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[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 6.5
5
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6* REMOVED features
7
8The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
9
e374b601 10*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 11
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12* New targets
13
14Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
15
16Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
17
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18* New commands
19
20init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
21 only if it doesn't already have a value.
22
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23The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
24
25checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
26
27restart <n> Return the program state to a
28 previously saved state.
29
30info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
31
32delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
33
34set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
35 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
36
37info forks List forks of the user program that
38 are available to be debugged.
39
40fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
41 forks of the user program that are
42 available to be debugged.
43
44delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
45 that are available to be debugged (and
46 kill the forked process).
47
48detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
49 that are available to be debugged (and
50 allow the process to continue).
51
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52* New architecture
53
54Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
55
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56* Improved Windows host support
57
58GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
59native console support, and remote communications using either
60network sockets or serial ports.
61
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62* Improved Modula-2 language support
63
64GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
65basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
66pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
67printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
68written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
69GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
70
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71* REMOVED features
72
73The ARM rdi-share module.
74
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75The Netware NLM debug server.
76
53e5f3cf 77*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 78
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79* New native configurations
80
02a677ac 81OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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82OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
83
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84* New targets
85
86Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
87
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88* New command line options
89
90--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
91--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
92 the child (debugged) program exited with.
93--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
94 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
95 specified multiple times and in conjunction
96 with the --command (-x) option.
97
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98* Deprecated commands removed
99
100The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
101removed:
102
103 Command Replacement
104 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
105 othernames set arm disassembler
106 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
107 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
108 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
109 regs info registers
110
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111* New BSD user-level threads support
112
113It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
114library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
115configurations are:
116
117FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
118FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
119OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
120
121Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
122are not yet supported.
123
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124* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
125(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
126
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127* REMOVED configurations and files
128
129VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 130Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 131National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 132
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133* New "set print array-indexes" command
134
135After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
136when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
137behavior.
138
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139* VAX floating point support
140
141GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
142
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143* User-defined command support
144
145In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
146to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
147section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
148
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149*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
150
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151* New command line option
152
153GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
154debugging.
155
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156* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
157
158GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
159information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
160by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
161proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
162to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 163
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164* Internationalization
165
166When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
167internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
168continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
169
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170* Ada
171
172Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
173implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
174into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
175
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176* New native configurations
177
178GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
179
180* Remote 'p' packet
181
182GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
183packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
184
185* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
186
187GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
188The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
189features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
190i386 application).
191
192GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
193compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
194continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
195configurations:
196
197hppa-*-hpux
198ia64-*-aix
199mips-*-irix*
200*-*-lynx
201mips-*-linux-gnu
202sds protocol
203xdr protocol
204powerpc bdm protocol
205
206Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
207made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
208
209* OBSOLETE configurations and files
210
211Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
212been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
213configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
214permanently REMOVED.
215
216h8300-*-*
217mcore-*-*
218mn10300-*-*
219ns32k-*-*
220sh64-*-*
221v850-*-*
222
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223*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
224
225* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
226
227When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
228heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
229been fixed.
230
231* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
232
233When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
234fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
235IRIX long double values).
236
237* VAX and "next"
238
239A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
240command. This problem has been fixed.
241
860660cb 242*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 243
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244* Fix for ``many threads''
245
246On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
247rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
248error message:
249
250 ptrace: No such process.
251 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
252
253This problem has been fixed.
254
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255* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
256
257Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
258GDB to dump core).
259
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260* New ``start'' command.
261
262This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
263
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264* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
265
266Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
267live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
268platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
269
270FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
271FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
272NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
273NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
274NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
275OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
276OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
277OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
278OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
279
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280* Signal trampoline code overhauled
281
282Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
283These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
284of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
285call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
286signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
287
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288Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
289features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
290include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 291
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292* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
293
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294* New native configurations
295
97dc871c 296GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 297OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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298OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
299OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 300OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 301NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 302OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 303
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304* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
305
306GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
307The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
308including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
309migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
310compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
311work, was also included.
312
313GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
314module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
315
316h8300-*-*
317mcore-*-*
318mn10300-*-*
319ns32k-*-*
320sh64-*-*
321v850-*-*
322xstormy16-*-*
323
324Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
325made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
326
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327* REMOVED configurations and files
328
329Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
330Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
331Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
332Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
333Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
334AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
335Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
336decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
337riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
338sonymips mips-sony-*
339sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
340
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341*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
342
343* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
344
345The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
346GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
347command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
348program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
349with GDB".
