2004-04-08 Roland McGrath <roland@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.1:
5
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6* New native configurations
7
8NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 9OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 10
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11* REMOVED configurations and files
12
13Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
14Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
15Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
16Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
17Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
18AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
19Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
20decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
21riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
22sonymips mips-sony-*
23sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
24
faae5abe 25*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 26
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27* Removed --with-mmalloc
28
29Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
30conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
31
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32* Changes in AMD64 configurations
33
34The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
35the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
36and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
37you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
38
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39* Revised SPARC target
40
41The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
42FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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43support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
44from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
45(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 46
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47* New C++ demangler
48
49GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
50names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
51with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
52programs.
53
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54* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
55
56GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
57arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
58encountered these.
59
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60* C++ nested types and namespaces
61
62GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
63improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
64is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
65Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
66namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
67"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
68frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
69if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
70GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
71
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72* New native configurations
73
74NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 75OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 76OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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77OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
78OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 79
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80* New debugging protocols
81
82M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
83
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84* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
85
86The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
87and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
88tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
89
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90* OBSOLETE configurations and files
91
92Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
93been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
94configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
95permanently REMOVED.
96
97Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
98Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
99Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
100Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
101Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
102AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
103Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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104decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
105riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
106sonymips mips-sony-*
107sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 108
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109* REMOVED configurations and files
110
111SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
112SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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113Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
114Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
115H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
116HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
117HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
118HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
119PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 120386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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121Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
122 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
123 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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124SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
125SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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126Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
127Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 128
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129*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
130
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131* Objective-C
132
133Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
134integrated into GDB.
135
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136* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
137
138DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
139information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
140By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
141backtraces.
142
143The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
144have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
145DWARF 2 CFI support.
146
147* Hosted file I/O.
148
149GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
150file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
151remote protocol documentation for details.
152
153* All targets using the new architecture framework.
154
155All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
156architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
157to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
158ppc32 on ppc64).
159
160* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
161
162GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
163per-thread variables.
164
165* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
166
167GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
168GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
169
170* Separate debug info.
171
172GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
173automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
174of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
175system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
176and optional debug files.
177
178* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
179
180DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
181describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
182debugger.
183
184GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
185for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
186
187* Java
188
189A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
190Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
191considered "useable".
192
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193* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
194
195The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
196commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
197kernel.
198
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199* GDB supports logging output to a file
200
201There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
202used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 203
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204* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
205
206The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
207disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
208command.
209
e286caf2 210* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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211
212The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
213registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
214
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215* Profiling support
216
217A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
218be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
219session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
220"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
221data, for more informative profiling results.
222
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223* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
224
225The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
226option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 227"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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228
229Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
230removed.
231
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232Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
233Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
234Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
235 in a subsequent -var-update.
236
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237* New native configurations.
238
239FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
240
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241* Multi-arched targets.
242
b4263afa 243HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 244Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 245
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246* OBSOLETE configurations and files
247
248Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
249been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
250configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
251permanently REMOVED.
252
8b0e5691 253Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 254Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 255H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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256HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
257HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
258HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 259PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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260Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
261 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
262 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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263Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
264Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 265
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266* REMOVED configurations and files
267
268V850EA ISA
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269Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
270IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
271i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
272i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
273i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
274HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
275 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
276 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
277Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
278Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
279Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
280OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
281I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 282
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283* MIPS $fp behavior changed
284
285The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
286the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
287context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
288address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
289The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
290
299ffc64 291*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 292
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293* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
294
295When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
296`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
297in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
298library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
299shared libs like mad''.
300
b9d14705 301* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 302
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303Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
304the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
305arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
306powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 307
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308* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
309
310GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
311and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
312they expand.
313
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314The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
315invocations in expression, and shows the result.
316
317The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
318macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
319
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320Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
321information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
322your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
323information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
324
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325* Multi-arched targets.
326
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327DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
328DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 329NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 330National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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331Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
332Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 333
cd9bfe15 334* New targets.
e33ce519 335
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336Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
337
e33ce519 338
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339* New native configurations
340
341Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 342SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 343MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 344UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 345
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346* OBSOLETE configurations and files
347
348Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
349been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
350configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
351permanently REMOVED.
