* config/tc-hppa.c: Fix comment typos.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.0:
5
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6* New native configurations
7
8NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
9
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10* New debugging protocols
11
12M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
13
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14* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
15
16The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
17and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
18tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
19
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20* REMOVED configurations and files
21
22SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
23SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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24Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
25Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
26H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
27HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
28HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
29HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
30PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
31Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
32 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
33 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
34Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
35Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 36
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37*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
38
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39* Objective-C
40
41Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
42integrated into GDB.
43
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44* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
45
46DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
47information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
48By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
49backtraces.
50
51The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
52have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
53DWARF 2 CFI support.
54
55* Hosted file I/O.
56
57GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
58file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
59remote protocol documentation for details.
60
61* All targets using the new architecture framework.
62
63All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
64architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
65to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
66ppc32 on ppc64).
67
68* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
69
70GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
71per-thread variables.
72
73* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
74
75GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
76GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
77
78* Separate debug info.
79
80GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
81automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
82of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
83system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
84and optional debug files.
85
86* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
87
88DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
89describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
90debugger.
91
92GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
93for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
94
95* Java
96
97A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
98Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
99considered "useable".
100
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101* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
102
103The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
104commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
105kernel.
106
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107* GDB supports logging output to a file
108
109There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
110used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 111
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112* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
113
114The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
115disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
116command.
117
e286caf2 118* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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119
120The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
121registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
122
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123* Profiling support
124
125A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
126be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
127session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
128"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
129data, for more informative profiling results.
130
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131* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
132
133The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
134option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 135"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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136
137Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
138removed.
139
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140Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
141Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
142Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
143 in a subsequent -var-update.
144
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145* New native configurations.
146
147FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
148
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149* Multi-arched targets.
150
b4263afa 151HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 152Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 153
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154* OBSOLETE configurations and files
155
156Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
157been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
158configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
159permanently REMOVED.
160
8b0e5691 161Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 162Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 163H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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164HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
165HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
166HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 167PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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168Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
169 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
170 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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171Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
172Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 173
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174* REMOVED configurations and files
175
176V850EA ISA
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177Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
178IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
179i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
180i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
181i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
182HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
183 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
184 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
185Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
186Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
187Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
188OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
189I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 190
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191* MIPS $fp behavior changed
192
193The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
194the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
195context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
196address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
197The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
198
299ffc64 199*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 200
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201* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
202
203When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
204`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
205in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
206library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
207shared libs like mad''.
208
b9d14705 209* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 210
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211Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
212the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
213arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
214powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 215
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216* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
217
218GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
219and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
220they expand.
221
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222The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
223invocations in expression, and shows the result.
224
225The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
226macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
227
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228Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
229information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
230your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
231information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
232
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233* Multi-arched targets.
234
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235DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
236DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 237NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 238National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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239Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
240Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 241
cd9bfe15 242* New targets.
e33ce519 243
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244Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
245
e33ce519 246
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247* New native configurations
248
249Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 250SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 251MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 252UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 253
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254* OBSOLETE configurations and files
255
256Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
257been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
258configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
259permanently REMOVED.
260
92eb23c5 261Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 262OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 263IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 264Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 265Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 266Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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267i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
268i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
269i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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270HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
271 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
272 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 273I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 274
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275* OBSOLETE languages
276
277CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
278
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279* REMOVED configurations and files
280
281AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
282A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
283AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
284AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
285AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
286
287testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
288
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289* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
290
291This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
292commands. The default is 1024.
293
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294* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
295
296Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
297
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298* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
299
300These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
301to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
302from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 303
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304* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
305
306The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
307including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
308of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
309
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310*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
311
312* New targets.
313
314Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
315
316* Bug fixes
317
318gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
319mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
320Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
321
322gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
323dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
324Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
325
326Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
327Surprisingly enough, it works now.
328By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
329
330i386 hardware watchpoint support:
331avoid misses on second run for some targets.
332By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
333
37057839 334*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 335
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336* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
337
338This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
339really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
340In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
341target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
342This can be a significant performance improvement on some
343(notably embedded) targets.
