* i386-sol2-tdep.c: Include "gdb_string.h".
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
faae5abe
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.1:
5
3c7012f5
AC
6* REMOVED configurations and files
7
8Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
9Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
10Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
11Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
12Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
13AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
14Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
15decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
16riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
17sonymips mips-sony-*
18sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
19
faae5abe 20*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 21
9175c9a3
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22* Removed --with-mmalloc
23
24Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
25conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
26
3cc87ec0
MK
27* Changes in AMD64 configurations
28
29The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
30the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
31and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
32you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
33
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34* Revised SPARC target
35
36The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
37FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
38support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
39from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
40(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 41
59659be2
ILT
42* New C++ demangler
43
44GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
45names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
46with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
47programs.
48
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49* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
50
51GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
52arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
53encountered these.
54
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55* C++ nested types and namespaces
56
57GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
58improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
59is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
60Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
61namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
62"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
63frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
64if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
65GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
66
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67* New native configurations
68
69NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 70OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 71OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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72OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
73OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 74
b4b4b794
KI
75* New debugging protocols
76
77M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
78
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79* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
80
81The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
82and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
83tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
84
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85* OBSOLETE configurations and files
86
87Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
88been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
89configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
90permanently REMOVED.
91
92Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
93Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
94Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
95Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
96Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
97AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
98Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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99decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
100riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
101sonymips mips-sony-*
102sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 103
0ddabb4c
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104* REMOVED configurations and files
105
106SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
107SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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108Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
109Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
110H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
111HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
112HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
113HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
114PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 115386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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116Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
117 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
118 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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119SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
120SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
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121Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
122Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 123
c7f1390e
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124*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
125
1fe43d45
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126* Objective-C
127
128Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
129integrated into GDB.
130
e6beb428
AC
131* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
132
133DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
134information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
135By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
136backtraces.
137
138The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
139have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
140DWARF 2 CFI support.
141
142* Hosted file I/O.
143
144GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
145file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
146remote protocol documentation for details.
147
148* All targets using the new architecture framework.
149
150All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
151architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
152to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
153ppc32 on ppc64).
154
155* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
156
157GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
158per-thread variables.
159
160* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
161
162GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
163GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
164
165* Separate debug info.
166
167GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
168automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
169of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
170system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
171and optional debug files.
172
173* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
174
175DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
176describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
177debugger.
178
179GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
180for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
181
182* Java
183
184A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
185Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
186considered "useable".
187
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188* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
189
190The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
191commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
192kernel.
193
0fac0b41
DJ
194* GDB supports logging output to a file
195
196There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
197used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 198
6ad8ae5c
DJ
199* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
200
201The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
202disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
203command.
204
e286caf2 205* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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206
207The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
208registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
209
d28f9cdf
DJ
210* Profiling support
211
212A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
213be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
214session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
215"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
216data, for more informative profiling results.
217
da0f9dcd
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218* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
219
220The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
221option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 222"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
223
224Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
225removed.
226
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227Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
228Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
229Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
230 in a subsequent -var-update.
231
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232* New native configurations.
233
234FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
235
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236* Multi-arched targets.
237
b4263afa 238HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 239Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 240
1b831c93
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241* OBSOLETE configurations and files
242
243Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
244been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
245configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
246permanently REMOVED.
247
8b0e5691 248Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 249Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 250H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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AC
251HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
252HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
253HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 254PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
255Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
256 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
257 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
258Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
259Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 260
5835abe7
NC
261* REMOVED configurations and files
262
263V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
264Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
265IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
266i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
267i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
268i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
269HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
270 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
271 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
272Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
273Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
274Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
275OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
276I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 277
a094c6fb
AC
278* MIPS $fp behavior changed
279
280The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
281the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
282context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
283address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
284The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
285
299ffc64 286*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 287
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288* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
289
290When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
291`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
292in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
293library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
294shared libs like mad''.
295
b9d14705 296* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 297
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DJ
298Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
299the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
300arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
301powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 302
e0e9281e
JB
303* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
304
305GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
306and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
307they expand.
308
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AC
309The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
310invocations in expression, and shows the result.
311
312The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
313macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
314
e0e9281e
JB
315Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
316information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
317your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
318information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
319
2250ee0c
CV
320* Multi-arched targets.