352
92eb23c5 353Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 354OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 355IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 356Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 357Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 358Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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359i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
360i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
361i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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362HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
363 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
364 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 365I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 366
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367* OBSOLETE languages
368
369CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
370
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371* REMOVED configurations and files
372
373AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
374A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
375AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
376AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
377AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
378
379testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
380
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381* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
382
383This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
384commands. The default is 1024.
385
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386* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
387
388Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
389
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390* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
391
392These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
393to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
394from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 395
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396* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
397
398The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
399including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
400of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
401
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402*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
403
404* New targets.
405
406Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
407
408* Bug fixes
409
410gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
411mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
412Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
413
414gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
415dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
416Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
417
418Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
419Surprisingly enough, it works now.
420By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
421
422i386 hardware watchpoint support:
423avoid misses on second run for some targets.
424By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
425
37057839 426*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 427
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428* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
429
430This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
431really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
432In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
433target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
434This can be a significant performance improvement on some
435(notably embedded) targets.
436
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437* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
438
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439This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
440process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
441GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
442hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 443
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444* New command line option
445
446GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
447
448* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
449
450There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
451command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
452a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
453be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
454open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
455issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
456a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
457it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
458GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
459is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
460
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461* Changes in ARM configurations.
462
463Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
464configuration is fully multi-arch.
465
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466* New native configurations
467
fe419ffc 468ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 469x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 470AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 471Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 472
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473* New targets
474
475Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
476
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477* OBSOLETE configurations and files
478
479Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
480been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
481configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
482permanently REMOVED.
483
484AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
485A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
486AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
487AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
488AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
489
b4ceaee6 490testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 491
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492* REMOVED configurations and files
493
494TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 495WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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496PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
497PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
498PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 499Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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500Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
501 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 502SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 503Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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504Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
505ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 506Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 507
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508* Changes to command line processing
509
510The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
511for the inferior from gdb's command line.
512
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513* Changes to key bindings
514
515There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
516
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517*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
518
519Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
520
521Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
522corrupted.
523
524Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
525
526Numerous documentation fixes.
527
528Numerous testsuite fixes.
529
34f47bc4 530*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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531
532* New native configurations
533
534Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
535x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 536MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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537MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
538ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 539s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 540
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541* New targets
542
def90278 543Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 544CRIS cris-axis
55241689 545UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 546
17e78a56 547* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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548
549x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 550Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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551Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
552 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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553TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
554WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 555Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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556PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
557PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
558PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 559SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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560Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
561ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 562Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 563
17e78a56
AC
564stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
565kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
566
7fcca85b
AC
567Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
568been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
569configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
570permanently REMOVED.
571
a196c81c 572* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
573
574Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
575Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
576Pyramid pyramid-*-*
577ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
578Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 579ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 580
6d6b80e5 581* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 582
6d6b80e5 583GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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584sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
585present.
586
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587* Other news:
588
e23194cb
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589* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
590
591* The MI enabled by default.
592
593The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
594revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
595engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
596using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
597which is now deprecated.
598
599* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
600
601GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
602main features are supported:
603
604 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
605
606 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
607 extension;
608
609 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
610
611 - a Pascal expression parser.
612
613However, some important features are not yet supported.
614
615 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
616
617 - there are some problems with boolean types;
618
619 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
620 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
621
622 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
623
624 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
625
626* Changes in completion.
627
628Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
629to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
630users expect at the shell prompt.
631
632Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
633`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
634program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
635files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
636be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
637considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
638name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
639
640`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
641
642* New platform-independent commands:
643
644It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
645hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
646documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
647
648* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
649
d7275149
MK
650Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
651revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
652many threads as your system allows you to have.
653
e23194cb
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654Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
655
d7275149
MK
656Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
657multi-threaded programs though.
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658
659* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
660
661Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
662
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663GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
664debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
665supported.)
666
667* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
668
669Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
670breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
671implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
672put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
673and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
674registers.
675
676The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
677debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
678watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
679
680* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
681
682New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
683the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
684
685New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
686display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
687IDT.
688
689New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
690from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
691New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
692a given linear address.
693
694GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
695program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
696which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
697
698DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
699
6c56c069
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700It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
701
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702* Changes in documentation.
703
704All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
705Documentation License.
706
707Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
708manual.
709
710TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
711
712Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
713manual.
714
715The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
716documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
717hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
718
5d6640b1
AC
719* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
720
721The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
722``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
723contents of this file.
