* python/lib/gdb/types.py (deep_items): Rename from deepitems.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
31916278 4*** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
d6e00af6 5
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6* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
7 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
8 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
9 target hardware watchpoint.
10
11 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
12 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
13 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
14 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
15
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16* Python scripting
17
32d1c362 18 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 19 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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20 existing one.
21
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22 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
23 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
24 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
25 "off".
26
baacfb07 27 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 28 Python API.
713389e0 29
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30 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
31 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 32 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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33 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
34 corresponding value.
35
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36 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
37 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
38 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
39 on GDB start-up.
40
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41 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
42 static_block will return the global and static blocks
43 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
44 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
45
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46 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
47
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48 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
49 "gdb.breakpoints".
50
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51 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
52 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
53 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
54 "some_type.items()".
55
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56 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
57 new object file.
58
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59 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
60 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
61 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
62 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
63 any anonymous fields.
64
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65* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
66 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
67 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
68 lives.
69
70 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
71 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
72 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
73 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
74 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
75
76 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
77 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
78
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79* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
80 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
81 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
82 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
83 use this option to specify where to find it.
84
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85* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
86 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
87 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
88 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
89 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
90 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
91 section in the user manual for more details.
92
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93* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
94 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
95 become available after that.
96
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97* New commands "info macros", "info definitions",
98 and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 99
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100* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
101 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
102 gcc version 4.7.
103
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104* Changed commands
105
106watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
107 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
108 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
109
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110info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
111 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
112 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
113
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114* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
115 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
116 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
117 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
118 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
119 is running.
120
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121* New options
122
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123set extended-prompt
124show extended-prompt
125 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
126 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
127 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
128 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
129 prompt is displayed.
130
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131set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
132show print entry-values
133 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
134 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
135 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
136
137set debug entry-values
138show debug entry-values
139 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
140 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
141
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142* New remote packets
143
144QTEnable
145
146 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
147
148QTDisable
149
150 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
151
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152* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
153 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
154
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155* New targets
156
157Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
158
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159*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
160
161* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
162
d6e00af6 163*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 164
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165* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
166 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
167 matches the given regular expression.
168
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169* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
170
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171* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
172 dumping the instruction opcodes.
173
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174* New command line options
175
176-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
177 This is mostly for testing purposes.
178
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179* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
180 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
181
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182* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
183 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
184 source path list instead of augmenting it.
185
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186* GDB now understands thread names.
187
188 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
189 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
190
191 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
192 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
193
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194* OpenCL C
195 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
196 has been integrated into GDB.
197
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198* Python scripting
199
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200 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
201 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
202 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
203
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204 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
205 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
206 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
207 and allows for more dynamic content.
208
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209 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
210 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
211 have an is_valid method.
212
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213 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
214 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
215 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
216
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217 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
218
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219 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
220 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
221 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
222 that function like so:
223
224 result = some_value (10,20)
225
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226 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
227 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
228 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
229
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230 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
231 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
232 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
233 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
234 New function: register_pretty_printer.
235
236 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
237 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
238
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239 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
240
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241 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
242 selected thread.
243
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244 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
245 holds the thread's name.
246
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247 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
248 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 249 occurring in the process being debugged.
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250 The following events are currently supported:
251 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
252 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
253 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
254
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255* C++ Improvements:
256
257 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
258 instantiation. For example, if you have:
259
260 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
261
262 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
263 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
264 was added to GCC 4.5.
265
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266 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
267 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
268 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
269 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
270 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
271 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
272
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273* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
274 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
275 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
276 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
277 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
278
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279* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
280 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
281 execution to a label.
282
283* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
284 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
285 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
286 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
287
b56df873 288* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 289 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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290 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
291 of scope.
292
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293* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
294
295 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
296 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
297 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
298 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
299 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
300 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
301
302 (gdb) info threads
303 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
304
305 While now you see this:
306
307 (gdb) info threads
308 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
309
310 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
311 dumps.
312
313 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
314 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
315 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
316 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
317
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318* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
319 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
320 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
321 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
322 section in the user manual for more details.
323
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324* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
325
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326 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
327 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 328
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329 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
330
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331* New native configurations
332
333ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
334
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335* New targets:
336
337Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
338
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339* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
340 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
341 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
342 in the GDB user manual.
