462command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3463a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3464be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3465open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3466issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3467a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3468it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3469GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3470is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3471
fe419ffc
RE
3472* Changes in ARM configurations.
3473
3474Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3475configuration is fully multi-arch.
3476
eb7cedd9
MK
3477* New native configurations
3478
fe419ffc 3479ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 3480x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 3481AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 3482Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 3483
c9f63e6b
CV
3484* New targets
3485
3486Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3487
9b4ff276
AC
3488* OBSOLETE configurations and files
3489
3490Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3491been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3492configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3493permanently REMOVED.
3494
3495AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3496A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3497AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3498AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3499AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3500
b4ceaee6 3501testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 3502
e2caac18
AC
3503* REMOVED configurations and files
3504
3505TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 3506WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
3507PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3508PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3509PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 3510Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
3511Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3512 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 3513SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 3514Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
3515Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3516ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 3517Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 3518
c2a727fa
TT
3519* Changes to command line processing
3520
3521The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3522for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3523
467d8519
TT
3524* Changes to key bindings
3525
3526There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3527
7072a954
AC
3528*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3529
3530Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3531
3532Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3533corrupted.
3534
3535Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3536
3537Numerous documentation fixes.
3538
3539Numerous testsuite fixes.
3540
34f47bc4 3541*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
3542
3543* New native configurations
3544
3545Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3546x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 3547MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
3548MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3549ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 3550s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 3551
bf64bfd6
AC
3552* New targets
3553
def90278 3554Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 3555CRIS cris-axis
55241689 3556UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 3557
17e78a56 3558* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
3559
3560x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 3561Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
3562Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3563 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
3564TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3565WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 3566Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
3567PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3568PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3569PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 3570SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
3571Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3572ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 3573Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 3574
17e78a56
AC
3575stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3576kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3577
7fcca85b
AC
3578Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3579been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3580configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3581permanently REMOVED.
3582
a196c81c 3583* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
3584
3585Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3586Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3587Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3588ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3589Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 3590ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 3591
6d6b80e5 3592* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 3593
6d6b80e5 3594GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
3595sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3596present.
3597
bf64bfd6
AC
3598* Other news:
3599
e23194cb
EZ
3600* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3601
3602* The MI enabled by default.
3603
3604The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3605revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3606engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3607using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3608which is now deprecated.
3609
3610* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3611
3612GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3613main features are supported:
3614
3615 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3616
3617 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3618 extension;
3619
3620 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3621
3622 - a Pascal expression parser.
3623
3624However, some important features are not yet supported.
3625
3626 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3627
3628 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3629
3630 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3631 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3632
3633 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3634
3635 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3636
3637* Changes in completion.
3638
3639Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3640to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3641users expect at the shell prompt.
3642
3643Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3644`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3645program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3646files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3647be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3648considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3649name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3650
3651`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3652
3653* New platform-independent commands:
3654
3655It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3656hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3657documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3658
3659* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3660
d7275149
MK
3661Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3662revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3663many threads as your system allows you to have.
3664
e23194cb
EZ
3665Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3666
d7275149
MK
3667Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3668multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
3669
3670* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
3671
3672Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3673
e23194cb
EZ
3674GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3675debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3676supported.)
3677
3678* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3679
3680Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3681breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3682implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3683put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3684and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3685registers.
3686
3687The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3688debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3689watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3690
3691* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3692
3693New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3694the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3695
3696New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3697display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3698IDT.
3699
3700New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3701from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3702New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3703a given linear address.
3704
3705GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3706program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3707which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3708
3709DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3710
6c56c069
EZ
3711It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3712
e23194cb
EZ
3713* Changes in documentation.
3714
3715All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3716Documentation License.
3717
3718Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3719manual.
3720
3721TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3722
3723Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3724manual.
3725
3726The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3727documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3728hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3729
5d6640b1
AC
3730* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3731
3732The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3733``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3734contents of this file.
3735
1a1d8446
AC
3736* gdba.el deleted
3737
3738GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 3739
9debab2f 3740*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 3741
c63ce875
EZ
3742* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3743
3744Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3745programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3746displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3747greater level of detail.
3748
3749* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3750
3751It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3752bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3753on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3754written.
3755
3756* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3757
3758The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3759necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3760machines ``out of the box''.
