2004-03-15 Andrew Cagney <cagney@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.1:
5
6*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 7
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8* Removed --with-mmalloc
9
10Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
11conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
12
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13* Changes in AMD64 configurations
14
15The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
16the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
17and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
18you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
19
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20* Revised SPARC target
21
22The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
23FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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24support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
25from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
26(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 27
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28* New C++ demangler
29
30GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
31names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
32with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
33programs.
34
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35* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
36
37GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
38arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
39encountered these.
40
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41* New native configurations
42
43NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 44OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 45OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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46OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
47OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 48
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49* New debugging protocols
50
51M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
52
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53* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
54
55The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
56and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
57tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
58
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59* OBSOLETE configurations and files
60
61Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
62been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
63configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
64permanently REMOVED.
65
66Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
67Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
68Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
69Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
70Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
71AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
72Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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73decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
74riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
75sonymips mips-sony-*
76sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 77
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78* REMOVED configurations and files
79
80SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
81SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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82Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
83Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
84H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
85HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
86HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
87HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
88PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 89386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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90Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
91 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
92 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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93SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
94SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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95Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
96Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 97
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98*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
99
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100* Objective-C
101
102Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
103integrated into GDB.
104
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105* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
106
107DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
108information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
109By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
110backtraces.
111
112The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
113have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
114DWARF 2 CFI support.
115
116* Hosted file I/O.
117
118GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
119file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
120remote protocol documentation for details.
121
122* All targets using the new architecture framework.
123
124All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
125architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
126to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
127ppc32 on ppc64).
128
129* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
130
131GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
132per-thread variables.
133
134* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
135
136GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
137GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
138
139* Separate debug info.
140
141GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
142automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
143of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
144system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
145and optional debug files.
146
147* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
148
149DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
150describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
151debugger.
152
153GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
154for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
155
156* Java
157
158A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
159Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
160considered "useable".
161
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162* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
163
164The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
165commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
166kernel.
167
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168* GDB supports logging output to a file
169
170There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
171used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 172
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173* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
174
175The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
176disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
177command.
178
e286caf2 179* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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180
181The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
182registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
183
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184* Profiling support
185
186A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
187be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
188session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
189"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
190data, for more informative profiling results.
191
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192* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
193
194The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
195option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 196"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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197
198Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
199removed.
200
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201Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
202Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
203Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
204 in a subsequent -var-update.
205
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206* New native configurations.
207
208FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
209
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210* Multi-arched targets.
211
b4263afa 212HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 213Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 214
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215* OBSOLETE configurations and files
216
217Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
218been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
219configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
220permanently REMOVED.
221
8b0e5691 222Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 223Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 224H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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225HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
226HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
227HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 228PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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229Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
230 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
231 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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232Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
233Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 234
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235* REMOVED configurations and files
236
237V850EA ISA
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238Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
239IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
240i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
241i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
242i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
243HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
244 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
245 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
246Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
247Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
248Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
249OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
250I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 251
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252* MIPS $fp behavior changed
253
254The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
255the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
256context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
257address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
258The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
259
299ffc64 260*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 261
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262* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
263
264When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
265`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
266in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
267library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
268shared libs like mad''.
269
b9d14705 270* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 271
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272Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
273the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
274arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
275powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 276
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277* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
278
279GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
280and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
281they expand.
282
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283The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
284invocations in expression, and shows the result.
285
286The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
287macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
288
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289Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
290information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
291your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
292information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
293
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294* Multi-arched targets.
295
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296DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
297DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 298NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 299National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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300Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
301Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 302
cd9bfe15 303* New targets.
e33ce519 304
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305Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
306
e33ce519 307
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308* New native configurations
309
310Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 311SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 312MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 313UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 314
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315* OBSOLETE configurations and files
316
317Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
318been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
319configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
320permanently REMOVED.
321
92eb23c5 322Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 323OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 324IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 325Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 326Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 327Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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328i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
329i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
330i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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331HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
332 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
333 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 334I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 335
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336* OBSOLETE languages
337
338CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
339
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340* REMOVED configurations and files
341
342AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
343A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
344AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
345AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
346AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
347
348testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
349
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350* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
351
352This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
353commands. The default is 1024.