343
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344* Guile support was removed.
345
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346* New features in the GNU simulator
347
348 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
349
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350 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
351
76b8507d 352*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 353
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354* Shared library support for remote targets by default
355
356 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
357 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
358 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
359 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
360 was always disabled for such configurations.
361
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362* C++ Improvements:
363
364 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
365
366 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
367 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
368 For example:
369 namespace A
370 {
371 class B { };
372 void foo (B) { }
373 }
374 ...
375 A::B b
376 foo(b)
377 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
378 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
379 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
380
381 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
382
383 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
384 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
385 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
386 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
387 entry.
388 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
389 mentioned flavors of operators.
390
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391 ** static const class members
392
393 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
394 class definition has been fixed.
395
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396* Windows Thread Information Block access.
397
398 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
399 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
400 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
401 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
402 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
403 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
404
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405* Static tracepoints
406
407 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
408 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
409 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
410 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
411 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
412 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
413 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
414 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
415 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
416 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
417 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
418 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
419 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
420 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
421 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
422 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
423 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
424 the "New remote packets" section below.
425
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426* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
427
428 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
429 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
430 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
431 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
432
433* Observer mode
434
435 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
436 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
437 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
438 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
439 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
440 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
441 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
442
443* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
444 current thread.
445
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446* New remote packets
447
448qGetTIBAddr
449
450 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
451
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452qRelocInsn
453
454 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
455 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
456 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
457 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
458 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
459 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
460
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461qTfSTM, qTsSTM
462
463 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
464
465qTSTMat
466
467 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
468 program.
469
470qXfer:statictrace:read
471
472 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
473 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
474 to gdb's qSupported query.
475
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476QAllow
477
478 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
479
480QTDPsrc
481
482 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
483 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
484
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485* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
486 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
487 a directory.
488
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489* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
490
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491 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
492 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
493 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
494 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
495
496 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
497 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
498 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
499 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
500 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
501 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
502 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
503
504 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
505 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 506
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507 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
508
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509* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
510 it understands register description.
511
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512* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
513
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514* X86 general purpose registers
515
516 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
517 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
518 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
519 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
520 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
521
95a42b64 522* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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523 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
524 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
525 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
526 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
527 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 528
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529* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
530 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
531 in the specified file.
532
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533* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
534 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
535 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
536 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
537 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
538 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
539 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
540 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
541 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
542 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
543
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544* New commands
545
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546eval template, expressions...
547 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
548 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
549
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550set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
551show target-file-system-kind
552 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
553 names.
554
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555save breakpoints <filename>
556 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
557 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
558 definitions, use the `source' command.
559
560`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
561is now deprecated.
562
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563info static-tracepoint-markers
564 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
565
566strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
567 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
568 function, line, address, or marker ID.
569
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570set observer on|off
571show observer
572 Enable and disable observer mode.
573
574set may-write-registers on|off
575set may-write-memory on|off
576set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
577set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
578set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
579set may-interrupt on|off
580 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
581 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
582 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
583 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
584 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
585 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
586 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
587
588set record memory-query on|off
589show record memory-query
590 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
591 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
592
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593* Changed commands
594
595disassemble
596 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
597
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598* Python scripting
599
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600** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
601 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
602 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
603 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
604 GDB using Python' in the manual.
605
adc36818 606** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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607 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
608 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
609 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 610
fa33c3cd 611** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
612 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
613
614** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
615
616** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 617
967cf477
DE
618** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
619
8a1ea21f
DE
620** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
621 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
622 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
623
a7bdde9e
VP
624* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
625there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
626tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
627regular breakpoints.
628
05071a4d
PA
629* New targets
630
631ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
632
6aecb9c2
JB
633* D language support.
634 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
635 language.
636
431e49aa
TJB
637* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
638 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
639 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
640 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
641 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
642
643* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
644 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
645 conditions of the form:
646
647 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
648
649 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
650 interface mentioned above.
651
bfbf3774 652*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 653
4eef138c
TT
654* C++ Improvements
655
656 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
657
658 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
659 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
660 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
661 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
662 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
663
4eef138c
TT
664 ** Bug Fixes
665
666 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
667 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
668 qualified name.
669
670 ** Cast Operators
671
672 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
673 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
674
2d1c1221
ME
675* New targets
676
677Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 678Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
679
680* New Simulators
681
682Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 683Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 684
6c95b8df
PA
685* Multi-program debugging.