350
351* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
352
353Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
354libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
355cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
356GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
357shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
358the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
359are created.
360
361Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
362
363* Fixed ISO-C build problems
364
365The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
366non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
367compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
368
369* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
370
371Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
372wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
373
374* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
375
376The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
377permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
378systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
379
380* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
381
382Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
383has been updated to use constant array sizes.
384
385* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
386
387GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
388its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
389panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
390
391* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
392
393When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
394by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
395not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
396
faae5abe 397*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 398
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399* Removed --with-mmalloc
400
401Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
402conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
403
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404* Changes in AMD64 configurations
405
406The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
407the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
408and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
409you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
410
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411* Revised SPARC target
412
413The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
414FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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415support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
416from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
417(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 418
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419* New C++ demangler
420
421GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
422names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
423with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
424programs.
425
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426* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
427
428GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
429arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
430encountered these.
431
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432* C++ nested types and namespaces
433
434GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
435improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
436is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
437Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
438namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
439"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
440frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
441if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
442GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
443
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444* New native configurations
445
446NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 447OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 448OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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449OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
450OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 451
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452* New debugging protocols
453
454M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
455
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456* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
457
458The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
459and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
460tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
461
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462* OBSOLETE configurations and files
463
464Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
465been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
466configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
467permanently REMOVED.
468
469Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
470Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
471Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
472Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
473Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
474AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
475Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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476decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
477riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
478sonymips mips-sony-*
479sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 480
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481* REMOVED configurations and files
482
483SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
484SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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485Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
486Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
487H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
488HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
489HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
490HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
491PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 492386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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493Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
494 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
495 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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496SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
497SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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498Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
499Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 500
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501*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
502
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503* Objective-C
504
505Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
506integrated into GDB.
507
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508* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
509
510DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
511information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
512By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
513backtraces.
514
515The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
516have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
517DWARF 2 CFI support.
518
519* Hosted file I/O.
520
521GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
522file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
523remote protocol documentation for details.
524
525* All targets using the new architecture framework.
526
527All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
528architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
529to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
530ppc32 on ppc64).
531
532* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
533
534GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
535per-thread variables.
536
537* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
538
539GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
540GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
541
542* Separate debug info.
543
544GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
545automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
546of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
547system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
548and optional debug files.
549
550* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
551
552DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
553describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
554debugger.
555
556GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
557for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
558
559* Java
560
561A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
562Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
563considered "useable".
564
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565* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
566
567The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
568commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
569kernel.
570
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571* GDB supports logging output to a file
572
573There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
574used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 575
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576* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
577
578The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
579disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
580command.
581
e286caf2 582* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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583
584The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
585registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
586
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587* Profiling support
588
589A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
590be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
591session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
592"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
593data, for more informative profiling results.
594
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595* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
596
597The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
598option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 599"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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600
601Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
602removed.
603
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604Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
605Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
606Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
607 in a subsequent -var-update.
608
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609* New native configurations.
610
611FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
612
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613* Multi-arched targets.
614
b4263afa 615HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 616Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 617
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618* OBSOLETE configurations and files
619
620Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
621been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
622configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
623permanently REMOVED.
624
8b0e5691 625Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 626Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 627H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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628HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
629HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
630HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 631PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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632Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
633 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
634 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
635Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
636Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 637
5835abe7
NC
638* REMOVED configurations and files
639
640V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
641Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
642IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
643i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
644i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
645i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
646HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
647 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
648 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
649Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
650Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
651Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
652OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
653I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 654
a094c6fb
AC
655* MIPS $fp behavior changed
656
657The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
658the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
659context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
660address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
661The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
662
299ffc64 663*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 664
46248966
AC
665* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
666
667When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
668`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
669in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
670library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
671shared libs like mad''.
672
b9d14705 673* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 674
b9d14705
DJ
675Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
676the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
677arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
678powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 679
e0e9281e
JB
680* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
681
682GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
683and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
684they expand.
685
dd73b9bb
AC
686The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
687invocations in expression, and shows the result.
688
689The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
690macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
691
e0e9281e
JB
692Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
693information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
694your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
695information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
696
2250ee0c
CV
697* Multi-arched targets.
698
6e3ba3b8
JT
699DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
700DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 701NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 702National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
703Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
704Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 705
cd9bfe15 706* New targets.
e33ce519 707
456f8b9d
DB
708Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
709
e33ce519 710
da8ca43d
JT
711* New native configurations
712
713Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 714SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 715MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 716UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 717
cd9bfe15
AC
718* OBSOLETE configurations and files
719
720Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
721been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
722configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
723permanently REMOVED.