321
6e3ba3b8
JT
322DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
323DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 324NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 325National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
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326Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
327Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 328
cd9bfe15 329* New targets.
e33ce519 330
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331Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
332
e33ce519 333
da8ca43d
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334* New native configurations
335
336Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 337SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 338MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 339UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 340
cd9bfe15
AC
341* OBSOLETE configurations and files
342
343Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
344been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
345configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
346permanently REMOVED.
347
92eb23c5 348Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 349OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 350IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 351Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 352Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 353Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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354i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
355i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
356i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
357HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
358 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
359 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 360I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 361
db034ac5
AC
362* OBSOLETE languages
363
364CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
365
cd9bfe15
AC
366* REMOVED configurations and files
367
368AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
369A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
370AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
371AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
372AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
373
374testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
375
20f01a46
DH
376* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
377
378This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
379commands. The default is 1024.
380
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381* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
382
383Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
384
89743e04
MS
385* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
386
387These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
388to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
389from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 390
9fb14e79
JB
391* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
392
393The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
394including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
395of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
396
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AC
397*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
398
399* New targets.
400
401Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
402
403* Bug fixes
404
405gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
406mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
407Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
408
409gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
410dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
411Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
412
413Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
414Surprisingly enough, it works now.
415By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
416
417i386 hardware watchpoint support:
418avoid misses on second run for some targets.
419By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
420
37057839 421*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 422
1a703748
MS
423* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
424
425This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
426really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
427In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
428target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
429This can be a significant performance improvement on some
430(notably embedded) targets.
431
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432* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
433
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AC
434This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
435process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
436GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
437hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 438
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MS
439* New command line option
440
441GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
442
443* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
444
445There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
446command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
447a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
448be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
449open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
450issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
451a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
452it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
453GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
454is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
455
fe419ffc
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456* Changes in ARM configurations.
457
458Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
459configuration is fully multi-arch.
460
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461* New native configurations
462
fe419ffc 463ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 464x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 465AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 466Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 467
c9f63e6b
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468* New targets
469
470Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
471
9b4ff276
AC
472* OBSOLETE configurations and files
473
474Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
475been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
476configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
477permanently REMOVED.
478
479AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
480A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
481AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
482AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
483AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
484
b4ceaee6 485testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 486
e2caac18
AC
487* REMOVED configurations and files
488
489TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 490WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
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491PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
492PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
493PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 494Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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AC
495Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
496 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 497SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 498Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
499Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
500ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 501Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 502
c2a727fa
TT
503* Changes to command line processing
504
505The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
506for the inferior from gdb's command line.
507
467d8519
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508* Changes to key bindings
509
510There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
511
7072a954
AC
512*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
513
514Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
515
516Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
517corrupted.
518
519Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
520
521Numerous documentation fixes.
522
523Numerous testsuite fixes.
524
34f47bc4 525*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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526
527* New native configurations
528
529Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
530x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 531MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
532MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
533ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 534s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 535
bf64bfd6
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536* New targets
537
def90278 538Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 539CRIS cris-axis
55241689 540UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 541
17e78a56 542* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
543
544x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 545Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
546Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
547 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
548TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
549WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 550Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
551PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
552PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
553PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 554SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
555Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
556ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 557Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 558
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559stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
560kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
561
7fcca85b
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562Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
563been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
564configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
565permanently REMOVED.
566
a196c81c 567* REMOVED configurations and files
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568
569Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
570Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
571Pyramid pyramid-*-*
572ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
573Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 574ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 575
6d6b80e5 576* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 577
6d6b80e5 578GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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579sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
580present.
581
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582* Other news:
583
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584* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
585
586* The MI enabled by default.
587
588The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
589revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
590engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
591using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
592which is now deprecated.
593
594* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
595
596GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
597main features are supported:
598
599 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
600
601 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
602 extension;
603
604 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
605
606 - a Pascal expression parser.
607
608However, some important features are not yet supported.
609
610 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
611
612 - there are some problems with boolean types;
613
614 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
615 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
616
617 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
618
619 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
620
621* Changes in completion.
622
623Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
624to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
625users expect at the shell prompt.
626
627Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
628`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
629program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
630files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
631be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
632considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
633name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
634
635`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
636
637* New platform-independent commands:
638
639It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
640hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
641documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
642
643* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
644
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645Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
646revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
647many threads as your system allows you to have.
648
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649Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
650
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MK
651Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
652multi-threaded programs though.
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653
654* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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655
656Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
657
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658GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
659debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
660supported.)
661
662* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
663
664Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
665breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
666implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
667put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
668and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
669registers.