354
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355* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
356
357Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
358
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359* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
360
361These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
362to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
363from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 364
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365* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
366
367The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
368including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
369of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
370
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371*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
372
373* New targets.
374
375Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
376
377* Bug fixes
378
379gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
380mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
381Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
382
383gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
384dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
385Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
386
387Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
388Surprisingly enough, it works now.
389By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
390
391i386 hardware watchpoint support:
392avoid misses on second run for some targets.
393By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
394
37057839 395*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 396
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397* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
398
399This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
400really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
401In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
402target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
403This can be a significant performance improvement on some
404(notably embedded) targets.
405
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406* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
407
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408This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
409process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
410GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
411hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 412
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413* New command line option
414
415GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
416
417* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
418
419There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
420command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
421a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
422be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
423open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
424issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
425a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
426it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
427GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
428is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
429
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430* Changes in ARM configurations.
431
432Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
433configuration is fully multi-arch.
434
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435* New native configurations
436
fe419ffc 437ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 438x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 439AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 440Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 441
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442* New targets
443
444Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
445
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446* OBSOLETE configurations and files
447
448Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
449been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
450configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
451permanently REMOVED.
452
453AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
454A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
455AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
456AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
457AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
458
b4ceaee6 459testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 460
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461* REMOVED configurations and files
462
463TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 464WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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465PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
466PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
467PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 468Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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469Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
470 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 471SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 472Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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473Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
474ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 475Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 476
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477* Changes to command line processing
478
479The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
480for the inferior from gdb's command line.
481
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482* Changes to key bindings
483
484There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
485
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486*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
487
488Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
489
490Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
491corrupted.
492
493Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
494
495Numerous documentation fixes.
496
497Numerous testsuite fixes.
498
34f47bc4 499*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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500
501* New native configurations
502
503Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
504x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 505MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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506MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
507ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 508s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 509
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510* New targets
511
def90278 512Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 513CRIS cris-axis
55241689 514UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 515
17e78a56 516* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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517
518x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 519Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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520Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
521 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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522TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
523WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 524Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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525PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
526PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
527PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 528SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
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529Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
530ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 531Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 532
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533stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
534kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
535
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536Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
537been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
538configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
539permanently REMOVED.
540
a196c81c 541* REMOVED configurations and files
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542
543Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
544Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
545Pyramid pyramid-*-*
546ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
547Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 548ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 549
6d6b80e5 550* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 551
6d6b80e5 552GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
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553sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
554present.
555
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556* Other news:
557
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558* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
559
560* The MI enabled by default.
561
562The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
563revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
564engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
565using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
566which is now deprecated.
567
568* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
569
570GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
571main features are supported:
572
573 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
574
575 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
576 extension;
577
578 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
579
580 - a Pascal expression parser.
581
582However, some important features are not yet supported.
583
584 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
585
586 - there are some problems with boolean types;
587
588 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
589 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
590
591 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
592
593 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
594
595* Changes in completion.
596
597Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
598to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
599users expect at the shell prompt.
600
601Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
602`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
603program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
604files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
605be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
606considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
607name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
608
609`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
610
611* New platform-independent commands:
612
613It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
614hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
615documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
616
617* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
618
d7275149
MK
619Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
620revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
621many threads as your system allows you to have.
622
e23194cb
EZ
623Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
624
d7275149
MK
625Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
626multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
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627
628* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
629
630Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
631
e23194cb
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632GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
633debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
634supported.)
635
636* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
637
638Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
639breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
640implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
641put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
642and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
643registers.
644
645The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
646debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
647watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
648
649* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
650
651New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
652the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
653
654New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
655display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
656IDT.
657
658New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
659from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
660New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
661a given linear address.
662
663GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
664program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
665which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
666
667DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
668
6c56c069
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669It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
670
e23194cb
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671* Changes in documentation.
672
673All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
674Documentation License.
675
676Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
677manual.
678
679TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
680
681Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
682manual.
683
684The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
685documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
686hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
687
5d6640b1
AC
688* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
689
690The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
691``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
692contents of this file.
693
1a1d8446
AC
694* gdba.el deleted
695
696GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 697
9debab2f 698*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 699
c63ce875
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700* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
701
702Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
703programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
704displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
705greater level of detail.
706
707* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
708
709It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
710bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
711on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
712written.
713
714* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
715
716The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
717necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
718machines ``out of the box''.