724
92eb23c5 725Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 726OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 727IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 728Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 729Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 730Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
731i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
732i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
733i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
734HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
735 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
736 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 737I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 738
db034ac5
AC
739* OBSOLETE languages
740
741CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
742
cd9bfe15
AC
743* REMOVED configurations and files
744
745AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
746A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
747AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
748AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
749AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
750
751testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
752
20f01a46
DH
753* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
754
755This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
756commands. The default is 1024.
757
a5941fbf
MK
758* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
759
760Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
761
89743e04
MS
762* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
763
764These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
765to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
766from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 767
9fb14e79
JB
768* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
769
770The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
771including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
772of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
773
2037aebb
AC
774*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
775
776* New targets.
777
778Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
779
780* Bug fixes
781
782gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
783mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
784Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
785
786gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
787dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
788Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
789
790Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
791Surprisingly enough, it works now.
792By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
793
794i386 hardware watchpoint support:
795avoid misses on second run for some targets.
796By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
797
37057839 798*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 799
1a703748
MS
800* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
801
802This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
803really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
804In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
805target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
806This can be a significant performance improvement on some
807(notably embedded) targets.
808
cefd4ef5
MS
809* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
810
55241689
AC
811This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
812process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
813GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
814hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 815
352ed7b4
MS
816* New command line option
817
818GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
819
820* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
821
822There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
823command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
824a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
825be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
826open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
827issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
828a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
829it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
830GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
831is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
832
fe419ffc
RE
833* Changes in ARM configurations.
834
835Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
836configuration is fully multi-arch.
837
eb7cedd9
MK
838* New native configurations
839
fe419ffc 840ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 841x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 842AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 843Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 844
c9f63e6b
CV
845* New targets
846
847Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
848
9b4ff276
AC
849* OBSOLETE configurations and files
850
851Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
852been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
853configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
854permanently REMOVED.
855
856AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
857A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
858AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
859AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
860AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
861
b4ceaee6 862testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 863
e2caac18
AC
864* REMOVED configurations and files
865
866TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 867WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
868PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
869PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
870PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 871Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
872Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
873 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 874SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 875Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
876Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
877ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 878Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 879
c2a727fa
TT
880* Changes to command line processing
881
882The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
883for the inferior from gdb's command line.
884
467d8519
TT
885* Changes to key bindings
886
887There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
888
7072a954
AC
889*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
890
891Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
892
893Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
894corrupted.
895
896Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
897
898Numerous documentation fixes.
899
900Numerous testsuite fixes.
901
34f47bc4 902*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
903
904* New native configurations
905
906Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
907x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 908MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
909MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
910ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 911s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 912
bf64bfd6
AC
913* New targets
914
def90278 915Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 916CRIS cris-axis
55241689 917UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 918
17e78a56 919* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
920
921x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 922Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
923Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
924 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
925TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
926WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 927Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
928PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
929PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
930PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 931SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
932Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
933ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 934Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 935
17e78a56
AC
936stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
937kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
938
7fcca85b
AC
939Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
940been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
941configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
942permanently REMOVED.
943
a196c81c 944* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
945
946Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
947Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
948Pyramid pyramid-*-*
949ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
950Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 951ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 952
6d6b80e5 953* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 954
6d6b80e5 955GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
956sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
957present.
958
bf64bfd6
AC
959* Other news:
960
e23194cb
EZ
961* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
962
963* The MI enabled by default.
964
965The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
966revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
967engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
968using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
969which is now deprecated.
970
971* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
972
973GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
974main features are supported:
975
976 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
977
978 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
979 extension;
980
981 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
982
983 - a Pascal expression parser.
984
985However, some important features are not yet supported.
986
987 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
988
989 - there are some problems with boolean types;
990
991 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
992 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
993
994 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
995
996 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
997
998* Changes in completion.
999
1000Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1001to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1002users expect at the shell prompt.
1003
1004Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1005`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1006program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1007files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1008be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1009considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1010name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1011
1012`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1013
1014* New platform-independent commands:
1015
1016It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1017hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1018documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1019
1020* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1021
d7275149
MK
1022Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1023revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1024many threads as your system allows you to have.
1025
e23194cb
EZ
1026Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1027
d7275149
MK
1028Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1029multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1030
1031* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1032
1033Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1034
e23194cb
EZ
1035GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1036debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1037supported.)