670
671The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
672debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
673watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
674
675* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
676
677New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
678the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
679
680New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
681display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
682IDT.
683
684New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
685from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
686New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
687a given linear address.
688
689GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
690program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
691which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
692
693DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
694
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695It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
696
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697* Changes in documentation.
698
699All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
700Documentation License.
701
702Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
703manual.
704
705TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
706
707Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
708manual.
709
710The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
711documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
712hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
713
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714* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
715
716The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
717``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
718contents of this file.
719
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AC
720* gdba.el deleted
721
722GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 723
9debab2f 724*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 725
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726* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
727
728Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
729programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
730displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
731greater level of detail.
732
733* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
734
735It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
736bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
737on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
738written.
739
740* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
741
742The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
743necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
744machines ``out of the box''.
745
746The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
747possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
748signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
749would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
750interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
751
752It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
753standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
754even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
755and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
756terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
757
758The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
759enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
760also works.
761
762DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
763GDB.
764
765It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
766directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
767times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
768breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
769
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JM
770* New native configurations
771
772ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 773PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 774
7a292a7a
SS
775* New targets
776
96baa820 777Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
778x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
779PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
780TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
781
085dd6e6
JM
782* OBSOLETE configurations
783
784Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
785Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 786Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 787ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 788Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 789
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AC
790Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
791but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
792these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
793be permanently REMOVED.
794
5330533d
SS
795* Gould support removed
796
797Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
798
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AC
799* New features for SVR4
800
801On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
802without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
803load symbols from the running process's executable file.
804
805* Many C++ enhancements
806
807C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
808in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
809
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810* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
811
812A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
813sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
814with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
815``|<program> <args>'' vis:
816
817 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
818 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
819
43e526b9
JM
820* MIPS 64 remote protocol
821
822A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
823expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
824instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
825
826The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
827added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
828
96baa820
JM
829* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
830
831The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
832``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
833include ``set remote P-packet''.
834
11cf8741
JM
835* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
836
837The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
838accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
839``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
840
7876dd43
DB
841* ``apropos'' command added.
842
843The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
844documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
845try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
846
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847* New MI interface
848
849A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
850interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
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851process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
852"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
853enabled by configuring with:
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AC
854
855 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
856
c906108c
SS
857*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
858
859* New native configurations
860
861HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
862HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 863M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
864
865* New targets
866
867Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
868Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
869Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
870
871* OBSOLETE configurations
872
873Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
874
875Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
876but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
877these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
878be permanently REMOVED.
879
880* ANSI/ISO C
881
882As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
883buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
884containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
885use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
886available. If this is not true, please report the affected
887configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
888information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
889already.
890
891* Readline 2.2
892
893GDB now uses readline 2.2.
894
895* set extension-language
896
897You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
898languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
899you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
900 set extension-language .c c++
901The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
902and their associated languages.
903
904* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
905
906When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
907you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
908PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
909
910 set processor NAME
911
912sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
913following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
914
915 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
916 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
917 403 IBM PowerPC 403
918 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
919 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
920 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
921 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
922 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
923 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
924 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
925 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
926
927At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
928special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
929registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
930only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
931
932* HP-UX support
933
934Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
935more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
936library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
937support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
938for xdb and dbx commands.
939
940* Catchpoints
941
942HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
943generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
944to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
945
946This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
947argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
948output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
949
950* Debugging across forks
951
952On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
953in the inferior.
954
955* TUI
956
957HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
958it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
959configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
960
961* GDB remote protocol additions
962
963A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
964Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
965fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
966allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
967
968For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
969full 64-bit address. The command
970
971 set remoteaddresssize 32
972
973can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
974the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
975will be discarded.
976
977In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
978command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
979
980 maint packet heythere
981
982sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
983disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
984time.
985
986The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
987target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
988downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
989
990* Tracing can collect general expressions
991
992You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
993further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
994doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
995
996* mask-address variable for Mips
997
998For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
999a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1000of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1001
1002* Higher serial baud rates
1003
1004GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1005230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1006to achieve all of these rates.)
1007
1008* i960 simulator
1009
1010The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1011builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1012
1013
1014*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1015
1016* New native configurations
1017
1018Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1019Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1020Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1021PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1022PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1023Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1024Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1025
1026* New targets
1027
1028Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1029Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1030Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1031Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1032MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1033MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1034MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1035Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1036Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1037Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1038NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1039
1040* New debugging protocols
1041
1042ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1043M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1044DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1045PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1046PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1047Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1048
1049* DWARF 2
1050
1051All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1052format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1053information.