719
720The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
721possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
722signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
723would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
724interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
725
726It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
727standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
728even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
729and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
730terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
731
732The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
733enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
734also works.
735
736DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
737GDB.
738
739It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
740directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
741times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
742breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
743
ed9a39eb
JM
744* New native configurations
745
746ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 747PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 748
7a292a7a
SS
749* New targets
750
96baa820 751Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
752x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
753PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
754TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
755
085dd6e6
JM
756* OBSOLETE configurations
757
758Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
759Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 760Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 761ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 762Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 763
9debab2f
AC
764Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
765but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
766these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
767be permanently REMOVED.
768
5330533d
SS
769* Gould support removed
770
771Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
772
bc9e5bbf
AC
773* New features for SVR4
774
775On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
776without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
777load symbols from the running process's executable file.
778
779* Many C++ enhancements
780
781C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
782in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
783
adf40b2e
JM
784* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
785
786A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
787sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
788with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
789``|<program> <args>'' vis:
790
791 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
792 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
793
43e526b9
JM
794* MIPS 64 remote protocol
795
796A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
797expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
798instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
799
800The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
801added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
802
96baa820
JM
803* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
804
805The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
806``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
807include ``set remote P-packet''.
808
11cf8741
JM
809* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
810
811The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
812accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
813``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
814
7876dd43
DB
815* ``apropos'' command added.
816
817The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
818documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
819try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
820
bc9e5bbf
AC
821* New MI interface
822
823A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
824interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
825process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
826"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
827enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
828
829 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
830
c906108c
SS
831*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
832
833* New native configurations
834
835HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
836HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 837M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
838
839* New targets
840
841Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
842Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
843Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
844
845* OBSOLETE configurations
846
847Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
848
849Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
850but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
851these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
852be permanently REMOVED.
853
854* ANSI/ISO C
855
856As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
857buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
858containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
859use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
860available. If this is not true, please report the affected
861configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
862information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
863already.
864
865* Readline 2.2
866
867GDB now uses readline 2.2.
868
869* set extension-language
870
871You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
872languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
873you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
874 set extension-language .c c++
875The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
876and their associated languages.
877
878* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
879
880When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
881you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
882PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
883
884 set processor NAME
885
886sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
887following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
888
889 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
890 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
891 403 IBM PowerPC 403
892 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
893 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
894 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
895 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
896 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
897 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
898 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
899 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
900
901At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
902special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
903registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
904only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
905
906* HP-UX support
907
908Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
909more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
910library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
911support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
912for xdb and dbx commands.
913
914* Catchpoints
915
916HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
917generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
918to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
919
920This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
921argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
922output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
923
924* Debugging across forks
925
926On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
927in the inferior.
928
929* TUI
930
931HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
932it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
933configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
934
935* GDB remote protocol additions
936
937A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
938Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
939fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
940allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
941
942For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
943full 64-bit address. The command
944
945 set remoteaddresssize 32
946
947can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
948the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
949will be discarded.
950
951In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
952command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
953
954 maint packet heythere
955
956sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
957disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
958time.
959
960The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
961target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
962downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
963
964* Tracing can collect general expressions
965
966You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
967further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
968doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
969
970* mask-address variable for Mips
971
972For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
973a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
974of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
975
976* Higher serial baud rates
977
978GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
979230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
980to achieve all of these rates.)
981
982* i960 simulator
983
984The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
985builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
986
987
988*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
989
990* New native configurations
991
992Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
993Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
994Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
995PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
996PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
997Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
998Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
999
1000* New targets
1001
1002Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1003Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1004Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1005Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1006MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1007MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1008MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1009Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1010Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1011Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1012NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1013
1014* New debugging protocols
1015
1016ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1017M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1018DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1019PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1020PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1021Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1022
1023* DWARF 2
1024
1025All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1026format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1027information.
1028
1029* Java frontend
1030
1031GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1032only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1033
1034* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1035
1036For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1037loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1038locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1039
1040* Live range splitting
1041
1042GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1043range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1044more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1045
1046* Hurd support
1047
1048GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1049updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1050
1051* ARM Thumb support
1052
1053GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1054instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1055instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1056accordingly.