1038
1039* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1040
1041Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1042breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1043implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1044put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1045and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1046registers.
1047
1048The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1049debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1050watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1051
1052* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1053
1054New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1055the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1056
1057New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1058display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1059IDT.
1060
1061New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1062from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1063New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1064a given linear address.
1065
1066GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1067program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1068which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1069
1070DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1071
6c56c069
EZ
1072It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1073
e23194cb
EZ
1074* Changes in documentation.
1075
1076All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1077Documentation License.
1078
1079Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1080manual.
1081
1082TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1083
1084Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1085manual.
1086
1087The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1088documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1089hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1090
5d6640b1
AC
1091* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1092
1093The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1094``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1095contents of this file.
1096
1a1d8446
AC
1097* gdba.el deleted
1098
1099GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1100
9debab2f 1101*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1102
c63ce875
EZ
1103* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1104
1105Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1106programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1107displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1108greater level of detail.
1109
1110* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1111
1112It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1113bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1114on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1115written.
1116
1117* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1118
1119The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1120necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1121machines ``out of the box''.
1122
1123The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1124possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1125signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1126would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1127interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1128
1129It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1130standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1131even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1132and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1133terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1134
1135The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1136enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1137also works.
1138
1139DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1140GDB.
1141
1142It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1143directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1144times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1145breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1146
ed9a39eb
JM
1147* New native configurations
1148
1149ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1150PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1151
7a292a7a
SS
1152* New targets
1153
96baa820 1154Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1155x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1156PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1157TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1158
085dd6e6
JM
1159* OBSOLETE configurations
1160
1161Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1162Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1163Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1164ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1165Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1166
9debab2f
AC
1167Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1168but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1169these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1170be permanently REMOVED.
1171
5330533d
SS
1172* Gould support removed
1173
1174Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1175
bc9e5bbf
AC
1176* New features for SVR4
1177
1178On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1179without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1180load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1181
1182* Many C++ enhancements
1183
1184C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1185in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1186
adf40b2e
JM
1187* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1188
1189A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1190sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1191with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1192``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1193
1194 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1195 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1196
43e526b9
JM
1197* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1198
1199A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1200expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1201instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1202
1203The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1204added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1205
96baa820
JM
1206* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1207
1208The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1209``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1210include ``set remote P-packet''.
1211
11cf8741
JM
1212* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1213
1214The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1215accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1216``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1217
7876dd43
DB
1218* ``apropos'' command added.
1219
1220The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1221documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1222try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1223
bc9e5bbf
AC
1224* New MI interface
1225
1226A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1227interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1228process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1229"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1230enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1231
1232 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1233
c906108c
SS
1234*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1235
1236* New native configurations
1237
1238HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1239HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1240M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1241
1242* New targets
1243
1244Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1245Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1246Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1247
1248* OBSOLETE configurations
1249
1250Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1251
1252Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1253but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1254these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1255be permanently REMOVED.
1256
1257* ANSI/ISO C
1258
1259As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1260buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1261containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1262use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1263available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1264configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1265information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1266already.
1267
1268* Readline 2.2
1269
1270GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1271
1272* set extension-language
1273
1274You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1275languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1276you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1277 set extension-language .c c++
1278The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1279and their associated languages.
1280
1281* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1282
1283When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1284you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1285PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1286
1287 set processor NAME
1288
1289sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1290following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1291
1292 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1293 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1294 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1295 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1296 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1297 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1298 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1299 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1300 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1301 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1302 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1303
1304At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1305special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1306registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1307only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1308
1309* HP-UX support
1310
1311Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1312more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1313library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1314support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1315for xdb and dbx commands.
1316
1317* Catchpoints
1318
1319HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1320generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1321to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1322
1323This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1324argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1325output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1326
1327* Debugging across forks
1328
1329On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1330in the inferior.
1331
1332* TUI
1333
1334HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1335it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1336configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1337
1338* GDB remote protocol additions
1339
1340A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1341Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1342fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1343allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1344
1345For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1346full 64-bit address. The command
1347
1348 set remoteaddresssize 32
1349
1350can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1351the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1352will be discarded.
1353
1354In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1355command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1356
1357 maint packet heythere
1358
1359sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1360disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1361time.
1362
1363The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1364target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1365downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1366
1367* Tracing can collect general expressions
1368
1369You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1370further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1371doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1372
1373* mask-address variable for Mips
1374
1375For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1376a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1377of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1378
1379* Higher serial baud rates
1380
1381GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1382230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1383to achieve all of these rates.)