686
687 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
688 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
689 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
690 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
691 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
692 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
693 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
694 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
695
d5551862
SS
696* New tracing features
697
698 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
699
700 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
701
702 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
703 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
704 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
705 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
706 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
707 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
708 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
709 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
710 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
711 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 712
d5551862 713 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
714
715 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
716 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
717 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
718 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
719 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
720 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
721 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
722 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
723 the regular trace command.
724
d5551862
SS
725 ** Disconnected tracing
726
727 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
728 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
729 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
730 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
731 connection is lost unexpectedly.
732
00bf0b85
SS
733 ** Trace files
734
735 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
736 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
737 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
738 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
739 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
740 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
741 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
742
743 ** Circular trace buffer
744
745 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
746 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
747 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
748 not be available for all target agents.
749
21a0512e
PP
750* Changed commands
751
752disassemble
753 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
754 the arguments to be comma-separated.
755
0fe7935b
DJ
756info variables
757 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
758 which only declare a variable are not shown.
759
fb2e7cb4
JB
760source
761 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
762 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
763 support.
764
765 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
766 "set script-extension" (see below).
767
6c95b8df
PA
768* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
769
399cd161
MS
770record save [<FILENAME>]
771 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
772 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
773
774record restore <FILENAME>
775 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
776 earlier time, for replay debugging.
777
6c95b8df
PA
778add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
779 Add a new inferior.
780
781clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
782 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
783 inferior has loaded.
784
785remove-inferior ID
786 Remove an inferior.
787
788maint info program-spaces
789 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
790
9a7071a8
JB
791set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
792show remote interrupt-sequence
793 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
794 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
795 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
796 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
797 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
798
799set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
800show remote interrupt-on-connect
801 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
802 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
803 Linux kernel.
804
805set remotebreak [on | off]
806show remotebreak
807Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
808
f61e138d
SS
809tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
810 Create or modify a trace state variable.
811
812info tvariables
813 List trace state variables and their values.
814
815delete tvariable $NAME ...
816 Delete one or more trace state variables.
817
6da95a67
SS
818teval EXPR, ...
819 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
820 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
821
7a697b8d
SS
822ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
823 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
824
b0f02ee9
JK
825* New expression syntax
826
827 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
828 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
829
6c95b8df
PA
830* New options
831
832set follow-exec-mode new|same
833show follow-exec-mode
834 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
835 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
836 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
837
236f1d4d
SS
838set default-collect EXPR, ...
839show default-collect
840 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
841 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
842 such as registers or a critical global variable.
843
d5551862
SS
844set disconnected-tracing
845show disconnected-tracing
846 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
847 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
848 upon disconnection.
849
4daf5ac0
SS
850set circular-trace-buffer
851show circular-trace-buffer
852 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
853 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
854 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
855 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
856
fb2e7cb4
JB
857set script-extension off|soft|strict
858show script-extension
859 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
860 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
861 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
862 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
863 evaluation failed.
864 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
865
2b71fc8e
JB
866set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
867show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
868 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
869 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
870 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
871 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
872 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
873 is on.
874
de2e5182
TT
875* Python API Improvements
876
877 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
878 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
879 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
880
881 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
882 `is_base_class' attribute.
883
884 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
885
886 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
887 evaluate an expression.
888
f61e138d
SS
889* New remote packets
890
891QTDV
892 Define a trace state variable.
893
894qTV
895 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
896
d5551862
SS
897QTDisconnected
898 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
899
4daf5ac0
SS
900QTBuffer:circular
901 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
902
d5551862
SS
903qTfP, qTsP
904 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
905
2d483d34
MS
906* Bug fixes
907
908Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
909
6e0e5977
JB
910Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
911much more reliable. In particular:
912 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
913 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
914 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
915 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
916 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
917 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
918 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
919 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
920 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
921 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
922 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
923 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
924 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
925 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
926 non-threaded programs.
927
93c26624
JK
928PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
929This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
930libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
931executable program.
932
abc7453d 933*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 934
4efc6507
DE
935* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
936dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
937them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
938for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
939"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
940
782b2b07
SS
941* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
942breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
943or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
944the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
945for tracepoint actions.