1057
1058* MIPS16 support
1059
1060GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1061instruction set.
1062
1063* Overlay support
1064
1065GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1066linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1067will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1068control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1069additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1070in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1071
1072* info symbol
1073
1074The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1075the symbol at the specified address.
1076
1077* Trace support
1078
1079The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1080asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1081extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1082includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1083file tracepoint.c for more details.
1084
1085* MIPS simulator
1086
1087Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1088by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1089of most MIPS variants.
1090
1091* Sparc simulator
1092
1093Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1094by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1095Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1096
1097* set architecture
1098
1099For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1100basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1101architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1102the possible architectures.
1103
1104*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1105
1106* New native configurations
1107
1108Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1109M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1110PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1111PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1112PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1113RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1114
1115* New targets
1116
1117ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1118I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1119MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1120MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1121PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1122Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1123Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1124
1125* PowerPC simulator
1126
1127The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1128contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1129PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1130basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1131performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1132
1133* Solaris 2.5
1134
1135GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1136
1137* Windows 95/NT native
1138
1139GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1140To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1141which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1142Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1143ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1144
1145* dont-repeat command
1146
1147If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1148command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1149useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1150extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1151
1152* Send break instead of ^C
1153
1154The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1155rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1156GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1157
1158* Remote protocol timeout
1159
1160The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1161that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1162to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1163
1164* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1165
1166By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1167loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1168stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1169when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1170in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1171
1172Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1173/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1174automatically on hpux10.
1175
1176* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1177
1178Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1179
1180* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1181
1182When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1183may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1184the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1185every character. The default value is 1050.
1186
1187* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1188
1189If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1190a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1191replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1192details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1193remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1194to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1195
1196* Speedups for remote debugging
1197
1198GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1199the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1200and more efficient S-record downloading.
1201
1202* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1203
1204GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1205Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1206
1207*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1208
1209* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1210
1211The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1212can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1213
1214* Remote targets use caching
1215
1216Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1217remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1218it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1219debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1220off' turns the the data cache off.
1221
1222* Remote targets may have threads
1223
1224The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1225in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1226gdb/remote.c for details.
1227
1228* NetROM support
1229
1230If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1231support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1232acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1233write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1234support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1235another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1236sequence is something like
1237
1238 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1239 load <prog>
1240 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1241
1242* Macintosh host
1243
1244GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1245may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1246it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1247available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1248device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1249directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1250scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1251mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1252
1253* Autoconf
1254
1255GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1256but does simplify configuration and building.
1257
1258* hpux10
1259
1260GDB now supports hpux10.
1261
1262*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1263
1264* New native configurations
1265
1266x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1267x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1268NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1269Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1270
1271* New targets
1272
1273A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1274HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1275CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1276PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1277WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1278
1279* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1280
1281GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1282possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1283filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1284the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1285if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1286
1287* Arguments to user-defined commands
1288
1289User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1290Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1291trivial example:
1292define adder
1293 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1294
1295To execute the command use:
1296adder 1 2 3
1297
1298Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1299Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1300use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1301
1302* New `if' and `while' commands
1303
1304This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1305commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1306expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1307execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1308terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1309`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1310if the expression is zero.
1311
1312* Fortran source language mode
1313
1314GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1315Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1316variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1317with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1318Fortran compilers.
1319
1320* Better HPUX support
1321
1322Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1323running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1324processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1325for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1326that behavior do the following before running the program:
1327
1328 adb -w a.out
1329 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1330 control-d
1331
1332This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1333To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1334
1335 adb -w a.out
1336 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1337 control-d
1338
1339You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1340the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1341external linkage.
1342
1343GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1344HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1345
1346* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1347
1348You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1349commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1350current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1351"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1352associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1353configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1354
1355* New DOS host serial code
1356
1357This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1358no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1359a PC's serial port.
1360
1361*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1362
1363* New "complete" command
1364
1365This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1366were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1367
1368* Trailing space optional in prompt
1369
1370"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1371allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1372
1373* Breakpoint hit counts
1374
1375"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1376has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1377can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1378to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1379less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1380that breakpoint.
1381
1382* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1383
1384"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1385an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1386arrays actually contain only short strings.