1384
1385* i960 simulator
1386
1387The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1388builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1389
1390
1391*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1392
1393* New native configurations
1394
1395Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1396Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1397Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1398PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1399PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1400Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1401Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1402
1403* New targets
1404
1405Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1406Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1407Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1408Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1409MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1410MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1411MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1412Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1413Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1414Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1415NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1416
1417* New debugging protocols
1418
1419ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1420M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1421DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1422PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1423PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1424Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1425
1426* DWARF 2
1427
1428All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1429format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1430information.
1431
1432* Java frontend
1433
1434GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1435only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1436
1437* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1438
1439For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1440loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1441locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1442
1443* Live range splitting
1444
1445GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1446range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1447more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1448
1449* Hurd support
1450
1451GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1452updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1453
1454* ARM Thumb support
1455
1456GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1457instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1458instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1459accordingly.
1460
1461* MIPS16 support
1462
1463GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1464instruction set.
1465
1466* Overlay support
1467
1468GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1469linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1470will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1471control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1472additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1473in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1474
1475* info symbol
1476
1477The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1478the symbol at the specified address.
1479
1480* Trace support
1481
1482The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1483asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1484extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1485includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1486file tracepoint.c for more details.
1487
1488* MIPS simulator
1489
1490Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1491by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1492of most MIPS variants.
1493
1494* Sparc simulator
1495
1496Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1497by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1498Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1499
1500* set architecture
1501
1502For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1503basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1504architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1505the possible architectures.
1506
1507*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1508
1509* New native configurations
1510
1511Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1512M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1513PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1514PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1515PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1516RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1517
1518* New targets
1519
1520ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1521I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1522MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1523MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1524PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1525Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1526Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1527
1528* PowerPC simulator
1529
1530The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1531contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1532PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1533basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1534performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1535
1536* Solaris 2.5
1537
1538GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1539
1540* Windows 95/NT native
1541
1542GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1543To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1544which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1545Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1546ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1547
1548* dont-repeat command
1549
1550If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1551command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1552useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1553extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1554
1555* Send break instead of ^C
1556
1557The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1558rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1559GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1560
1561* Remote protocol timeout
1562
1563The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1564that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1565to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1566
1567* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1568
1569By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1570loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1571stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1572when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1573in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1574
1575Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1576/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1577automatically on hpux10.
1578
1579* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1580
1581Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1582
1583* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1584
1585When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1586may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1587the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1588every character. The default value is 1050.
1589
1590* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1591
1592If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1593a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1594replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1595details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1596remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1597to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1598
1599* Speedups for remote debugging
1600
1601GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1602the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1603and more efficient S-record downloading.
1604
1605* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1606
1607GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1608Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1609
1610*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1611
1612* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1613
1614The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1615can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1616
1617* Remote targets use caching
1618
1619Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1620remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1621it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1622debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1623off' turns the the data cache off.
1624
1625* Remote targets may have threads
1626
1627The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1628in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1629gdb/remote.c for details.
1630
1631* NetROM support
1632
1633If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1634support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1635acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1636write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1637support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1638another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1639sequence is something like
1640
1641 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1642 load <prog>
1643 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1644
1645* Macintosh host
1646
1647GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1648may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1649it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1650available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1651device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1652directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1653scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1654mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1655
1656* Autoconf
1657
1658GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1659but does simplify configuration and building.
1660
1661* hpux10
1662
1663GDB now supports hpux10.
1664
1665*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1666
1667* New native configurations
1668
1669x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1670x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1671NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1672Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1673
1674* New targets
1675
1676A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1677HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1678CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1679PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1680WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1681
1682* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1683
1684GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1685possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1686filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1687the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1688if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1689
1690* Arguments to user-defined commands
1691
1692User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1693Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1694trivial example:
1695define adder
1696 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1697
1698To execute the command use:
1699adder 1 2 3
1700
1701Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1702Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1703use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1704
1705* New `if' and `while' commands
1706
1707This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1708commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1709expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1710execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1711terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1712`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1713if the expression is zero.
1714
1715* Fortran source language mode
1716
1717GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1718Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1719variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1720with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1721Fortran compilers.
1722
1723* Better HPUX support
1724
1725Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1726running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1727processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1728for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1729that behavior do the following before running the program:
1730
1731 adb -w a.out
1732 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1733 control-d
1734
1735This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1736To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1737
1738 adb -w a.out
1739 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1740 control-d
1741
1742You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1743the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1744external linkage.