946
53a71c06
CR
947* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
948raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
949modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 950
e7a8dbfb
HZ
951* Process record and replay
952
953 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
954 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
955 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
956 execute commands.
957
64644d9b
MS
958* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
959step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
960set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
961reverse execution.
962
b9412953
DD
963* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
964feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
9652.6.28 or later.
966
6c7a06a3
TT
967* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
968target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
969char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
970literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
971U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
972`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
973system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
974the installation instructions for more information.
975
f1838a98
UW
976* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
977remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
978with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
979the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
980
55333a84
DE
981* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
982and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
983
7f6a6314
PM
984* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
985now complete on file names.
986
65d12d83
TT
987* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
988completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
989For instance, consider:
990
991 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
992 # struct example variable;
993 (gdb) p variable.
994
995If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
996completions will be "f1" and "f2".
997
edb3359d
DJ
998* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
999the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1000
2fae03e8
TT
1001* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1002operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1003macros.
1004
47a3467a 1005* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1006the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1007implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1008
1009* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1010registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1011can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1012and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1013
08388c79
DE
1014* New remote packets
1015
1016qSearch:memory:
1017 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1018
a6f3e723
SL
1019QStartNoAckMode
1020 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1021 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1022 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1023
d7713ae0
EZ
1024vKill
1025 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1026 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1027
07e059b5
VP
1028qXfer:osdata:read
1029 Obtains additional operating system information
1030
47a3467a
PA
1031qXfer:siginfo:read
1032qXfer:siginfo:write
1033 Read or write additional signal information.
1034
060871df
PA
1035* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1036
1037 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1038 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1039 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1040
c055b101 1041* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1042DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1043
1044* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1045and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1046`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1047
31fffb02
CS
1048* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1049with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1050
88d8a8e0
JB
1051* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1052
7f99b190
JB
1053* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1054
ccd213ac
DJ
1055* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1056which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1057
1fddbabb 1058* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1059list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1060
a0ef4274
DJ
1061* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1062conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1063have also been fixed.
1064
bfb8797a 1065* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1066From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1067are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1068
71c25dea
TT
1069* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1070example, given:
1071
1072 template<typename T> class C { };
1073 C<char const *> c;
1074
1075GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1076
1077 ptype C<char const *>
1078 ptype C<char const*>
1079 ptype C<const char *>
1080 ptype C<const char*>
1081
ccd213ac
DJ
1082* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1083
1084 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1085 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1086
7ae0e2a2
UW
1087 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1088 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1089 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1090
a6f3e723
SL
1091 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1092 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1093
da8bd9a3
DJ
1094 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1095 gdbserver.
1096
d70e31dd
DE
1097 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1098 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1099
1100 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1101 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1102 as appropriate.
1103
d57a3c85
TJB
1104* Python scripting
1105
1106 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1107 available is determined at configure time.
1108
d8906c6f
TJB
1109 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1110
aadc346a
JB
1111* Ada tasking support
1112
1113 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1114 been introduced:
1115
1116 info tasks
1117 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1118 info task N
1119 Print detailed information about task number N.
1120 task
1121 Print the task number of the current task.
1122 task N
1123 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1124
adb483fe
DJ
1125* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1126add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1127
2277426b
PA
1128* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1129
1130 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1131 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1132 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1133 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1134 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1135 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1136 below.
1137
08d16641
PA
1138* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1139"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1140information.
1141
e35359c5
UW
1142* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1143to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1144architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1145See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1146more information.
1147
85e747d2
UW
1148* Multi-architecture debugging.
1149
1150 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1151 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1152 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1153 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1154 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1155
1156* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1157use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1158Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1159powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1160--enable-targets configure option.
1161
11ade57a
PA
1162* Non-stop mode debugging.
1163
1164 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1165 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1166 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1167 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1168 section in the user manual for more information.
1169
1170 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1171 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1172 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1173 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1174 extensions on linux targets.
1175
d7713ae0 1176* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1177
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1178catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1179 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1180 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1181 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1182 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1183 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1184 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1185 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1186 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1187
08388c79
DE
1188find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1189 val1 [, val2, ...]
1190 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1191
d57a3c85
TJB
1192maint set python print-stack
1193maint show python print-stack
1194 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1195
1196python [CODE]
1197 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1198
d7713ae0
EZ
1199macro define
1200macro list
1201macro undef
1202 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1203 interactively.