1387
1388* Shared library breakpoints
1389
1390In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1391breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1392
1393* Hardware watchpoints
1394
1395There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1396targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1397
55241689 1398Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1399
1400* Annotations
1401
1402Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1403and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1404
1405* Improved Irix 5 support
1406
1407GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1408
1409* Improved HPPA support
1410
1411GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1412
1413* New native configurations
1414
1415Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1416HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1417Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1418RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1419
1420* New targets
1421
1422OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1423MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1424Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1425
1426* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1427
1428There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1429This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1430
1431* Fixes
1432
1433As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1434and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1435
1436*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1437
1438* Irix 5 is now supported
1439
1440* HPPA support
1441
1442GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1443to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1444GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1445of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1446can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1447
1448
1449*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1450
1451* User visible changes:
1452
1453* Remote Debugging
1454
1455The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1456target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1457debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1458integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1459debugging info for the mips target).
1460
1461* DEC Alpha native support
1462
1463GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1464debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1465work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1466Alpha-specific notes.
1467
1468* Preliminary thread implementation
1469
1470GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1471
1472* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1473
1474This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1475to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1476for details).
1477
1478* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1479
1480This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1481mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1482call methods, ...etc.
1483
1484*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1485
1486 * User visible changes:
1487
1488Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1489supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1490other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1491somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1492
1493Filename completion now works.
1494
1495When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1496arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1497addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1498
1499All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1500vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1501should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1502your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1503to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1504
1505 * DEC alpha support
1506
1507This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1508cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1509
1510
1511*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1512
1513 * Testsuite
1514
1515This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1516The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1517via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1518
1519 * C++ demangling
1520
1521'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1522emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1523Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1524disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1525use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1526
1527 * Simulators
1528
1529GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1530So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1531Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1532
1533 * New targets supported
1534
1535H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1536H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1537SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1538Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1539IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1540
1541Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1542version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1543GO32 memory extender.
1544
1545 * New remote protocols
1546
1547MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1548
1549 * New source languages supported
1550
1551This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1552used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1553into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1554
1555
1556*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1557
1558 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1559
1560GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1561version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1562University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1563compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1564format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1565(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1566
1567Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1568
1569 * Faster and better demangling
1570
1571We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1572demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1573character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1574only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1575This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1576increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1577symbol lookups.
1578
1579`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1580from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1581compiler does not actually implement.
1582
1583 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1584
1585In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1586inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1587recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1588very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1589The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1590circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1591fix.
1592
1593The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1594release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1595
1596 * Improved configure script
1597
1598The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1599you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1600host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1601done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1602
1603We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1604version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1605`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1606The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1607only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1608We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1609
1610 * Documentation improvements
1611
1612There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1613produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1614before submitting changes.
1615
1616The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1617M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1618`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1619you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1620a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1621
1622*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1623We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1624been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1625or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1626`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1627around this problem.
1628
1629 * New features
1630
1631GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1632the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1633`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1634the target program.
1635
1636The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1637how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1638
1639 * New native hosts supported
1640
1641HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1642386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1643
1644 * New targets supported
1645
1646AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1647
1648 * New file formats supported
1649
1650BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1651HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1652
1653 * Major bug fixes
1654
1655Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1656
1657We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1658printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1659
1660We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1661for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1662release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1663
1664You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1665will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1666
1667We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1668for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1669especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1670libraries.
1671
1672The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1673information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1674command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1675any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1676when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1677
1678 * Internal improvements
1679
1680GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1681debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1682
1683GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1684Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1685symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1686contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1687shared code that handles any of them.
1688
1689 * New command line options
1690
1691We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1692
1693 * Mmalloc licensing
1694
1695The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1696General Public License.
1697
1698*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1699
1700 * Host/native/target split
1701
1702GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1703hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1704target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1705local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1706ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1707
1708The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1709GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1710is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1711code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1712any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1713built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1714handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1715
1716GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1717It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1718plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1719
1720 * New hosts supported
1721
1722HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1723386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1724386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1725
1726 * New targets supported
1727
1728Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
172968030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1730
1731 * New native hosts supported
1732
1733386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1734 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1735386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1736
1737 * New file formats supported
1738
1739BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1740supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1741format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1742
1743 * New commands
1744
1745`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1746`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1747These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1748
1749`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1750
1751You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1752scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1753prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1754executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1755
1756 * C++ improvements
1757
1758We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1759info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1760symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1761
1762Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1763
1764 * Major bug fixes
1765
1766The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1767fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1768by the compiler.