3761
3762The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3763possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3764signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3765would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3766interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3767
3768It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3769standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3770even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3771and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3772terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3773
3774The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3775enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3776also works.
3777
3778DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3779GDB.
3780
3781It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3782directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3783times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3784breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3785
ed9a39eb
JM
3786* New native configurations
3787
3788ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 3789PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 3790
7a292a7a
SS
3791* New targets
3792
96baa820 3793Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
3794x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3795PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
3796TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3797
085dd6e6
JM
3798* OBSOLETE configurations
3799
3800Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3801Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3802Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3803ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3804Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3805
9debab2f
AC
3806Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3807but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3808these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3809be permanently REMOVED.
3810
5330533d
SS
3811* Gould support removed
3812
3813Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3814
bc9e5bbf
AC
3815* New features for SVR4
3816
3817On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3818without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3819load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3820
3821* Many C++ enhancements
3822
3823C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3824in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3825
adf40b2e
JM
3826* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3827
3828A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3829sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3830with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3831``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3832
3833 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3834 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3835
43e526b9
JM
3836* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3837
3838A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3839expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3840instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3841
3842The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3843added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3844
96baa820
JM
3845* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3846
3847The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3848``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3849include ``set remote P-packet''.
3850
11cf8741
JM
3851* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3852
3853The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3854accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3855``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3856
7876dd43
DB
3857* ``apropos'' command added.
3858
3859The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3860documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3861try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3862
bc9e5bbf
AC
3863* New MI interface
3864
3865A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3866interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3867process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3868"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3869enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3870
3871 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3872
c906108c
SS
3873*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3874
3875* New native configurations
3876
3877HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3878HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3879M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3880
3881* New targets
3882
3883Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3884Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3885Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3886
3887* OBSOLETE configurations
3888
3889Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3890
3891Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3892but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3893these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3894be permanently REMOVED.
3895
3896* ANSI/ISO C
3897
3898As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3899buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3900containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3901use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3902available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3903configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3904information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3905already.
3906
3907* Readline 2.2
3908
3909GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3910
3911* set extension-language
3912
3913You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3914languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3915you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3916 set extension-language .c c++
3917The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3918and their associated languages.
3919
3920* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3921
3922When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3923you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3924PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3925
3926 set processor NAME
3927
3928sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3929following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3930
3931 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3932 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3933 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3934 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3935 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3936 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3937 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3938 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3939 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3940 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3941 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3942
3943At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3944special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3945registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3946only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3947
3948* HP-UX support
3949
3950Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3951more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3952library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3953support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3954for xdb and dbx commands.
3955
3956* Catchpoints
3957
3958HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3959generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3960to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3961
3962This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3963argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3964output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3965
3966* Debugging across forks
3967
3968On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3969in the inferior.
3970
3971* TUI
3972
3973HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3974it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3975configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3976
3977* GDB remote protocol additions
3978
3979A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3980Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3981fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3982allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3983
3984For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3985full 64-bit address. The command
3986
3987 set remoteaddresssize 32
3988
3989can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3990the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3991will be discarded.
3992
3993In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3994command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3995
3996 maint packet heythere
3997
3998sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3999disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4000time.
4001
4002The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4003target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4004downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4005
4006* Tracing can collect general expressions
4007
4008You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4009further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4010doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4011
4012* mask-address variable for Mips
4013
4014For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4015a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4016of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4017
4018* Higher serial baud rates
4019
4020GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4021230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4022to achieve all of these rates.)
4023
4024* i960 simulator
4025
4026The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4027builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4028
4029
4030*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4031
4032* New native configurations
4033
4034Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4035Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4036Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4037PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4038PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4039Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4040Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4041
4042* New targets
4043
4044Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4045Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4046Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4047Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4048MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4049MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4050MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4051Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4052Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4053Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4054NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4055
4056* New debugging protocols
4057
4058ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4059M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4060DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4061PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4062PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4063Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4064
4065* DWARF 2
4066
4067All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4068format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4069information.
4070
4071* Java frontend
4072
4073GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4074only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4075
4076* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4077
4078For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4079loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4080locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4081
4082* Live range splitting
4083
4084GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4085range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4086more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4087
4088* Hurd support
4089
4090GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4091updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4092
4093* ARM Thumb support
4094
4095GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4096instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4097instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4098accordingly.