344
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345* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
346
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347This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
348process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
349GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
350hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 351
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352* New command line option
353
354GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
355
356* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
357
358There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
359command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
360a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
361be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
362open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
363issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
364a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
365it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
366GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
367is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
368
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369* Changes in ARM configurations.
370
371Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
372configuration is fully multi-arch.
373
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374* New native configurations
375
fe419ffc 376ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 377x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 378AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 379Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 380
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381* New targets
382
383Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
384
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385* OBSOLETE configurations and files
386
387Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
388been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
389configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
390permanently REMOVED.
391
392AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
393A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
394AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
395AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
396AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
397
b4ceaee6 398testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 399
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400* REMOVED configurations and files
401
402TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 403WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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404PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
405PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
406PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 407Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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408Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
409 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 410SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 411Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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412Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
413ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 414Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 415
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416* Changes to command line processing
417
418The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
419for the inferior from gdb's command line.
420
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421* Changes to key bindings
422
423There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
424
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425*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
426
427Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
428
429Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
430corrupted.
431
432Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
433
434Numerous documentation fixes.
435
436Numerous testsuite fixes.
437
34f47bc4 438*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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439
440* New native configurations
441
442Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
443x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 444MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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445MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
446ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 447s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 448
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449* New targets
450
def90278 451Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 452CRIS cris-axis
55241689 453UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 454
17e78a56 455* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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456
457x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 458Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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459Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
460 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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461TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
462WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 463Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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464PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
465PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
466PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 467SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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468Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
469ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 470Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 471
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472stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
473kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
474
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475Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
476been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
477configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
478permanently REMOVED.
479
a196c81c 480* REMOVED configurations and files
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481
482Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
483Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
484Pyramid pyramid-*-*
485ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
486Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 487ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 488
6d6b80e5 489* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 490
6d6b80e5 491GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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492sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
493present.
494
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495* Other news:
496
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497* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
498
499* The MI enabled by default.
500
501The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
502revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
503engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
504using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
505which is now deprecated.
506
507* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
508
509GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
510main features are supported:
511
512 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
513
514 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
515 extension;
516
517 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
518
519 - a Pascal expression parser.
520
521However, some important features are not yet supported.
522
523 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
524
525 - there are some problems with boolean types;
526
527 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
528 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
529
530 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
531
532 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
533
534* Changes in completion.
535
536Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
537to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
538users expect at the shell prompt.
539
540Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
541`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
542program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
543files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
544be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
545considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
546name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
547
548`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
549
550* New platform-independent commands:
551
552It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
553hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
554documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
555
556* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
557
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558Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
559revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
560many threads as your system allows you to have.
561
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562Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
563
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564Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
565multi-threaded programs though.
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566
567* Changes in MIPS configurations.
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568
569Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
570
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571GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
572debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
573supported.)
574
575* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
576
577Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
578breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
579implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
580put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
581and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
582registers.
583
584The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
585debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
586watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
587
588* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
589
590New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
591the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
592
593New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
594display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
595IDT.
596
597New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
598from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
599New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
600a given linear address.
601
602GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
603program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
604which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
605
606DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
607
6c56c069
EZ
608It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
609
e23194cb
EZ
610* Changes in documentation.
611
612All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
613Documentation License.
614
615Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
616manual.
617
618TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
619
620Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
621manual.
622
623The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
624documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
625hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
626
5d6640b1
AC
627* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
628
629The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
630``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
631contents of this file.
632
1a1d8446
AC
633* gdba.el deleted
634
635GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 636
9debab2f 637*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 638
c63ce875
EZ
639* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
640
641Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
642programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
643displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
644greater level of detail.
645
646* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
647
648It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
649bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
650on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
651written.
652
653* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
654
655The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
656necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
657machines ``out of the box''.
658
659The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
660possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
661signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
662would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
663interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
664
665It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
666standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
667even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
668and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
669terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
670
671The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
672enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
673also works.
674
675DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
676GDB.
677
678It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
679directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
680times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
681breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
682
ed9a39eb
JM
683* New native configurations
684
685ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 686PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 687
7a292a7a
SS
688* New targets
689
96baa820 690Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
691x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
692PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
693TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
694
085dd6e6
JM
695* OBSOLETE configurations
696
697Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
698Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 699Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 700ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 701Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 702
9debab2f
AC
703Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
704but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
705these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
706be permanently REMOVED.