1769
1770We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1771support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1772
1773John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1774slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1775that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1776purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1777the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1778mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1779
1780Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1781about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1782completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1783we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1784
1785 * AMD 29k support
1786
1787A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1788specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1789calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1790usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1791in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1792
1793We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1794Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1795of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1796resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1797
1798 * Remote interfaces
1799
1800We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1801with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1802message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1803This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1804needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1805breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1806each instruction being stepped through.
1807
1808The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1809registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1810
1811There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1812find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1813Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1814processor with a serial port.
1815
1816 * Configuration
1817
1818Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1819`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1820supported, and what files each one uses.
1821
1822 * Library changes
1823
1824There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1825disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1826Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1827disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1828
1829The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1830Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1831can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1832grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1833
1834 * Documentation
1835
1836The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1837reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1838as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1839encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1840system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1841bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1842
1843And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1844
1845
1846*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1847
1848 * Better support for C++ function names
1849
1850GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1851names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1852(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1853single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1854Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1855
1856GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1857the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1858You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1859lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1860for the list of formats.
1861
1862 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1863
1864Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1865C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1866directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1867can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1868usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1869about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1870this problem.)
1871
1872 * New 'maintenance' command
1873
1874All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1875the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1876can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1877
1878 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1879 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1880 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1881 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1882 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1883 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1884
1885The following commands are new:
1886
1887 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1888 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1889 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1890
1891 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1892
1893We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1894(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1895be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1896read after argv processing.
1897
1898 * New hosts supported
1899
1900Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1901
55241689 1902GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1903
1904We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1905is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1906for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1907masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1908fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1909It costs extra.
1910
1911 * New targets supported
1912
1913Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1914
1915 * More smarts about finding #include files
1916
1917GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1918all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1919greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1920especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1921the one that contains your sources.
1922
1923We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1924breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1925try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1926
1927 * Interesting infernals change
1928
1929GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1930section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1931target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1932stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1933
1934 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1935
1936There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1937 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1938 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1939
1940See the ChangeLog for details.
1941
1942*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1943
1944 * New machines supported (host and target)
1945
1946IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1947
1948SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1949
1950 * New malloc package
1951
1952GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1953Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1954capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1955This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1956pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1957more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1958
1959 * info proc
1960
1961The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1962'help info proc' for details.
1963
1964 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1965
1966The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1967Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1968possible.
1969
1970 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1971
1972Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1973support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1974conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1975environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1976that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1977in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1978
1979 * Cross byte order fixes
1980
1981Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1982targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1983
1984 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1985
1986If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1987system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1988`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1989program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1990called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1991Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1992and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1993the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1994option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1995starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1996
1997You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1998the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1999information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2000slower, but makes future operations faster.
2001
2002The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2003build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2004A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2005use is:
2006
2007 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2008
2009The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2010It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2011shared across multiple host platforms.
2012
2013 * longjmp() handling
2014
2015GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2016siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2017all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2018platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2019
2020 * Solaris 2.0
2021
2022Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2023this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2024reading symbols.
2025
2026 * Bug fixes
2027
2028As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2029People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2030crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2031
2032*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2033
2034 * New machines supported (host and target)
2035
2036SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2037 (except core files)
2038BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2039Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2040
2041 * New machines supported (target)
2042
2043AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2044
2045 * C++ support
2046
2047GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2048The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2049per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2050
2051GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2052`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2053extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2054good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2055will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2056released.
2057
2058 * New features for SVR4
2059
2060GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2061shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2062only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2063
2064The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2065on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2066it prints the address mappings of the process.
2067
2068If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2069bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2070
2071 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2072
2073Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2074now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2075skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2076make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2077same code linked statically.