1745
1746GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1747HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1748
1749* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1750
1751You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1752commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1753current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1754"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1755associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1756configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1757
1758* New DOS host serial code
1759
1760This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1761no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1762a PC's serial port.
1763
1764*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1765
1766* New "complete" command
1767
1768This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1769were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1770
1771* Trailing space optional in prompt
1772
1773"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1774allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1775
1776* Breakpoint hit counts
1777
1778"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1779has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1780can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1781to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1782less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1783that breakpoint.
1784
1785* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1786
1787"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1788an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1789arrays actually contain only short strings.
1790
1791* Shared library breakpoints
1792
1793In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1794breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1795
1796* Hardware watchpoints
1797
1798There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1799targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1800
55241689 1801Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1802
1803* Annotations
1804
1805Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1806and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1807
1808* Improved Irix 5 support
1809
1810GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1811
1812* Improved HPPA support
1813
1814GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1815
1816* New native configurations
1817
1818Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1819HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1820Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1821RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1822
1823* New targets
1824
1825OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1826MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1827Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1828
1829* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1830
1831There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1832This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1833
1834* Fixes
1835
1836As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1837and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1838
1839*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1840
1841* Irix 5 is now supported
1842
1843* HPPA support
1844
1845GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1846to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1847GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1848of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1849can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1850
1851
1852*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1853
1854* User visible changes:
1855
1856* Remote Debugging
1857
1858The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1859target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1860debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1861integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1862debugging info for the mips target).
1863
1864* DEC Alpha native support
1865
1866GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1867debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1868work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1869Alpha-specific notes.
1870
1871* Preliminary thread implementation
1872
1873GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1874
1875* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1876
1877This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1878to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1879for details).
1880
1881* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1882
1883This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1884mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1885call methods, ...etc.
1886
1887*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1888
1889 * User visible changes:
1890
1891Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1892supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1893other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1894somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1895
1896Filename completion now works.
1897
1898When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1899arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1900addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1901
1902All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1903vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1904should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1905your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1906to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1907
1908 * DEC alpha support
1909
1910This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1911cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1912
1913
1914*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1915
1916 * Testsuite
1917
1918This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1919The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1920via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1921
1922 * C++ demangling
1923
1924'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1925emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1926Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1927disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1928use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1929
1930 * Simulators
1931
1932GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1933So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1934Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1935
1936 * New targets supported
1937
1938H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1939H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1940SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1941Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1942IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1943
1944Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1945version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1946GO32 memory extender.
1947
1948 * New remote protocols
1949
1950MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1951
1952 * New source languages supported
1953
1954This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1955used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1956into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1957
1958
1959*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1960
1961 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1962
1963GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1964version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1965University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1966compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1967format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1968(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1969
1970Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1971
1972 * Faster and better demangling
1973
1974We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1975demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1976character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1977only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1978This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1979increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1980symbol lookups.
1981
1982`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1983from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1984compiler does not actually implement.
1985
1986 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1987
1988In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1989inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1990recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1991very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1992The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1993circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1994fix.
1995
1996The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1997release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1998
1999 * Improved configure script
2000
2001The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2002you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2003host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2004done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2005
2006We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2007version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2008`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2009The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2010only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2011We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2012
2013 * Documentation improvements
2014
2015There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2016produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2017before submitting changes.
2018
2019The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2020M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2021`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2022you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2023a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2024
2025*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2026We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2027been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2028or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2029`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2030around this problem.
2031
2032 * New features
2033
2034GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2035the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2036`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2037the target program.
2038
2039The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2040how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2041
2042 * New native hosts supported
2043
2044HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2045386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2046
2047 * New targets supported
2048
2049AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2050
2051 * New file formats supported
2052
2053BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2054HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2055
2056 * Major bug fixes
2057
2058Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2059
2060We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2061printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2062
2063We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2064for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2065release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2066
2067You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2068will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2069
2070We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2071for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2072especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2073libraries.
2074
2075The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2076information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2077command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2078any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2079when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2080
2081 * Internal improvements
2082
2083GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2084debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2085
2086GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2087Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2088symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2089contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2090shared code that handles any of them.
2091
2092 * New command line options
2093
2094We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2095
2096 * Mmalloc licensing
2097
2098The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2099General Public License.