707
5330533d
SS
708* Gould support removed
709
710Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
711
bc9e5bbf
AC
712* New features for SVR4
713
714On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
715without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
716load symbols from the running process's executable file.
717
718* Many C++ enhancements
719
720C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
721in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
722
adf40b2e
JM
723* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
724
725A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
726sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
727with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
728``|<program> <args>'' vis:
729
730 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
731 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
732
43e526b9
JM
733* MIPS 64 remote protocol
734
735A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
736expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
737instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
738
739The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
740added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
741
96baa820
JM
742* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
743
744The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
745``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
746include ``set remote P-packet''.
747
11cf8741
JM
748* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
749
750The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
751accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
752``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
753
7876dd43
DB
754* ``apropos'' command added.
755
756The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
757documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
758try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
759
bc9e5bbf
AC
760* New MI interface
761
762A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
763interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
764process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
765"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
766enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
767
768 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
769
c906108c
SS
770*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
771
772* New native configurations
773
774HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
775HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 776M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
777
778* New targets
779
780Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
781Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
782Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
783
784* OBSOLETE configurations
785
786Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
787
788Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
789but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
790these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
791be permanently REMOVED.
792
793* ANSI/ISO C
794
795As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
796buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
797containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
798use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
799available. If this is not true, please report the affected
800configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
801information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
802already.
803
804* Readline 2.2
805
806GDB now uses readline 2.2.
807
808* set extension-language
809
810You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
811languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
812you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
813 set extension-language .c c++
814The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
815and their associated languages.
816
817* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
818
819When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
820you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
821PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
822
823 set processor NAME
824
825sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
826following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
827
828 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
829 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
830 403 IBM PowerPC 403
831 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
832 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
833 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
834 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
835 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
836 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
837 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
838 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
839
840At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
841special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
842registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
843only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
844
845* HP-UX support
846
847Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
848more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
849library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
850support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
851for xdb and dbx commands.
852
853* Catchpoints
854
855HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
856generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
857to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
858
859This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
860argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
861output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
862
863* Debugging across forks
864
865On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
866in the inferior.
867
868* TUI
869
870HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
871it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
872configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
873
874* GDB remote protocol additions
875
876A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
877Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
878fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
879allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
880
881For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
882full 64-bit address. The command
883
884 set remoteaddresssize 32
885
886can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
887the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
888will be discarded.
889
890In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
891command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
892
893 maint packet heythere
894
895sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
896disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
897time.
898
899The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
900target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
901downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
902
903* Tracing can collect general expressions
904
905You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
906further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
907doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
908
909* mask-address variable for Mips
910
911For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
912a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
913of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
914
915* Higher serial baud rates
916
917GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
918230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
919to achieve all of these rates.)
920
921* i960 simulator
922
923The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
924builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
925
926
927*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
928
929* New native configurations
930
931Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
932Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
933Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
934PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
935PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
936Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
937Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
938
939* New targets
940
941Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
942Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
943Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
944Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
945MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
946MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
947MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
948Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
949Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
950Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
951NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
952
953* New debugging protocols
954
955ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
956M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
957DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
958PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
959PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
960Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
961
962* DWARF 2
963
964All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
965format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
966information.
967
968* Java frontend
969
970GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
971only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
972
973* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
974
975For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
976loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
977locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
978
979* Live range splitting
980
981GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
982range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
983more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
984
985* Hurd support
986
987GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
988updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
989
990* ARM Thumb support
991
992GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
993instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
994instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
995accordingly.
996
997* MIPS16 support
998
999GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1000instruction set.
1001
1002* Overlay support
1003
1004GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1005linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1006will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1007control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1008additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1009in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1010
1011* info symbol
1012
1013The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1014the symbol at the specified address.
1015
1016* Trace support
1017
1018The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1019asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1020extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1021includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1022file tracepoint.c for more details.
1023
1024* MIPS simulator
1025
1026Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1027by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1028of most MIPS variants.