724
1a1d8446
AC
725* gdba.el deleted
726
727GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 728
9debab2f 729*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 730
c63ce875
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731* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
732
733Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
734programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
735displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
736greater level of detail.
737
738* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
739
740It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
741bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
742on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
743written.
744
745* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
746
747The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
748necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
749machines ``out of the box''.
750
751The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
752possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
753signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
754would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
755interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
756
757It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
758standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
759even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
760and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
761terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
762
763The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
764enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
765also works.
766
767DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
768GDB.
769
770It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
771directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
772times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
773breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
774
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JM
775* New native configurations
776
777ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 778PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 779
7a292a7a
SS
780* New targets
781
96baa820 782Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
783x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
784PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
785TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
786
085dd6e6
JM
787* OBSOLETE configurations
788
789Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
790Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 791Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 792ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 793Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 794
9debab2f
AC
795Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
796but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
797these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
798be permanently REMOVED.
799
5330533d
SS
800* Gould support removed
801
802Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
803
bc9e5bbf
AC
804* New features for SVR4
805
806On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
807without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
808load symbols from the running process's executable file.
809
810* Many C++ enhancements
811
812C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
813in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
814
adf40b2e
JM
815* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
816
817A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
818sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
819with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
820``|<program> <args>'' vis:
821
822 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
823 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
824
43e526b9
JM
825* MIPS 64 remote protocol
826
827A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
828expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
829instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
830
831The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
832added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
833
96baa820
JM
834* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
835
836The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
837``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
838include ``set remote P-packet''.
839
11cf8741
JM
840* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
841
842The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
843accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
844``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
845
7876dd43
DB
846* ``apropos'' command added.
847
848The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
849documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
850try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
851
bc9e5bbf
AC
852* New MI interface
853
854A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
855interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
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856process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
857"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
858enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
859
860 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
861
c906108c
SS
862*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
863
864* New native configurations
865
866HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
867HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 868M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
869
870* New targets
871
872Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
873Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
874Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
875
876* OBSOLETE configurations
877
878Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
879
880Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
881but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
882these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
883be permanently REMOVED.
884
885* ANSI/ISO C
886
887As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
888buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
889containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
890use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
891available. If this is not true, please report the affected
892configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
893information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
894already.
895
896* Readline 2.2
897
898GDB now uses readline 2.2.
899
900* set extension-language
901
902You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
903languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
904you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
905 set extension-language .c c++
906The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
907and their associated languages.
908
909* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
910
911When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
912you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
913PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
914
915 set processor NAME
916
917sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
918following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
919
920 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
921 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
922 403 IBM PowerPC 403
923 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
924 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
925 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
926 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
927 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
928 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
929 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
930 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
931
932At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
933special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
934registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
935only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
936
937* HP-UX support
938
939Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
940more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
941library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
942support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
943for xdb and dbx commands.
944
945* Catchpoints
946
947HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
948generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
949to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
950
951This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
952argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
953output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
954
955* Debugging across forks
956
957On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
958in the inferior.
959
960* TUI
961
962HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
963it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
964configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
965
966* GDB remote protocol additions
967
968A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
969Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
970fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
971allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
972
973For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
974full 64-bit address. The command
975
976 set remoteaddresssize 32
977
978can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
979the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
980will be discarded.
981
982In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
983command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
984
985 maint packet heythere
986
987sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
988disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
989time.
990
991The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
992target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
993downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
994
995* Tracing can collect general expressions
996
997You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
998further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
999doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1000
1001* mask-address variable for Mips
1002
1003For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1004a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1005of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1006
1007* Higher serial baud rates
1008
1009GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1010230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1011to achieve all of these rates.)
1012
1013* i960 simulator
1014
1015The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1016builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1017
1018
1019*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1020
1021* New native configurations
1022
1023Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1024Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1025Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1026PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1027PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1028Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1029Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1030
1031* New targets
1032
1033Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1034Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1035Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1036Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1037MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1038MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1039MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1040Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1041Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1042Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1043NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1044
1045* New debugging protocols
1046
1047ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1048M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1049DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1050PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1051PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1052Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1053
1054* DWARF 2
1055
1056All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1057format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1058information.