4099
4100* MIPS16 support
4101
4102GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4103instruction set.
4104
4105* Overlay support
4106
4107GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4108linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4109will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4110control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4111additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4112in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4113
4114* info symbol
4115
4116The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4117the symbol at the specified address.
4118
4119* Trace support
4120
4121The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4122asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4123extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4124includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4125file tracepoint.c for more details.
4126
4127* MIPS simulator
4128
4129Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4130by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4131of most MIPS variants.
4132
4133* Sparc simulator
4134
4135Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4136by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4137Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4138
4139* set architecture
4140
4141For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4142basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4143architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4144the possible architectures.
4145
4146*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4147
4148* New native configurations
4149
4150Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4151M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4152PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4153PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4154PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4155RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4156
4157* New targets
4158
4159ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4160I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4161MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4162MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4163PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4164Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4165Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4166
4167* PowerPC simulator
4168
4169The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4170contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4171PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4172basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4173performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4174
4175* Solaris 2.5
4176
4177GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4178
4179* Windows 95/NT native
4180
4181GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4182To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4183which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4184Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4185ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4186
4187* dont-repeat command
4188
4189If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4190command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4191useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4192extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4193
4194* Send break instead of ^C
4195
4196The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4197rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4198GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4199
4200* Remote protocol timeout
4201
4202The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4203that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4204to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4205
4206* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4207
4208By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4209loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4210stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4211when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4212in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4213
4214Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4215/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4216automatically on hpux10.
4217
4218* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4219
4220Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4221
4222* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4223
4224When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4225may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4226the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4227every character. The default value is 1050.
4228
4229* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4230
4231If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4232a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4233replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4234details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4235remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4236to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4237
4238* Speedups for remote debugging
4239
4240GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4241the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4242and more efficient S-record downloading.
4243
4244* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4245
4246GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4247Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4248
4249*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4250
4251* Psymtabs for XCOFF
4252
4253The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4254can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4255
4256* Remote targets use caching
4257
4258Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4259remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4260it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4261debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4262off' turns the the data cache off.
4263
4264* Remote targets may have threads
4265
4266The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4267in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4268gdb/remote.c for details.
4269
4270* NetROM support
4271
4272If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4273support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4274acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4275write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4276support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4277another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4278sequence is something like
4279
4280 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4281 load <prog>
4282 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4283
4284* Macintosh host
4285
4286GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4287may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4288it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4289available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4290device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4291directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4292scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4293mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4294
4295* Autoconf
4296
4297GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4298but does simplify configuration and building.
4299
4300* hpux10
4301
4302GDB now supports hpux10.
4303
4304*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4305
4306* New native configurations
4307
4308x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4309x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4310NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4311Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4312
4313* New targets
4314
4315A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4316HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4317CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4318PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4319WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4320
4321* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4322
4323GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4324possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4325filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4326the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4327if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4328
4329* Arguments to user-defined commands
4330
4331User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4332Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4333trivial example:
4334define adder
4335 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4336
4337To execute the command use:
4338adder 1 2 3
4339
4340Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4341Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4342use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4343
4344* New `if' and `while' commands
4345
4346This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4347commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4348expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4349execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4350terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4351`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4352if the expression is zero.
4353
4354* Fortran source language mode
4355
4356GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4357Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4358variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4359with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4360Fortran compilers.
4361
4362* Better HPUX support
4363
4364Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4365running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4366processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4367for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4368that behavior do the following before running the program:
4369
4370 adb -w a.out
4371 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4372 control-d
4373
4374This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4375To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4376
4377 adb -w a.out
4378 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4379 control-d
4380
4381You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4382the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4383external linkage.
4384
4385GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4386HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4387
4388* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4389
4390You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4391commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4392current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4393"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4394associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4395configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4396
4397* New DOS host serial code
4398
4399This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4400no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4401a PC's serial port.
4402
4403*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4404
4405* New "complete" command
4406
4407This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4408were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4409
4410* Trailing space optional in prompt
4411
4412"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4413allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4414
4415* Breakpoint hit counts
4416
4417"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4418has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4419can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4420to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4421less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4422that breakpoint.
4423
4424* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4425
4426"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4427an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4428arrays actually contain only short strings.