1029
1030* Sparc simulator
1031
1032Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1033by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1034Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1035
1036* set architecture
1037
1038For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1039basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1040architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1041the possible architectures.
1042
1043*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1044
1045* New native configurations
1046
1047Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1048M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1049PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1050PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1051PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1052RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1053
1054* New targets
1055
1056ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1057I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1058MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1059MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1060PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1061Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1062Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1063
1064* PowerPC simulator
1065
1066The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1067contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1068PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1069basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1070performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1071
1072* Solaris 2.5
1073
1074GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1075
1076* Windows 95/NT native
1077
1078GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1079To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1080which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1081Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1082ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1083
1084* dont-repeat command
1085
1086If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1087command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1088useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1089extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1090
1091* Send break instead of ^C
1092
1093The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1094rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1095GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1096
1097* Remote protocol timeout
1098
1099The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1100that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1101to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1102
1103* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1104
1105By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1106loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1107stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1108when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1109in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1110
1111Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1112/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1113automatically on hpux10.
1114
1115* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1116
1117Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1118
1119* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1120
1121When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1122may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1123the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1124every character. The default value is 1050.
1125
1126* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1127
1128If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1129a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1130replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1131details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1132remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1133to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1134
1135* Speedups for remote debugging
1136
1137GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1138the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1139and more efficient S-record downloading.
1140
1141* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1142
1143GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1144Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1145
1146*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1147
1148* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1149
1150The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1151can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1152
1153* Remote targets use caching
1154
1155Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1156remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1157it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1158debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1159off' turns the the data cache off.
1160
1161* Remote targets may have threads
1162
1163The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1164in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1165gdb/remote.c for details.
1166
1167* NetROM support
1168
1169If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1170support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1171acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1172write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1173support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1174another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1175sequence is something like
1176
1177 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1178 load <prog>
1179 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1180
1181* Macintosh host
1182
1183GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1184may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1185it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1186available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1187device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1188directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1189scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1190mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1191
1192* Autoconf
1193
1194GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1195but does simplify configuration and building.
1196
1197* hpux10
1198
1199GDB now supports hpux10.
1200
1201*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1202
1203* New native configurations
1204
1205x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1206x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1207NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1208Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1209
1210* New targets
1211
1212A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1213HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1214CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1215PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1216WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1217
1218* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1219
1220GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1221possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1222filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1223the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1224if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1225
1226* Arguments to user-defined commands
1227
1228User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1229Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1230trivial example:
1231define adder
1232 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1233
1234To execute the command use:
1235adder 1 2 3
1236
1237Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1238Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1239use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1240
1241* New `if' and `while' commands
1242
1243This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1244commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1245expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1246execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1247terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1248`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1249if the expression is zero.
1250
1251* Fortran source language mode
1252
1253GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1254Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1255variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1256with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1257Fortran compilers.
1258
1259* Better HPUX support
1260
1261Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1262running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1263processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1264for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1265that behavior do the following before running the program:
1266
1267 adb -w a.out
1268 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1269 control-d
1270
1271This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1272To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1273
1274 adb -w a.out
1275 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1276 control-d
1277
1278You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1279the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1280external linkage.
1281
1282GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1283HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1284
1285* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1286
1287You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1288commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1289current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1290"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1291associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1292configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1293
1294* New DOS host serial code
1295
1296This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1297no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1298a PC's serial port.
1299
1300*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1301
1302* New "complete" command
1303
1304This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1305were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1306
1307* Trailing space optional in prompt
1308
1309"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1310allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1311
1312* Breakpoint hit counts
1313
1314"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1315has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1316can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1317to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1318less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1319that breakpoint.
1320
1321* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1322
1323"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1324an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1325arrays actually contain only short strings.