1059
1060* Java frontend
1061
1062GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1063only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1064
1065* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1066
1067For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1068loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1069locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1070
1071* Live range splitting
1072
1073GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1074range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1075more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1076
1077* Hurd support
1078
1079GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1080updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1081
1082* ARM Thumb support
1083
1084GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1085instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1086instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1087accordingly.
1088
1089* MIPS16 support
1090
1091GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1092instruction set.
1093
1094* Overlay support
1095
1096GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1097linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1098will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1099control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1100additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1101in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1102
1103* info symbol
1104
1105The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1106the symbol at the specified address.
1107
1108* Trace support
1109
1110The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1111asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1112extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1113includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1114file tracepoint.c for more details.
1115
1116* MIPS simulator
1117
1118Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1119by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1120of most MIPS variants.
1121
1122* Sparc simulator
1123
1124Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1125by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1126Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1127
1128* set architecture
1129
1130For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1131basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1132architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1133the possible architectures.
1134
1135*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1136
1137* New native configurations
1138
1139Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1140M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1141PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1142PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1143PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1144RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1145
1146* New targets
1147
1148ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1149I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1150MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1151MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1152PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1153Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1154Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1155
1156* PowerPC simulator
1157
1158The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1159contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1160PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1161basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1162performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1163
1164* Solaris 2.5
1165
1166GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1167
1168* Windows 95/NT native
1169
1170GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1171To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1172which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1173Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1174ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1175
1176* dont-repeat command
1177
1178If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1179command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1180useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1181extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1182
1183* Send break instead of ^C
1184
1185The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1186rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1187GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1188
1189* Remote protocol timeout
1190
1191The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1192that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1193to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1194
1195* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1196
1197By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1198loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1199stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1200when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1201in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1202
1203Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1204/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1205automatically on hpux10.
1206
1207* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1208
1209Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1210
1211* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1212
1213When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1214may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1215the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1216every character. The default value is 1050.
1217
1218* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1219
1220If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1221a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1222replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1223details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1224remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1225to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1226
1227* Speedups for remote debugging
1228
1229GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1230the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1231and more efficient S-record downloading.
1232
1233* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1234
1235GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1236Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1237
1238*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1239
1240* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1241
1242The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1243can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1244
1245* Remote targets use caching
1246
1247Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1248remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1249it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1250debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1251off' turns the the data cache off.
1252
1253* Remote targets may have threads
1254
1255The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1256in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1257gdb/remote.c for details.
1258
1259* NetROM support
1260
1261If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1262support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1263acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1264write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1265support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1266another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1267sequence is something like
1268
1269 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1270 load <prog>
1271 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1272
1273* Macintosh host
1274
1275GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1276may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1277it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1278available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1279device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1280directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1281scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1282mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1283
1284* Autoconf
1285
1286GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1287but does simplify configuration and building.
1288
1289* hpux10
1290
1291GDB now supports hpux10.
1292
1293*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1294
1295* New native configurations
1296
1297x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1298x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1299NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1300Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1301
1302* New targets
1303
1304A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1305HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1306CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1307PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1308WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1309
1310* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1311
1312GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1313possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1314filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1315the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1316if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1317
1318* Arguments to user-defined commands
1319
1320User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1321Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1322trivial example:
1323define adder
1324 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1325
1326To execute the command use:
1327adder 1 2 3
1328
1329Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1330Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1331use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1332
1333* New `if' and `while' commands
1334
1335This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1336commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1337expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1338execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1339terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1340`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1341if the expression is zero.
1342
1343* Fortran source language mode
1344
1345GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1346Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1347variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1348with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1349Fortran compilers.
1350
1351* Better HPUX support
1352
1353Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1354running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1355processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1356for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1357that behavior do the following before running the program:
1358
1359 adb -w a.out
1360 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1361 control-d
1362
1363This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1364To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1365
1366 adb -w a.out
1367 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1368 control-d
1369
1370You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1371the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1372external linkage.
1373
1374GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1375HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1376
1377* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1378
1379You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1380commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1381current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1382"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1383associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1384configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1385
1386* New DOS host serial code
1387
1388This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1389no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1390a PC's serial port.
1391
1392*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1393
1394* New "complete" command
1395
1396This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1397were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1398
1399* Trailing space optional in prompt
1400
1401"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1402allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1403
1404* Breakpoint hit counts
1405
1406"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1407has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1408can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1409to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1410less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1411that breakpoint.