4429
4430* Shared library breakpoints
4431
4432In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4433breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4434
4435* Hardware watchpoints
4436
4437There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4438targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4439
55241689 4440Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
4441
4442* Annotations
4443
4444Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4445and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4446
4447* Improved Irix 5 support
4448
4449GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4450
4451* Improved HPPA support
4452
4453GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4454
4455* New native configurations
4456
4457Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4458HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4459Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4460RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4461
4462* New targets
4463
4464OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4465MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4466Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4467
4468* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4469
4470There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4471This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4472
4473* Fixes
4474
4475As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4476and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4477
4478*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4479
4480* Irix 5 is now supported
4481
4482* HPPA support
4483
4484GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4485to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4486GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4487of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4488can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4489
4490
4491*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4492
4493* User visible changes:
4494
4495* Remote Debugging
4496
4497The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4498target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4499debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4500integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4501debugging info for the mips target).
4502
4503* DEC Alpha native support
4504
4505GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4506debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4507work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4508Alpha-specific notes.
4509
4510* Preliminary thread implementation
4511
4512GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4513
4514* LynxOS native and target support for 386
4515
4516This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4517to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4518for details).
4519
4520* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4521
4522This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4523mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4524call methods, ...etc.
4525
4526*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4527
4528 * User visible changes:
4529
4530Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4531supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4532other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4533somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4534
4535Filename completion now works.
4536
4537When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4538arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4539addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4540
4541All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4542vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4543should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4544your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4545to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4546
4547 * DEC alpha support
4548
4549This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4550cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4551
4552
4553*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4554
4555 * Testsuite
4556
4557This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4558The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4559via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4560
4561 * C++ demangling
4562
4563'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4564emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4565Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4566disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4567use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4568
4569 * Simulators
4570
4571GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4572So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4573Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4574
4575 * New targets supported
4576
4577H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4578H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4579SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4580Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4581IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4582
4583Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4584version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4585GO32 memory extender.
4586
4587 * New remote protocols
4588
4589MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4590
4591 * New source languages supported
4592
4593This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4594used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4595into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4596
4597
4598*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4599
4600 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4601
4602GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4603version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4604University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4605compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4606format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4607(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4608
4609Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4610
4611 * Faster and better demangling
4612
4613We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4614demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4615character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4616only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4617This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4618increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4619symbol lookups.
4620
4621`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4622from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4623compiler does not actually implement.
4624
4625 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4626
4627In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4628inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4629recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4630very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4631The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4632circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4633fix.
4634
4635The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4636release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4637
4638 * Improved configure script
4639
4640The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4641you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4642host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4643done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4644
4645We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4646version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4647`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4648The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4649only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4650We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4651
4652 * Documentation improvements
4653
4654There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4655produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4656before submitting changes.
4657
4658The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4659M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4660`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4661you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4662a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4663
4664*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4665We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4666been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4667or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4668`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4669around this problem.
4670
4671 * New features
4672
4673GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4674the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4675`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4676the target program.
4677
4678The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4679how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4680
4681 * New native hosts supported
4682
4683HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4684386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4685
4686 * New targets supported
4687
4688AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4689
4690 * New file formats supported
4691
4692BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4693HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4694
4695 * Major bug fixes
4696
4697Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4698
4699We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4700printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4701
4702We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4703for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4704release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4705
4706You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4707will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4708
4709We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4710for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4711especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4712libraries.
4713
4714The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4715information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4716command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4717any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4718when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4719
4720 * Internal improvements
4721
4722GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4723debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4724
4725GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4726Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4727symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4728contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4729shared code that handles any of them.
4730
4731 * New command line options
4732
4733We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4734
4735 * Mmalloc licensing
4736
4737The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4738General Public License.
4739
4740*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4741
4742 * Host/native/target split
4743
4744GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4745hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4746target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4747local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4748ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4749
4750The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4751GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4752is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4753code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4754any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4755built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4756handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4757
4758GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4759It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4760plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4761
4762 * New hosts supported
4763
4764HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4765386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4766386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4767
4768 * New targets supported
4769
4770Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
477168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4772
4773 * New native hosts supported
4774
4775386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4776 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4777386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4778
4779 * New file formats supported
4780
4781BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4782supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4783format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4784
4785 * New commands
4786
4787`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4788`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4789These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4790
4791`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4792
4793You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4794scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4795prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4796executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4797
4798 * C++ improvements
4799
4800We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4801info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4802symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4803
4804Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4805
4806 * Major bug fixes
4807
4808The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4809fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4810by the compiler.