1326
1327* Shared library breakpoints
1328
1329In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1330breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1331
1332* Hardware watchpoints
1333
1334There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1335targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1336
55241689 1337Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1338
1339* Annotations
1340
1341Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1342and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1343
1344* Improved Irix 5 support
1345
1346GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1347
1348* Improved HPPA support
1349
1350GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1351
1352* New native configurations
1353
1354Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1355HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1356Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1357RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1358
1359* New targets
1360
1361OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1362MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1363Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1364
1365* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1366
1367There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1368This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1369
1370* Fixes
1371
1372As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1373and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1374
1375*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1376
1377* Irix 5 is now supported
1378
1379* HPPA support
1380
1381GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1382to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1383GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1384of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1385can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1386
1387
1388*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1389
1390* User visible changes:
1391
1392* Remote Debugging
1393
1394The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1395target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1396debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1397integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1398debugging info for the mips target).
1399
1400* DEC Alpha native support
1401
1402GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1403debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1404work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1405Alpha-specific notes.
1406
1407* Preliminary thread implementation
1408
1409GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1410
1411* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1412
1413This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1414to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1415for details).
1416
1417* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1418
1419This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1420mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1421call methods, ...etc.
1422
1423*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1424
1425 * User visible changes:
1426
1427Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1428supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1429other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1430somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1431
1432Filename completion now works.
1433
1434When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1435arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1436addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1437
1438All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1439vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1440should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1441your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1442to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1443
1444 * DEC alpha support
1445
1446This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1447cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1448
1449
1450*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1451
1452 * Testsuite
1453
1454This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1455The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1456via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1457
1458 * C++ demangling
1459
1460'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1461emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1462Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1463disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1464use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1465
1466 * Simulators
1467
1468GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1469So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1470Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1471
1472 * New targets supported
1473
1474H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1475H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1476SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1477Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1478IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1479
1480Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1481version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1482GO32 memory extender.
1483
1484 * New remote protocols
1485
1486MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1487
1488 * New source languages supported
1489
1490This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1491used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1492into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1493
1494
1495*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1496
1497 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1498
1499GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1500version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1501University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1502compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1503format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1504(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1505
1506Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1507
1508 * Faster and better demangling
1509
1510We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1511demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1512character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1513only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1514This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1515increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1516symbol lookups.
1517
1518`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1519from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1520compiler does not actually implement.
1521
1522 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1523
1524In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1525inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1526recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1527very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1528The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1529circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1530fix.
1531
1532The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1533release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1534
1535 * Improved configure script
1536
1537The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1538you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1539host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1540done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1541
1542We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1543version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1544`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1545The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1546only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1547We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1548
1549 * Documentation improvements
1550
1551There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1552produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1553before submitting changes.
1554
1555The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1556M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1557`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1558you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1559a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1560
1561*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1562We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1563been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1564or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1565`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1566around this problem.
1567
1568 * New features
1569
1570GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1571the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1572`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1573the target program.
1574
1575The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1576how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1577
1578 * New native hosts supported
1579
1580HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1581386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1582
1583 * New targets supported
1584
1585AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1586
1587 * New file formats supported
1588
1589BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1590HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1591
1592 * Major bug fixes
1593
1594Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1595
1596We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1597printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1598
1599We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1600for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1601release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1602
1603You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1604will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1605
1606We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1607for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1608especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1609libraries.
1610
1611The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1612information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1613command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1614any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1615when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1616
1617 * Internal improvements
1618
1619GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1620debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1621
1622GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1623Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1624symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1625contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1626shared code that handles any of them.
1627
1628 * New command line options
1629
1630We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1631
1632 * Mmalloc licensing
1633
1634The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1635General Public License.
1636
1637*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1638
1639 * Host/native/target split
1640
1641GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1642hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1643target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1644local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1645ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1646
1647The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1648GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1649is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1650code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1651any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1652built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1653handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1654
1655GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1656It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1657plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1658
1659 * New hosts supported
1660
1661HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1662386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1663386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1664
1665 * New targets supported
1666
1667Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
166868030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1669
1670 * New native hosts supported
1671
1672386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1673 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1674386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1675
1676 * New file formats supported
1677
1678BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1679supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1680format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1681
1682 * New commands
1683
1684`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1685`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1686These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1687
1688`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1689
1690You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1691scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1692prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1693executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1694
1695 * C++ improvements
1696
1697We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1698info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1699symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1700
1701Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1702
1703 * Major bug fixes
1704
1705The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1706fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1707by the compiler.