1054
1055* Java frontend
1056
1057GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1058only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1059
1060* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1061
1062For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1063loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1064locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1065
1066* Live range splitting
1067
1068GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1069range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1070more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1071
1072* Hurd support
1073
1074GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1075updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1076
1077* ARM Thumb support
1078
1079GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1080instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1081instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1082accordingly.
1083
1084* MIPS16 support
1085
1086GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1087instruction set.
1088
1089* Overlay support
1090
1091GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1092linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1093will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1094control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1095additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1096in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1097
1098* info symbol
1099
1100The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1101the symbol at the specified address.
1102
1103* Trace support
1104
1105The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1106asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1107extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1108includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1109file tracepoint.c for more details.
1110
1111* MIPS simulator
1112
1113Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1114by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1115of most MIPS variants.
1116
1117* Sparc simulator
1118
1119Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1120by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1121Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1122
1123* set architecture
1124
1125For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1126basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1127architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1128the possible architectures.
1129
1130*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1131
1132* New native configurations
1133
1134Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1135M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1136PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1137PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1138PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1139RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1140
1141* New targets
1142
1143ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1144I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1145MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1146MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1147PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1148Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1149Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1150
1151* PowerPC simulator
1152
1153The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1154contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1155PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1156basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1157performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1158
1159* Solaris 2.5
1160
1161GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1162
1163* Windows 95/NT native
1164
1165GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1166To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1167which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1168Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1169ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1170
1171* dont-repeat command
1172
1173If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1174command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1175useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1176extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1177
1178* Send break instead of ^C
1179
1180The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1181rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1182GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1183
1184* Remote protocol timeout
1185
1186The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1187that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1188to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1189
1190* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1191
1192By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1193loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1194stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1195when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1196in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1197
1198Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1199/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1200automatically on hpux10.
1201
1202* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1203
1204Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1205
1206* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1207
1208When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1209may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1210the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1211every character. The default value is 1050.
1212
1213* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1214
1215If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1216a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1217replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1218details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1219remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1220to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1221
1222* Speedups for remote debugging
1223
1224GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1225the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1226and more efficient S-record downloading.
1227
1228* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1229
1230GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1231Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1232
1233*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1234
1235* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1236
1237The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1238can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1239
1240* Remote targets use caching
1241
1242Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1243remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1244it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1245debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1246off' turns the the data cache off.
1247
1248* Remote targets may have threads
1249
1250The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1251in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1252gdb/remote.c for details.
1253
1254* NetROM support
1255
1256If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1257support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1258acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1259write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1260support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1261another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1262sequence is something like
1263
1264 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1265 load <prog>
1266 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1267
1268* Macintosh host
1269
1270GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1271may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1272it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1273available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1274device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1275directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1276scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1277mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1278
1279* Autoconf
1280
1281GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1282but does simplify configuration and building.
1283
1284* hpux10
1285
1286GDB now supports hpux10.
1287
1288*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1289
1290* New native configurations
1291
1292x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1293x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1294NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1295Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1296
1297* New targets
1298
1299A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1300HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1301CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1302PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1303WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1304
1305* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1306
1307GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1308possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1309filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1310the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1311if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1312
1313* Arguments to user-defined commands
1314
1315User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1316Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1317trivial example:
1318define adder
1319 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1320
1321To execute the command use:
1322adder 1 2 3
1323
1324Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1325Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1326use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1327
1328* New `if' and `while' commands
1329
1330This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1331commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1332expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1333execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1334terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1335`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1336if the expression is zero.
1337
1338* Fortran source language mode
1339
1340GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1341Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1342variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1343with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1344Fortran compilers.
1345
1346* Better HPUX support
1347
1348Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1349running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1350processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1351for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1352that behavior do the following before running the program:
1353
1354 adb -w a.out
1355 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1356 control-d
1357
1358This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1359To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1360
1361 adb -w a.out
1362 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1363 control-d
1364
1365You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1366the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1367external linkage.
1368
1369GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1370HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1371
1372* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1373
1374You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1375commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1376current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1377"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1378associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1379configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1380
1381* New DOS host serial code
1382
1383This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1384no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1385a PC's serial port.