4811
4812We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4813support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4814
4815John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4816slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4817that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4818purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4819the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4820mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4821
4822Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4823about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4824completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4825we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4826
4827 * AMD 29k support
4828
4829A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4830specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4831calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4832usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4833in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4834
4835We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4836Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4837of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4838resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4839
4840 * Remote interfaces
4841
4842We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4843with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4844message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4845This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4846needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4847breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4848each instruction being stepped through.
4849
4850The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4851registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4852
4853There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4854find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4855Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4856processor with a serial port.
4857
4858 * Configuration
4859
4860Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4861`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4862supported, and what files each one uses.
4863
4864 * Library changes
4865
4866There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4867disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4868Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4869disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4870
4871The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4872Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4873can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4874grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4875
4876 * Documentation
4877
4878The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4879reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4880as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4881encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4882system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4883bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4884
4885And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4886
4887
4888*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4889
4890 * Better support for C++ function names
4891
4892GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4893names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4894(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4895single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4896Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4897
4898GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4899the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4900You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4901lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4902for the list of formats.
4903
4904 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4905
4906Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4907C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4908directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4909can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4910usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4911about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4912this problem.)
4913
4914 * New 'maintenance' command
4915
4916All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4917the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4918can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4919
4920 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4921 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4922 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4923 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4924 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4925 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4926
4927The following commands are new:
4928
4929 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4930 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4931 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4932
4933 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4934
4935We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4936(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4937be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4938read after argv processing.
4939
4940 * New hosts supported
4941
4942Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4943
55241689 4944GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4945
4946We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4947is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4948for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4949masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4950fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4951It costs extra.
4952
4953 * New targets supported
4954
4955Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4956
4957 * More smarts about finding #include files
4958
4959GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4960all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4961greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4962especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4963the one that contains your sources.
4964
4965We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4966breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4967try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4968
4969 * Interesting infernals change
4970
4971GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4972section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4973target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4974stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4975
4976 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4977
4978There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4979 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4980 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4981
4982See the ChangeLog for details.
4983
4984*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4985
4986 * New machines supported (host and target)
4987
4988IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4989
4990SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4991
4992 * New malloc package
4993
4994GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4995Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4996capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4997This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4998pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4999more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5000
5001 * info proc
5002
5003The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5004'help info proc' for details.
5005
5006 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5007
5008The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5009Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5010possible.
5011
5012 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5013
5014Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5015support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5016conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5017environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5018that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5019in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5020
5021 * Cross byte order fixes
5022
5023Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5024targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5025
5026 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5027
5028If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5029system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5030`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5031program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5032called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5033Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5034and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5035the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5036option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5037starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5038
5039You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5040the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5041information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5042slower, but makes future operations faster.
5043
5044The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5045build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5046A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5047use is:
5048
5049 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5050
5051The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5052It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5053shared across multiple host platforms.
5054
5055 * longjmp() handling
5056
5057GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5058siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5059all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5060platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5061
5062 * Solaris 2.0
5063
5064Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5065this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5066reading symbols.
5067
5068 * Bug fixes
5069
5070As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5071People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5072crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5073
5074*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5075
5076 * New machines supported (host and target)
5077
5078SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5079 (except core files)
5080BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5081Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5082
5083 * New machines supported (target)
5084
5085AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5086
5087 * C++ support
5088
5089GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5090The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5091per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5092
5093GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5094`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5095extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5096good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5097will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5098released.
5099
5100 * New features for SVR4
5101
5102GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5103shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5104only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5105
5106The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5107on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5108it prints the address mappings of the process.
5109
5110If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5111bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5112
5113 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5114
5115Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5116now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5117skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5118make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5119same code linked statically.