1412
1413* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1414
1415"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1416an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1417arrays actually contain only short strings.
1418
1419* Shared library breakpoints
1420
1421In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1422breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1423
1424* Hardware watchpoints
1425
1426There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1427targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1428
55241689 1429Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1430
1431* Annotations
1432
1433Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1434and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1435
1436* Improved Irix 5 support
1437
1438GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1439
1440* Improved HPPA support
1441
1442GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1443
1444* New native configurations
1445
1446Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1447HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1448Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1449RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1450
1451* New targets
1452
1453OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1454MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1455Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1456
1457* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1458
1459There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1460This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1461
1462* Fixes
1463
1464As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1465and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1466
1467*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1468
1469* Irix 5 is now supported
1470
1471* HPPA support
1472
1473GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1474to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1475GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1476of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1477can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1478
1479
1480*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1481
1482* User visible changes:
1483
1484* Remote Debugging
1485
1486The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1487target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1488debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1489integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1490debugging info for the mips target).
1491
1492* DEC Alpha native support
1493
1494GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1495debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1496work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1497Alpha-specific notes.
1498
1499* Preliminary thread implementation
1500
1501GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1502
1503* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1504
1505This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1506to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1507for details).
1508
1509* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1510
1511This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1512mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1513call methods, ...etc.
1514
1515*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1516
1517 * User visible changes:
1518
1519Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1520supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1521other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1522somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1523
1524Filename completion now works.
1525
1526When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1527arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1528addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1529
1530All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1531vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1532should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1533your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1534to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1535
1536 * DEC alpha support
1537
1538This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1539cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1540
1541
1542*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1543
1544 * Testsuite
1545
1546This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1547The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1548via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1549
1550 * C++ demangling
1551
1552'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1553emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1554Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1555disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1556use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1557
1558 * Simulators
1559
1560GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1561So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1562Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1563
1564 * New targets supported
1565
1566H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1567H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1568SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1569Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1570IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1571
1572Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1573version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1574GO32 memory extender.
1575
1576 * New remote protocols
1577
1578MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1579
1580 * New source languages supported
1581
1582This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1583used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1584into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1585
1586
1587*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1588
1589 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1590
1591GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1592version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1593University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1594compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1595format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1596(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1597
1598Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1599
1600 * Faster and better demangling
1601
1602We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1603demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1604character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1605only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1606This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1607increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1608symbol lookups.
1609
1610`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1611from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1612compiler does not actually implement.
1613
1614 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1615
1616In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1617inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1618recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1619very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1620The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1621circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1622fix.
1623
1624The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1625release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1626
1627 * Improved configure script
1628
1629The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1630you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1631host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1632done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1633
1634We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1635version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1636`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1637The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1638only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1639We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1640
1641 * Documentation improvements
1642
1643There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1644produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1645before submitting changes.
1646
1647The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1648M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1649`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1650you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1651a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1652
1653*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1654We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1655been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1656or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1657`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1658around this problem.
1659
1660 * New features
1661
1662GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1663the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1664`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1665the target program.
1666
1667The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1668how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1669
1670 * New native hosts supported
1671
1672HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1673386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1674
1675 * New targets supported
1676
1677AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1678
1679 * New file formats supported
1680
1681BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1682HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1683
1684 * Major bug fixes
1685
1686Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1687
1688We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1689printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1690
1691We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1692for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1693release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1694
1695You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1696will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1697
1698We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1699for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1700especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1701libraries.
1702
1703The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1704information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1705command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1706any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1707when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1708
1709 * Internal improvements
1710
1711GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1712debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1713
1714GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1715Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1716symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1717contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1718shared code that handles any of them.
1719
1720 * New command line options
1721
1722We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1723
1724 * Mmalloc licensing
1725
1726The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1727General Public License.
1728
1729*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1730
1731 * Host/native/target split
1732
1733GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1734hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1735target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1736local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1737ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1738
1739The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1740GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1741is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1742code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1743any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1744built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1745handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1746
1747GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1748It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1749plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1750
1751 * New hosts supported
1752
1753HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1754386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1755386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1756
1757 * New targets supported
1758
1759Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
176068030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1761
1762 * New native hosts supported
1763
1764386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1765 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1766386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1767
1768 * New file formats supported
1769
1770BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1771supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1772format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1773
1774 * New commands
1775
1776`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1777`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1778These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1779
1780`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1781
1782You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1783scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1784prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1785executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1786
1787 * C++ improvements
1788
1789We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1790info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1791symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1792
1793Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1794
1795 * Major bug fixes
1796
1797The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1798fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1799by the compiler.