1386
1387*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1388
1389* New "complete" command
1390
1391This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1392were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1393
1394* Trailing space optional in prompt
1395
1396"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1397allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1398
1399* Breakpoint hit counts
1400
1401"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1402has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1403can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1404to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1405less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1406that breakpoint.
1407
1408* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1409
1410"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1411an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1412arrays actually contain only short strings.
1413
1414* Shared library breakpoints
1415
1416In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1417breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1418
1419* Hardware watchpoints
1420
1421There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1422targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1423
55241689 1424Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1425
1426* Annotations
1427
1428Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1429and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1430
1431* Improved Irix 5 support
1432
1433GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1434
1435* Improved HPPA support
1436
1437GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1438
1439* New native configurations
1440
1441Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1442HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1443Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1444RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1445
1446* New targets
1447
1448OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1449MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1450Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1451
1452* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1453
1454There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1455This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1456
1457* Fixes
1458
1459As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1460and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1461
1462*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1463
1464* Irix 5 is now supported
1465
1466* HPPA support
1467
1468GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1469to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1470GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1471of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1472can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1473
1474
1475*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1476
1477* User visible changes:
1478
1479* Remote Debugging
1480
1481The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1482target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1483debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1484integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1485debugging info for the mips target).
1486
1487* DEC Alpha native support
1488
1489GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1490debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1491work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1492Alpha-specific notes.
1493
1494* Preliminary thread implementation
1495
1496GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1497
1498* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1499
1500This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1501to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1502for details).
1503
1504* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1505
1506This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1507mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1508call methods, ...etc.
1509
1510*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1511
1512 * User visible changes:
1513
1514Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1515supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1516other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1517somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1518
1519Filename completion now works.
1520
1521When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1522arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1523addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1524
1525All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1526vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1527should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1528your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1529to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1530
1531 * DEC alpha support
1532
1533This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1534cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1535
1536
1537*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1538
1539 * Testsuite
1540
1541This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1542The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1543via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1544
1545 * C++ demangling
1546
1547'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1548emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1549Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1550disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1551use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1552
1553 * Simulators
1554
1555GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1556So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1557Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1558
1559 * New targets supported
1560
1561H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1562H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1563SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1564Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1565IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1566
1567Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1568version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1569GO32 memory extender.
1570
1571 * New remote protocols
1572
1573MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1574
1575 * New source languages supported
1576
1577This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1578used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1579into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1580
1581
1582*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1583
1584 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1585
1586GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1587version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1588University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1589compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1590format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1591(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1592
1593Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1594
1595 * Faster and better demangling
1596
1597We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1598demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1599character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1600only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1601This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1602increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1603symbol lookups.
1604
1605`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1606from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1607compiler does not actually implement.
1608
1609 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1610
1611In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1612inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1613recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1614very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1615The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1616circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1617fix.
1618
1619The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1620release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1621
1622 * Improved configure script
1623
1624The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1625you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1626host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1627done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1628
1629We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1630version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1631`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1632The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1633only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1634We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1635
1636 * Documentation improvements
1637
1638There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1639produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1640before submitting changes.
1641
1642The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1643M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1644`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1645you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1646a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1647
1648*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1649We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1650been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1651or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1652`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1653around this problem.
1654
1655 * New features
1656
1657GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1658the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1659`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1660the target program.
1661
1662The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1663how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1664
1665 * New native hosts supported
1666
1667HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1668386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1669
1670 * New targets supported
1671
1672AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1673
1674 * New file formats supported
1675
1676BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1677HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1678
1679 * Major bug fixes
1680
1681Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1682
1683We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1684printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1685
1686We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1687for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1688release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1689
1690You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1691will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1692
1693We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1694for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1695especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1696libraries.
1697
1698The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1699information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1700command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1701any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1702when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1703
1704 * Internal improvements
1705
1706GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1707debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1708
1709GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1710Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1711symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1712contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1713shared code that handles any of them.
1714
1715 * New command line options
1716
1717We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1718
1719 * Mmalloc licensing
1720
1721The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1722General Public License.