1708
1709We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1710support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1711
1712John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1713slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1714that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1715purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1716the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1717mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1718
1719Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1720about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1721completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1722we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1723
1724 * AMD 29k support
1725
1726A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1727specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1728calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1729usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1730in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1731
1732We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1733Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1734of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1735resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1736
1737 * Remote interfaces
1738
1739We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1740with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1741message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1742This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1743needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1744breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1745each instruction being stepped through.
1746
1747The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1748registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1749
1750There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1751find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1752Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1753processor with a serial port.
1754
1755 * Configuration
1756
1757Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1758`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1759supported, and what files each one uses.
1760
1761 * Library changes
1762
1763There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1764disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1765Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1766disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1767
1768The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1769Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1770can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1771grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1772
1773 * Documentation
1774
1775The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1776reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1777as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1778encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1779system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1780bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1781
1782And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1783
1784
1785*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1786
1787 * Better support for C++ function names
1788
1789GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1790names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1791(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1792single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1793Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1794
1795GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1796the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1797You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1798lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1799for the list of formats.
1800
1801 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1802
1803Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1804C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1805directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1806can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1807usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1808about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1809this problem.)
1810
1811 * New 'maintenance' command
1812
1813All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1814the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1815can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1816
1817 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1818 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1819 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1820 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1821 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1822 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1823
1824The following commands are new:
1825
1826 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1827 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1828 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1829
1830 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1831
1832We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1833(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1834be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1835read after argv processing.
1836
1837 * New hosts supported
1838
1839Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1840
55241689 1841GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1842
1843We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1844is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1845for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1846masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1847fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1848It costs extra.
1849
1850 * New targets supported
1851
1852Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1853
1854 * More smarts about finding #include files
1855
1856GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1857all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1858greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1859especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1860the one that contains your sources.
1861
1862We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1863breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1864try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1865
1866 * Interesting infernals change
1867
1868GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1869section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1870target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1871stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1872
1873 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1874
1875There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1876 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1877 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1878
1879See the ChangeLog for details.
1880
1881*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1882
1883 * New machines supported (host and target)
1884
1885IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1886
1887SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1888
1889 * New malloc package
1890
1891GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1892Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1893capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1894This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1895pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1896more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1897
1898 * info proc
1899
1900The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1901'help info proc' for details.
1902
1903 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1904
1905The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1906Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1907possible.
1908
1909 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1910
1911Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1912support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1913conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1914environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1915that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1916in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1917
1918 * Cross byte order fixes
1919
1920Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1921targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1922
1923 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1924
1925If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1926system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1927`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1928program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1929called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1930Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1931and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1932the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1933option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1934starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1935
1936You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1937the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1938information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1939slower, but makes future operations faster.
1940
1941The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1942build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1943A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1944use is:
1945
1946 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1947
1948The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1949It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1950shared across multiple host platforms.
1951
1952 * longjmp() handling
1953
1954GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1955siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1956all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1957platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1958
1959 * Solaris 2.0
1960
1961Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1962this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1963reading symbols.
1964
1965 * Bug fixes
1966
1967As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1968People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1969crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1970
1971*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1972
1973 * New machines supported (host and target)
1974
1975SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1976 (except core files)
1977BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1978Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1979
1980 * New machines supported (target)
1981
1982AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1983
1984 * C++ support
1985
1986GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1987The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1988per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1989
1990GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1991`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1992extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1993good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1994will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1995released.
1996
1997 * New features for SVR4
1998
1999GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2000shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2001only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2002
2003The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2004on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2005it prints the address mappings of the process.
2006
2007If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2008bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2009
2010 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2011
2012Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2013now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2014skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2015make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2016same code linked statically.
2017
2018 * New Getopt
2019
2020GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2021version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2022continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2023Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2024added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2025future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2026
2027 * Bugs fixed
2028
2029The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2030Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2031See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2032
2033
2034*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2035
2036 * New machines supported (host and target)
2037
2038Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2039NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2040Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2041
2042 * Almost SCO Unix support
2043
2044We had hoped to support:
2045SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2046(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2047that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2048about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2049
2050 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2051
2052GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2053debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2054is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2055send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2056reqired (if any).