5120
5121 * New Getopt
5122
5123GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5124version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5125continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5126Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5127added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5128future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5129
5130 * Bugs fixed
5131
5132The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5133Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5134See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5135
5136
5137*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5138
5139 * New machines supported (host and target)
5140
5141Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5142NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5143Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5144
5145 * Almost SCO Unix support
5146
5147We had hoped to support:
5148SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5149(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5150that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5151about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5152
5153 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5154
5155GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5156debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5157is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5158send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5159reqired (if any).
5160
5161 * New Readline
5162
5163GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5164is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5165required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5166
5167 * Bugs fixed
5168
5169The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5170Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5171See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5172
5173 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5174
5175GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5176supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5177symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5178
5179Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5180mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5181debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5182mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5183version 2.
5184
5185Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5186really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5187line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5188variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5189situation somewhat.
5190
5191When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5192However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5193methods.
5194
5195We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5196DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5197encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5198
5199
5200*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5201
5202 * Improved configuration
5203
5204Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5205Porting BFD is simpler.
5206
5207 * Stepping improved
5208
5209The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5210of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5211in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5212function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5213
5214 * Bug fixing
5215
5216Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5217
5218 * New host supported (not target)
5219
5220Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5221
5222
5223*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5224
5225 * Multiple source language support
5226
5227GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5228It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5229and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5230language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5231You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5232`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5233
5234 * GDB and Modula-2
5235
5236GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5237currently under development at the State University of New York at
5238Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5239continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5240
5241Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5242debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5243symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5244
5245There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5246in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5247
5248 * set write on/off
5249
5250GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5251a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5252the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5253by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5254effect immediately.
5255
5256 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5257
5258When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5259shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5260The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5261examining core files.
5262
5263 * set listsize
5264
5265You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5266The default is 10.
5267
5268 * New machines supported (host and target)
5269
5270SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5271Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5272Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5273
5274 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5275
5276IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5277
5278 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5279
5280AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5281AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5282Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5283
5284 * New remote interfaces
5285
5286AMD 29000 Adapt
5287AMD 29000 Minimon
5288
5289
5290*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5291
5292 * New Facilities
5293
5294Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5295
5296Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5297target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5298is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5299remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5300remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5301also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5302using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5303stub on the target system.
5304
5305New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5306
5307GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5308library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5309object file types such as a.out and coff.
5310
5311There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5312refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5313
5314
5315 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5316
5317All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5318by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5319
5320For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5321``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5322Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5323
5324What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5325print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5326will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5327all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5328
5329confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5330 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5331 it is already running. Default is ON.
5332
5333editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5334 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5335 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5336 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5337 Default is ON.
5338
5339history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5340 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5341 or the value of the environment variable
5342 GDBHISTFILE.
5343
5344history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5345 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5346 HISTSIZE.
5347
5348history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5349 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5350 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5351
5352history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5353 history expansion will be performed on
5354 command line input. The default is OFF.
5355
5356radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5357 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5358 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5359
5360height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5361 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5362 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5363 variable TERM.
5364
5365width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5366 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5367 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5368 variable TERM.
5369
5370Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5371``set width'' instead.
5372
5373print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5374 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5375 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5376 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5377
5378print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5379 is OFF.
5380
5381print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5382 "raw" form if off.
5383
5384print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5385 like instructions.
5386
5387print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5388
5389
5390 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5391
5392The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5393new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5394are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5395window.
5396
5397
5398 * Support for Shared Libraries
5399
5400GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5401Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5402before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5403happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5404At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5405from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5406shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5407It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5408
5409sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5410 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5411 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5412
5413info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5414
5415
5416 * Watchpoints
5417
5418A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5419expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5420tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5421quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5422problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5423more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5424
5425watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5426
5427info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5428
5429delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5430disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5431enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5432
5433
5434 * C++ multiple inheritance
5435
5436When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5437for C++ programs.
5438
5439 * C++ exception handling
5440
5441Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5442ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5443the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5444handler's context).
5445
5446catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5447 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5448 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5449
5450info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5451 current stack frame.
5452
5453
5454 * Minor command changes
5455
5456The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5457command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5458is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5459
5460The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5461at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5462frames without printing.
5463
5464 * New directory command
5465
5466'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5467The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5468about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5469with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5470find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5471
5472 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5473
5474For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5475for more details.
5476
5477GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5478two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5479Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5480where the program that you are debugging will run.
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