1800
1801We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1802support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1803
1804John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1805slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1806that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1807purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1808the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1809mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1810
1811Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1812about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1813completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1814we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1815
1816 * AMD 29k support
1817
1818A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1819specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1820calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1821usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1822in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1823
1824We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1825Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1826of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1827resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1828
1829 * Remote interfaces
1830
1831We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1832with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1833message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1834This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1835needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1836breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1837each instruction being stepped through.
1838
1839The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1840registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1841
1842There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1843find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1844Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1845processor with a serial port.
1846
1847 * Configuration
1848
1849Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1850`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1851supported, and what files each one uses.
1852
1853 * Library changes
1854
1855There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1856disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1857Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1858disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1859
1860The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1861Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1862can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1863grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1864
1865 * Documentation
1866
1867The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1868reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1869as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1870encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1871system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1872bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1873
1874And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1875
1876
1877*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1878
1879 * Better support for C++ function names
1880
1881GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1882names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1883(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1884single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1885Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1886
1887GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1888the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1889You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1890lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1891for the list of formats.
1892
1893 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1894
1895Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1896C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1897directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1898can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1899usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1900about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1901this problem.)
1902
1903 * New 'maintenance' command
1904
1905All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1906the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1907can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1908
1909 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1910 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1911 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1912 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1913 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1914 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1915
1916The following commands are new:
1917
1918 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1919 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1920 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1921
1922 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1923
1924We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1925(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1926be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1927read after argv processing.
1928
1929 * New hosts supported
1930
1931Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1932
55241689 1933GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1934
1935We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1936is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1937for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1938masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1939fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1940It costs extra.
1941
1942 * New targets supported
1943
1944Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1945
1946 * More smarts about finding #include files
1947
1948GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1949all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1950greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1951especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1952the one that contains your sources.
1953
1954We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1955breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1956try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1957
1958 * Interesting infernals change
1959
1960GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1961section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1962target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1963stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1964
1965 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1966
1967There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1968 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1969 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1970
1971See the ChangeLog for details.
1972
1973*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1974
1975 * New machines supported (host and target)
1976
1977IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1978
1979SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1980
1981 * New malloc package
1982
1983GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1984Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1985capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1986This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1987pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1988more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1989
1990 * info proc
1991
1992The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1993'help info proc' for details.
1994
1995 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1996
1997The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1998Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1999possible.
2000
2001 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2002
2003Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2004support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2005conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2006environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2007that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2008in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2009
2010 * Cross byte order fixes
2011
2012Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2013targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2014
2015 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2016
2017If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2018system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2019`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2020program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2021called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2022Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2023and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2024the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2025option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2026starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2027
2028You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2029the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2030information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2031slower, but makes future operations faster.
2032
2033The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2034build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2035A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2036use is:
2037
2038 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2039
2040The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2041It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2042shared across multiple host platforms.
2043
2044 * longjmp() handling
2045
2046GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2047siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2048all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2049platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2050
2051 * Solaris 2.0
2052
2053Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2054this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2055reading symbols.
2056
2057 * Bug fixes
2058
2059As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2060People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2061crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2062
2063*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2064
2065 * New machines supported (host and target)
2066
2067SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2068 (except core files)
2069BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2070Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2071
2072 * New machines supported (target)
2073
2074AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2075
2076 * C++ support
2077
2078GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2079The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2080per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2081
2082GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2083`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2084extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2085good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2086will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2087released.
2088
2089 * New features for SVR4
2090
2091GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2092shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2093only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2094
2095The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2096on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2097it prints the address mappings of the process.
2098
2099If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2100bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2101
2102 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2103
2104Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2105now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2106skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2107make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2108same code linked statically.