2057
2058 * New Readline
2059
2060GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2061is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2062required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2063
2064 * Bugs fixed
2065
2066The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2067Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2068See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2069
2070 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2071
2072GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2073supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2074symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2075
2076Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2077mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2078debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2079mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2080version 2.
2081
2082Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2083really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2084line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2085variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2086situation somewhat.
2087
2088When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2089However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2090methods.
2091
2092We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2093DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2094encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2095
2096
2097*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2098
2099 * Improved configuration
2100
2101Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2102Porting BFD is simpler.
2103
2104 * Stepping improved
2105
2106The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2107of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2108in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2109function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2110
2111 * Bug fixing
2112
2113Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2114
2115 * New host supported (not target)
2116
2117Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2118
2119
2120*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2121
2122 * Multiple source language support
2123
2124GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2125It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2126and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2127language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2128You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2129`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2130
2131 * GDB and Modula-2
2132
2133GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2134currently under development at the State University of New York at
2135Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2136continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2137
2138Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2139debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2140symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2141
2142There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2143in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2144
2145 * set write on/off
2146
2147GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2148a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2149the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2150by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2151effect immediately.
2152
2153 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2154
2155When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2156shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2157The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2158examining core files.
2159
2160 * set listsize
2161
2162You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2163The default is 10.
2164
2165 * New machines supported (host and target)
2166
2167SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2168Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2169Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2170
2171 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2172
2173IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2174
2175 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2176
2177AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2178AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2179Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2180
2181 * New remote interfaces
2182
2183AMD 29000 Adapt
2184AMD 29000 Minimon
2185
2186
2187*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2188
2189 * New Facilities
2190
2191Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2192
2193Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2194target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2195is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2196remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2197remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2198also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2199using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2200stub on the target system.
2201
2202New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2203
2204GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2205library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2206object file types such as a.out and coff.
2207
2208There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2209refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2210
2211
2212 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2213
2214All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2215by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2216
2217For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2218``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2219Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2220
2221What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2222print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2223will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2224all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2225
2226confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2227 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2228 it is already running. Default is ON.
2229
2230editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2231 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2232 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2233 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2234 Default is ON.
2235
2236history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2237 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2238 or the value of the environment variable
2239 GDBHISTFILE.
2240
2241history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2242 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2243 HISTSIZE.
2244
2245history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2246 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2247 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2248
2249history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2250 history expansion will be performed on
2251 command line input. The default is OFF.
2252
2253radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2254 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2255 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2256
2257height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2258 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2259 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2260 variable TERM.
2261
2262width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2263 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2264 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2265 variable TERM.
2266
2267Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2268``set width'' instead.
2269
2270print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2271 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2272 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2273 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2274
2275print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2276 is OFF.
2277
2278print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2279 "raw" form if off.
2280
2281print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2282 like instructions.
2283
2284print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2285
2286
2287 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2288
2289The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2290new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2291are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2292window.
2293
2294
2295 * Support for Shared Libraries
2296
2297GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2298Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2299before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2300happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2301At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2302from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2303shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2304It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2305
2306sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2307 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2308 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2309
2310info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2311
2312
2313 * Watchpoints
2314
2315A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2316expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2317tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2318quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2319problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2320more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2321
2322watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2323
2324info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2325
2326delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2327disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2328enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2329
2330
2331 * C++ multiple inheritance
2332
2333When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2334for C++ programs.
2335
2336 * C++ exception handling
2337
2338Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2339ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2340the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2341handler's context).
2342
2343catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2344 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2345 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2346
2347info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2348 current stack frame.
2349
2350
2351 * Minor command changes
2352
2353The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2354command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2355is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2356
2357The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2358at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2359frames without printing.
2360
2361 * New directory command
2362
2363'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2364The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2365about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2366with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2367find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2368
2369 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2370
2371For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2372for more details.
2373
2374GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2375two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2376Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2377where the program that you are debugging will run.
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