1723
1724*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1725
1726 * Host/native/target split
1727
1728GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1729hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1730target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1731local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1732ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1733
1734The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1735GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1736is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1737code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1738any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1739built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1740handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1741
1742GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1743It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1744plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1745
1746 * New hosts supported
1747
1748HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1749386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1750386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1751
1752 * New targets supported
1753
1754Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
175568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1756
1757 * New native hosts supported
1758
1759386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1760 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1761386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1762
1763 * New file formats supported
1764
1765BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1766supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1767format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1768
1769 * New commands
1770
1771`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1772`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1773These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1774
1775`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1776
1777You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1778scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1779prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1780executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1781
1782 * C++ improvements
1783
1784We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1785info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1786symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1787
1788Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1789
1790 * Major bug fixes
1791
1792The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1793fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1794by the compiler.
1795
1796We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1797support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1798
1799John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1800slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1801that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1802purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1803the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1804mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1805
1806Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1807about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1808completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1809we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1810
1811 * AMD 29k support
1812
1813A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1814specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1815calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1816usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1817in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1818
1819We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1820Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1821of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1822resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1823
1824 * Remote interfaces
1825
1826We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1827with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1828message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1829This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1830needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1831breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1832each instruction being stepped through.
1833
1834The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1835registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1836
1837There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1838find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1839Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1840processor with a serial port.
1841
1842 * Configuration
1843
1844Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1845`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1846supported, and what files each one uses.
1847
1848 * Library changes
1849
1850There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1851disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1852Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1853disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1854
1855The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1856Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1857can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1858grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1859
1860 * Documentation
1861
1862The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1863reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1864as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1865encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1866system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1867bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1868
1869And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1870
1871
1872*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1873
1874 * Better support for C++ function names
1875
1876GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1877names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1878(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1879single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1880Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1881
1882GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1883the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1884You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1885lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1886for the list of formats.
1887
1888 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1889
1890Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1891C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1892directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1893can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1894usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1895about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1896this problem.)
1897
1898 * New 'maintenance' command
1899
1900All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1901the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1902can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1903
1904 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1905 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1906 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1907 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1908 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1909 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1910
1911The following commands are new:
1912
1913 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1914 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1915 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1916
1917 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1918
1919We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1920(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1921be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1922read after argv processing.
1923
1924 * New hosts supported
1925
1926Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1927
55241689 1928GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1929
1930We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1931is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1932for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1933masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1934fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1935It costs extra.
1936
1937 * New targets supported
1938
1939Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1940
1941 * More smarts about finding #include files
1942
1943GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1944all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1945greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1946especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1947the one that contains your sources.
1948
1949We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1950breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1951try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1952
1953 * Interesting infernals change
1954
1955GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1956section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1957target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1958stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1959
1960 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1961
1962There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1963 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1964 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1965
1966See the ChangeLog for details.
1967
1968*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1969
1970 * New machines supported (host and target)
1971
1972IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1973
1974SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1975
1976 * New malloc package
1977
1978GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1979Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1980capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1981This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1982pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1983more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1984
1985 * info proc
1986
1987The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1988'help info proc' for details.
1989
1990 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1991
1992The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1993Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1994possible.
1995
1996 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1997
1998Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1999support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2000conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2001environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2002that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2003in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2004
2005 * Cross byte order fixes
2006
2007Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2008targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2009
2010 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2011
2012If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2013system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2014`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2015program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2016called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2017Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2018and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2019the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2020option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2021starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2022
2023You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2024the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2025information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2026slower, but makes future operations faster.
2027
2028The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2029build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2030A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2031use is:
2032
2033 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2034
2035The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2036It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2037shared across multiple host platforms.
2038
2039 * longjmp() handling
2040
2041GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2042siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2043all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2044platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2045
2046 * Solaris 2.0
2047
2048Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2049this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2050reading symbols.
2051
2052 * Bug fixes
2053
2054As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2055People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2056crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2057
2058*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2059
2060 * New machines supported (host and target)
2061
2062SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2063 (except core files)
2064BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2065Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2066
2067 * New machines supported (target)
2068
2069AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2070
2071 * C++ support
2072
2073GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2074The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2075per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2076
2077GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2078`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2079extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2080good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2081will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2082released.
2083
2084 * New features for SVR4
2085
2086GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2087shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2088only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2089
2090The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2091on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2092it prints the address mappings of the process.
2093
2094If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2095bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2096
2097 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2098
2099Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2100now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2101skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2102make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2103same code linked statically.