2109
2110 * New Getopt
2111
2112GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2113version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2114continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2115Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2116added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2117future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2118
2119 * Bugs fixed
2120
2121The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2122Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2123See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2124
2125
2126*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2127
2128 * New machines supported (host and target)
2129
2130Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2131NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2132Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2133
2134 * Almost SCO Unix support
2135
2136We had hoped to support:
2137SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2138(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2139that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2140about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2141
2142 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2143
2144GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2145debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2146is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2147send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2148reqired (if any).
2149
2150 * New Readline
2151
2152GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2153is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2154required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2155
2156 * Bugs fixed
2157
2158The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2159Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2160See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2161
2162 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2163
2164GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2165supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2166symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2167
2168Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2169mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2170debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2171mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2172version 2.
2173
2174Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2175really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2176line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2177variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2178situation somewhat.
2179
2180When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2181However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2182methods.
2183
2184We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2185DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2186encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2187
2188
2189*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2190
2191 * Improved configuration
2192
2193Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2194Porting BFD is simpler.
2195
2196 * Stepping improved
2197
2198The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2199of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2200in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2201function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2202
2203 * Bug fixing
2204
2205Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2206
2207 * New host supported (not target)
2208
2209Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2210
2211
2212*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2213
2214 * Multiple source language support
2215
2216GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2217It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2218and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2219language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2220You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2221`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2222
2223 * GDB and Modula-2
2224
2225GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2226currently under development at the State University of New York at
2227Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2228continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2229
2230Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2231debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2232symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2233
2234There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2235in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2236
2237 * set write on/off
2238
2239GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2240a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2241the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2242by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2243effect immediately.
2244
2245 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2246
2247When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2248shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2249The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2250examining core files.
2251
2252 * set listsize
2253
2254You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2255The default is 10.
2256
2257 * New machines supported (host and target)
2258
2259SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2260Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2261Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2262
2263 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2264
2265IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2266
2267 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2268
2269AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2270AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2271Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2272
2273 * New remote interfaces
2274
2275AMD 29000 Adapt
2276AMD 29000 Minimon
2277
2278
2279*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2280
2281 * New Facilities
2282
2283Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2284
2285Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2286target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2287is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2288remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2289remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2290also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2291using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2292stub on the target system.
2293
2294New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2295
2296GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2297library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2298object file types such as a.out and coff.
2299
2300There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2301refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2302
2303
2304 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2305
2306All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2307by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2308
2309For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2310``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2311Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2312
2313What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2314print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2315will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2316all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2317
2318confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2319 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2320 it is already running. Default is ON.
2321
2322editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2323 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2324 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2325 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2326 Default is ON.
2327
2328history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2329 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2330 or the value of the environment variable
2331 GDBHISTFILE.
2332
2333history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2334 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2335 HISTSIZE.
2336
2337history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2338 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2339 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2340
2341history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2342 history expansion will be performed on
2343 command line input. The default is OFF.
2344
2345radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2346 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2347 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2348
2349height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2350 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2351 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2352 variable TERM.
2353
2354width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2355 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2356 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2357 variable TERM.
2358
2359Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2360``set width'' instead.
2361
2362print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2363 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2364 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2365 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2366
2367print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2368 is OFF.
2369
2370print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2371 "raw" form if off.
2372
2373print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2374 like instructions.
2375
2376print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2377
2378
2379 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2380
2381The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2382new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2383are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2384window.
2385
2386
2387 * Support for Shared Libraries
2388
2389GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2390Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2391before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2392happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2393At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2394from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2395shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2396It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2397
2398sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2399 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2400 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2401
2402info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2403
2404
2405 * Watchpoints
2406
2407A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2408expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2409tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2410quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2411problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2412more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2413
2414watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2415
2416info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2417
2418delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2419disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2420enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2421
2422
2423 * C++ multiple inheritance
2424
2425When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2426for C++ programs.
2427
2428 * C++ exception handling
2429
2430Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2431ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2432the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2433handler's context).
2434
2435catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2436 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2437 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2438
2439info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2440 current stack frame.
2441
2442
2443 * Minor command changes
2444
2445The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2446command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2447is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2448
2449The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2450at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2451frames without printing.
2452
2453 * New directory command
2454
2455'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2456The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2457about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2458with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2459find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2460
2461 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2462
2463For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2464for more details.
2465
2466GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2467two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2468Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2469where the program that you are debugging will run.
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