2078
2079 * New Getopt
2080
2081GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2082version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2083continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2084Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2085added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2086future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2087
2088 * Bugs fixed
2089
2090The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2091Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2092See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2093
2094
2095*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2096
2097 * New machines supported (host and target)
2098
2099Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2100NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2101Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2102
2103 * Almost SCO Unix support
2104
2105We had hoped to support:
2106SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2107(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2108that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2109about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2110
2111 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2112
2113GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2114debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2115is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2116send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2117reqired (if any).
2118
2119 * New Readline
2120
2121GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2122is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2123required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2124
2125 * Bugs fixed
2126
2127The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2128Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2129See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2130
2131 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2132
2133GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2134supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2135symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2136
2137Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2138mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2139debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2140mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2141version 2.
2142
2143Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2144really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2145line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2146variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2147situation somewhat.
2148
2149When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2150However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2151methods.
2152
2153We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2154DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2155encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2156
2157
2158*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2159
2160 * Improved configuration
2161
2162Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2163Porting BFD is simpler.
2164
2165 * Stepping improved
2166
2167The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2168of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2169in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2170function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2171
2172 * Bug fixing
2173
2174Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2175
2176 * New host supported (not target)
2177
2178Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2179
2180
2181*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2182
2183 * Multiple source language support
2184
2185GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2186It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2187and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2188language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2189You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2190`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2191
2192 * GDB and Modula-2
2193
2194GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2195currently under development at the State University of New York at
2196Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2197continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2198
2199Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2200debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2201symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2202
2203There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2204in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2205
2206 * set write on/off
2207
2208GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2209a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2210the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2211by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2212effect immediately.
2213
2214 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2215
2216When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2217shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2218The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2219examining core files.
2220
2221 * set listsize
2222
2223You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2224The default is 10.
2225
2226 * New machines supported (host and target)
2227
2228SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2229Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2230Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2231
2232 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2233
2234IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2235
2236 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2237
2238AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2239AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2240Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2241
2242 * New remote interfaces
2243
2244AMD 29000 Adapt
2245AMD 29000 Minimon
2246
2247
2248*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2249
2250 * New Facilities
2251
2252Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2253
2254Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2255target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2256is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2257remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2258remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2259also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2260using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2261stub on the target system.
2262
2263New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2264
2265GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2266library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2267object file types such as a.out and coff.
2268
2269There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2270refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2271
2272
2273 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2274
2275All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2276by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2277
2278For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2279``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2280Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2281
2282What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2283print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2284will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2285all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2286
2287confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2288 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2289 it is already running. Default is ON.
2290
2291editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2292 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2293 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2294 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2295 Default is ON.
2296
2297history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2298 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2299 or the value of the environment variable
2300 GDBHISTFILE.
2301
2302history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2303 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2304 HISTSIZE.
2305
2306history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2307 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2308 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2309
2310history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2311 history expansion will be performed on
2312 command line input. The default is OFF.
2313
2314radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2315 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2316 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2317
2318height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2319 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2320 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2321 variable TERM.
2322
2323width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2324 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2325 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2326 variable TERM.
2327
2328Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2329``set width'' instead.
2330
2331print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2332 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2333 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2334 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2335
2336print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2337 is OFF.
2338
2339print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2340 "raw" form if off.
2341
2342print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2343 like instructions.
2344
2345print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2346
2347
2348 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2349
2350The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2351new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2352are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2353window.
2354
2355
2356 * Support for Shared Libraries
2357
2358GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2359Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2360before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2361happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2362At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2363from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2364shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2365It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2366
2367sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2368 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2369 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2370
2371info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2372
2373
2374 * Watchpoints
2375
2376A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2377expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2378tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2379quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2380problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2381more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2382
2383watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2384
2385info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2386
2387delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2388disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2389enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2390
2391
2392 * C++ multiple inheritance
2393
2394When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2395for C++ programs.
2396
2397 * C++ exception handling
2398
2399Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2400ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2401the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2402handler's context).
2403
2404catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2405 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2406 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2407
2408info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2409 current stack frame.
2410
2411
2412 * Minor command changes
2413
2414The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2415command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2416is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2417
2418The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2419at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2420frames without printing.
2421
2422 * New directory command
2423
2424'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2425The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2426about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2427with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2428find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2429
2430 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2431
2432For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2433for more details.
2434
2435GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2436two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2437Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2438where the program that you are debugging will run.
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