2104
2105 * New Getopt
2106
2107GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2108version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2109continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2110Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2111added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2112future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2113
2114 * Bugs fixed
2115
2116The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2117Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2118See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2119
2120
2121*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2122
2123 * New machines supported (host and target)
2124
2125Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2126NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2127Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2128
2129 * Almost SCO Unix support
2130
2131We had hoped to support:
2132SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2133(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2134that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2135about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2136
2137 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2138
2139GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2140debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2141is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2142send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2143reqired (if any).
2144
2145 * New Readline
2146
2147GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2148is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2149required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2150
2151 * Bugs fixed
2152
2153The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2154Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2155See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2156
2157 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2158
2159GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2160supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2161symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2162
2163Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2164mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2165debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2166mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2167version 2.
2168
2169Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2170really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2171line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2172variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2173situation somewhat.
2174
2175When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2176However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2177methods.
2178
2179We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2180DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2181encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2182
2183
2184*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2185
2186 * Improved configuration
2187
2188Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2189Porting BFD is simpler.
2190
2191 * Stepping improved
2192
2193The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2194of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2195in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2196function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2197
2198 * Bug fixing
2199
2200Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2201
2202 * New host supported (not target)
2203
2204Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2205
2206
2207*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2208
2209 * Multiple source language support
2210
2211GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2212It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2213and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2214language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2215You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2216`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2217
2218 * GDB and Modula-2
2219
2220GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2221currently under development at the State University of New York at
2222Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2223continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2224
2225Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2226debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2227symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2228
2229There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2230in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2231
2232 * set write on/off
2233
2234GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2235a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2236the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2237by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2238effect immediately.
2239
2240 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2241
2242When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2243shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2244The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2245examining core files.
2246
2247 * set listsize
2248
2249You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2250The default is 10.
2251
2252 * New machines supported (host and target)
2253
2254SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2255Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2256Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2257
2258 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2259
2260IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2261
2262 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2263
2264AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2265AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2266Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2267
2268 * New remote interfaces
2269
2270AMD 29000 Adapt
2271AMD 29000 Minimon
2272
2273
2274*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2275
2276 * New Facilities
2277
2278Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2279
2280Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2281target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2282is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2283remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2284remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2285also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2286using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2287stub on the target system.
2288
2289New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2290
2291GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2292library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2293object file types such as a.out and coff.
2294
2295There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2296refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2297
2298
2299 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2300
2301All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2302by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2303
2304For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2305``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2306Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2307
2308What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2309print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2310will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2311all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2312
2313confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2314 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2315 it is already running. Default is ON.
2316
2317editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2318 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2319 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2320 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2321 Default is ON.
2322
2323history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2324 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2325 or the value of the environment variable
2326 GDBHISTFILE.
2327
2328history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2329 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2330 HISTSIZE.
2331
2332history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2333 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2334 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2335
2336history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2337 history expansion will be performed on
2338 command line input. The default is OFF.
2339
2340radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2341 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2342 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2343
2344height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2345 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2346 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2347 variable TERM.
2348
2349width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2350 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2351 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2352 variable TERM.
2353
2354Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2355``set width'' instead.
2356
2357print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2358 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2359 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2360 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2361
2362print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2363 is OFF.
2364
2365print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2366 "raw" form if off.
2367
2368print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2369 like instructions.
2370
2371print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2372
2373
2374 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2375
2376The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2377new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2378are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2379window.
2380
2381
2382 * Support for Shared Libraries
2383
2384GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2385Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2386before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2387happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2388At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2389from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2390shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2391It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2392
2393sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2394 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2395 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2396
2397info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2398
2399
2400 * Watchpoints
2401
2402A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2403expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2404tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2405quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2406problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2407more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2408
2409watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2410
2411info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2412
2413delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2414disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2415enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2416
2417
2418 * C++ multiple inheritance
2419
2420When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2421for C++ programs.
2422
2423 * C++ exception handling
2424
2425Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2426ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2427the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2428handler's context).
2429
2430catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2431 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2432 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2433
2434info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2435 current stack frame.
2436
2437
2438 * Minor command changes
2439
2440The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2441command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2442is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2443
2444The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2445at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2446frames without printing.
2447
2448 * New directory command
2449
2450'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2451The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2452about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2453with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2454find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2455
2456 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2457
2458For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2459for more details.
2460
2461GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2462two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2463Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2464where the program that you are debugging will run.
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