1204
1205info os processes
1206 Show operating system information about processes.
1207
2277426b
PA
1208info inferiors
1209 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1210
1211inferior NUM
1212 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1213
1214detach inferior NUM
1215 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1216
1217kill inferior NUM
1218 Kill inferior number NUM.
1219
d7713ae0
EZ
1220* New options
1221
3285f3fe
UW
1222set spu stop-on-load
1223show spu stop-on-load
1224 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1225
ff1a52c6
UW
1226set spu auto-flush-cache
1227show spu auto-flush-cache
1228 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1229 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1230
d7713ae0
EZ
1231set sh calling-convention
1232show sh calling-convention
1233 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1234
e0a3ce09 1235set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1236show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1237 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1238
1239set disassemble-next-line
1240show disassemble-next-line
1241 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1242 the debuggee stops.
1243
1244set remote noack-packet
1245show remote noack-packet
1246 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1247 under "New remote packets."
1248
1249set remote query-attached-packet
1250show remote query-attached-packet
1251 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1252
1253set remote read-siginfo-object
1254show remote read-siginfo-object
1255 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1256 packet.
1257
1258set remote write-siginfo-object
1259show remote write-siginfo-object
1260 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1261 packet.
1262
40ab02ce
MS
1263set remote reverse-continue
1264show remote reverse-continue
1265 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1266
1267set remote reverse-step
1268show remote reverse-step
1269 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1270
d7713ae0
EZ
1271set displaced-stepping
1272show displaced-stepping
1273 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1274 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1275 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1276
1277set debug displaced
1278show debug displaced
1279 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1280
1281maint set internal-error
1282maint show internal-error
1283 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1284
1285maint set internal-warning
1286maint show internal-warning
1287 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1288
ccd213ac
DJ
1289set exec-wrapper
1290show exec-wrapper
1291unset exec-wrapper
1292 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1293
aad4b048
JB
1294set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1295show multiple-symbols
1296 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1297 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1298 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1299
74960c60
VP
1300set breakpoint always-inserted
1301show breakpoint always-inserted
1302 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1303 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1304 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1305
0428b8f5
DJ
1306set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1307show arm fallback-mode
1308set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1309show arm force-mode
1310 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1311 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1312 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1313 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1314
10568435
JK
1315set disable-randomization
1316show disable-randomization
1317 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1318 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1319 multiple debugging sessions.
1320
d7713ae0
EZ
1321set non-stop
1322show non-stop
1323 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1324 a breakpoint.
1325
b3eb342c 1326set target-async
d7713ae0 1327show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1328 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1329 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1330 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1331 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1332
6c7a06a3
TT
1333set target-wide-charset
1334show target-wide-charset
1335 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1336 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1337
84603566
SL
1338set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1339show tcp auto-retry
1340set tcp connect-timeout
1341show tcp connect-timeout
1342 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1343 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1344 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1345
17a37d48
PP
1346set libthread-db-search-path
1347show libthread-db-search-path
1348 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1349 libthread_db.
1350
d4db2f36
PA
1351set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1352show schedule-multiple
1353 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1354 the current process.
1355
4e5d721f
DE
1356set stack-cache
1357show stack-cache
1358 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1359 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1360 affecting correctness.
1361
910c5da8
JB
1362set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1363show interactive-mode
1364 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1365 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1366 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1367 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1368 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1369
2277426b
PA
1370* Removed commands
1371
1372info forks
1373 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1374 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1375 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1376 command.
1377
1378fork NUM
1379 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1380 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1381 alias for the `fork' command.
1382
1383process PID
1384 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1385 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1386 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1387
1388delete fork NUM
1389 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1390 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1391 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1392 fork' command.
1393
1394detach fork NUM
1395 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1396 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1397 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1398 fork' command.