2100
2101*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2102
2103 * Host/native/target split
2104
2105GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2106hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2107target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2108local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2109ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2110
2111The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2112GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2113is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2114code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2115any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2116built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2117handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2118
2119GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2120It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2121plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2122
2123 * New hosts supported
2124
2125HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2126386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2127386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2128
2129 * New targets supported
2130
2131Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
213268030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2133
2134 * New native hosts supported
2135
2136386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2137 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2138386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2139
2140 * New file formats supported
2141
2142BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2143supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2144format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2145
2146 * New commands
2147
2148`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2149`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2150These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2151
2152`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2153
2154You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2155scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2156prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2157executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2158
2159 * C++ improvements
2160
2161We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2162info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2163symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2164
2165Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2166
2167 * Major bug fixes
2168
2169The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2170fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2171by the compiler.
2172
2173We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2174support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2175
2176John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2177slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2178that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2179purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2180the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2181mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2182
2183Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2184about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2185completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2186we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2187
2188 * AMD 29k support
2189
2190A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2191specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2192calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2193usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2194in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2195
2196We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2197Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2198of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2199resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2200
2201 * Remote interfaces
2202
2203We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2204with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2205message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2206This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2207needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2208breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2209each instruction being stepped through.
2210
2211The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2212registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2213
2214There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2215find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2216Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2217processor with a serial port.
2218
2219 * Configuration
2220
2221Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2222`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2223supported, and what files each one uses.
2224
2225 * Library changes
2226
2227There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2228disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2229Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2230disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2231
2232The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2233Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2234can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2235grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2236
2237 * Documentation
2238
2239The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2240reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2241as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2242encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2243system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2244bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2245
2246And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2247
2248
2249*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2250
2251 * Better support for C++ function names
2252
2253GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2254names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2255(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2256single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2257Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2258
2259GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2260the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2261You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2262lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2263for the list of formats.
2264
2265 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2266
2267Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2268C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2269directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2270can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2271usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2272about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2273this problem.)
2274
2275 * New 'maintenance' command
2276
2277All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2278the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2279can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2280
2281 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2282 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2283 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2284 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2285 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2286 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2287
2288The following commands are new:
2289
2290 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2291 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2292 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2293
2294 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2295
2296We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2297(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2298be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2299read after argv processing.
2300
2301 * New hosts supported
2302
2303Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2304
55241689 2305GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2306
2307We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2308is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2309for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2310masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2311fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2312It costs extra.
2313
2314 * New targets supported
2315
2316Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2317
2318 * More smarts about finding #include files
2319
2320GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2321all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2322greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2323especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2324the one that contains your sources.
2325
2326We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2327breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2328try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2329
2330 * Interesting infernals change
2331
2332GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2333section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2334target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2335stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2336
2337 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2338
2339There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2340 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2341 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2342
2343See the ChangeLog for details.
2344
2345*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2346
2347 * New machines supported (host and target)
2348
2349IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2350
2351SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2352
2353 * New malloc package
2354
2355GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2356Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2357capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2358This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2359pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2360more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2361
2362 * info proc
2363
2364The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2365'help info proc' for details.
2366
2367 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2368
2369The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2370Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2371possible.
2372
2373 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2374
2375Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2376support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2377conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2378environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2379that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2380in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2381
2382 * Cross byte order fixes
2383
2384Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2385targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2386
2387 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2388
2389If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2390system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2391`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2392program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2393called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2394Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2395and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2396the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2397option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2398starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2399
2400You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2401the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2402information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2403slower, but makes future operations faster.
2404
2405The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2406build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2407A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2408use is:
2409
2410 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2411
2412The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2413It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2414shared across multiple host platforms.
2415
2416 * longjmp() handling
2417
2418GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2419siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2420all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2421platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2422
2423 * Solaris 2.0
2424
2425Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2426this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2427reading symbols.
2428
2429 * Bug fixes
2430
2431As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2432People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2433crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2434
2435*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2436
2437 * New machines supported (host and target)
2438
2439SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2440 (except core files)
2441BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2442Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2443
2444 * New machines supported (target)
2445
2446AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2447
2448 * C++ support
2449
2450GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2451The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2452per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2453
2454GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2455`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2456extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2457good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2458will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2459released.
2460
2461 * New features for SVR4
2462
2463GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2464shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2465only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2466
2467The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2468on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2469it prints the address mappings of the process.
2470
2471If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2472bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2473
2474 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2475
2476Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2477now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2478skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2479make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2480same code linked statically.
2481
2482 * New Getopt
2483
2484GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2485version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2486continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2487Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2488added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2489future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2490
2491 * Bugs fixed
2492
2493The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2494Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2495See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2496
2497
2498*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2499
2500 * New machines supported (host and target)
2501
2502Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2503NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2504Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2505
2506 * Almost SCO Unix support
2507
2508We had hoped to support:
2509SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2510(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2511that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2512about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2513
2514 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2515
2516GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2517debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2518is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2519send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2520reqired (if any).
2521
2522 * New Readline
2523
2524GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2525is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2526required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2527
2528 * Bugs fixed
2529
2530The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2531Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2532See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2533
2534 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2535
2536GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2537supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2538symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2539
2540Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2541mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2542debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2543mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2544version 2.
2545
2546Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2547really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2548line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2549variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2550situation somewhat.
2551
2552When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2553However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2554methods.
2555
2556We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2557DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2558encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2559
2560
2561*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2562
2563 * Improved configuration
2564
2565Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2566Porting BFD is simpler.
2567
2568 * Stepping improved
2569
2570The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2571of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2572in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2573function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2574
2575 * Bug fixing
2576
2577Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2578
2579 * New host supported (not target)
2580
2581Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2582
2583
2584*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2585
2586 * Multiple source language support
2587
2588GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2589It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2590and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2591language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2592You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2593`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2594
2595 * GDB and Modula-2
2596
2597GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2598currently under development at the State University of New York at
2599Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2600continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2601
2602Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2603debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2604symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2605
2606There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2607in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2608
2609 * set write on/off
2610
2611GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2612a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2613the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2614by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2615effect immediately.
2616
2617 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2618
2619When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2620shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2621The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2622examining core files.
2623
2624 * set listsize
2625
2626You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2627The default is 10.
2628
2629 * New machines supported (host and target)
2630
2631SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2632Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2633Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2634
2635 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2636
2637IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2638
2639 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2640
2641AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2642AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2643Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2644
2645 * New remote interfaces
2646
2647AMD 29000 Adapt
2648AMD 29000 Minimon
2649
2650
2651*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2652
2653 * New Facilities
2654
2655Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2656
2657Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2658target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2659is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2660remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2661remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2662also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2663using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2664stub on the target system.
2665
2666New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2667
2668GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2669library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2670object file types such as a.out and coff.
2671
2672There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2673refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2674
2675
2676 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2677
2678All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2679by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2680
2681For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2682``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2683Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2684
2685What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2686print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2687will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2688all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2689
2690confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2691 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2692 it is already running. Default is ON.
2693
2694editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2695 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2696 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2697 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2698 Default is ON.
2699
2700history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2701 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2702 or the value of the environment variable
2703 GDBHISTFILE.
2704
2705history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2706 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2707 HISTSIZE.
2708
2709history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2710 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2711 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2712
2713history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2714 history expansion will be performed on
2715 command line input. The default is OFF.
2716
2717radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2718 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2719 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2720
2721height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2722 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2723 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2724 variable TERM.
2725
2726width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2727 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2728 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2729 variable TERM.
2730
2731Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2732``set width'' instead.
2733
2734print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2735 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2736 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2737 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2738
2739print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2740 is OFF.
2741
2742print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2743 "raw" form if off.
2744
2745print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2746 like instructions.
2747
2748print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2749
2750
2751 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2752
2753The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2754new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2755are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2756window.
2757
2758
2759 * Support for Shared Libraries
2760
2761GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2762Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2763before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2764happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2765At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2766from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2767shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2768It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2769
2770sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2771 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2772 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2773
2774info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2775
2776
2777 * Watchpoints
2778
2779A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2780expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2781tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2782quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2783problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2784more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2785
2786watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2787
2788info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2789
2790delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2791disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2792enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2793
2794
2795 * C++ multiple inheritance
2796
2797When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2798for C++ programs.
2799
2800 * C++ exception handling
2801
2802Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2803ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2804the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2805handler's context).
2806
2807catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2808 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2809 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2810
2811info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2812 current stack frame.
2813
2814
2815 * Minor command changes
2816
2817The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2818command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2819is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2820
2821The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2822at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2823frames without printing.
2824
2825 * New directory command
2826
2827'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2828The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2829about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2830with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2831find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2832
2833 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2834
2835For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2836for more details.
2837
2838GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2839two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2840Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2841where the program that you are debugging will run.
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