1399
a80b95ba
TG
1400* New native configurations
1401
1402x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1403
b8bfd3ed
JB
1404x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1405
75a2d5e7
TT
1406* New targets
1407
c28c63d8 1408Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1409x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1410x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1411S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1412
6de3146c
PA
1413* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1414 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1415
d5cbbe6e
JB
1416* Removed commands
1417
1418catch load
1419catch unload
1420 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1421
75feb17d 1422*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1423
af5ca30d
NH
1424* New native configurations
1425
1426NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1427Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1428
1429* New targets
1430
1431NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1432Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1433
7a404eba
PA
1434* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1435
1436 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1437 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1438 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1439 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1440
430ebac9
PA
1441* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1442(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1443
fe6fbf8b 1444* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1445is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1446
1447* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1448including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1449and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1450
10665d76
JB
1451* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1452accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1453more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1454
7cc46491
DJ
1455* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1456
d71340b8
DJ
1457* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1458registers on PowerPC targets.
1459
523c4513
DJ
1460* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1461targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1462
a6b151f1
DJ
1463* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1464commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1465
2d717e4f
DJ
1466* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1467extended-remote mode.
1468
24a836bd 1469* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1470The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1471error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1472The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1473
d0c678e6
UW
1474* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1475building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1476target architectures.
1477
d64a946d
TJB
1478* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1479Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1480now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1481stored in two consecutive float registers.
1482
ee163bf5
VP
1483* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1484breakpoints now.
1485
b93b6ca7 1486* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1487Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1488include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1489 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1490 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1491 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1492 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1493 of an assignment
1494 - Improved command completion in Ada
1495 - Several bug fixes
1496
d001be7a
DJ
1497* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1498process.
1499
a6b151f1
DJ
1500* New commands
1501
6d53d0af
JB
1502set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1503show print frame-arguments
1504 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1505 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1506
a6b151f1
DJ
1507remote put
1508remote get
1509remote delete
1510 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1511
1512* New MI commands
1513
1514-target-file-put
1515-target-file-get
1516-target-file-delete
1517 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1518
1519* New remote packets
1520
1521vFile:open:
1522vFile:close:
1523vFile:pread:
1524vFile:pwrite:
1525vFile:unlink:
1526 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1527
2d717e4f
DJ
1528vAttach
1529 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1530 mode.
1531
1532vRun
1533 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1534
8d5f9c6f 1535*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1536
19d378fc
MS
1537* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1538bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1539Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1540
3a40aaa0
UW
1541* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1542symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1543-Bsymbolic linker option.
1544
a6ec25f2
BW
1545* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1546recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1547is not supported.
1548
6dd09645
JB
1549* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1550frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1551
c9bb8148
DJ
1552* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
155332-bit or 64-bit register values.
1554
0d5de010
DJ
1555* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1556
23181151
DJ
1557* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1558target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1559a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1560
ea37ba09
DJ
1561* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1562automatically displayed as character or string data.
1563
1564* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1565arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1566as strings.
e1f48ead 1567
123dc839
DJ
1568* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1569for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1570only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1571
05a4558a
DJ
1572* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1573iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1574
7c963485
PA
1575* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1576ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1577has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1578
b18be20d
DJ
1579* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1580
0ca420ce
UW
1581* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1582
31d99776
DJ
1583* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1584layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1585segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1586
a4642986
MR
1587* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1588immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1589
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1590* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1591"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1592packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1593where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1594Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1595
1596* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1597(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1598
1599* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1600according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1601
c9bb8148
DJ
1602* New commands
1603
23776285
MR
1604set remoteflow
1605show remoteflow
1606 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1607 when debugging using remote targets.
1608
c9bb8148
DJ
1609set mem inaccessible-by-default
1610show mem inaccessible-by-default
1611 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1612 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1613 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1614 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1615 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1616
1617set breakpoint auto-hw
1618show breakpoint auto-hw
1619 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1620 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1621 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1622 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1623 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1624 including "next" and "finish".
1625
0e420bd8
JB
1626catch exception
1627catch exception unhandled
1628 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1629
1630catch assert
1631 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1632
f822c95b
DJ
1633set sysroot
1634show sysroot
1635 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1636 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1637 an alias to "set sysroot".
1638
83cc5c53
UW
1639info spu
1640 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1641 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1642 architecture.
1643
bd372731
MK
1644* New native configurations
1645
1646OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1647
23181151
DJ
1648set tdesc filename
1649unset tdesc filename
1650show tdesc filename
1651 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1652 not query the target for its built-in description.
1653
c9bb8148
DJ
1654* New targets
1655
54fe9172 1656OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1657MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1658Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1659
6dd09645
JB
1660* New remote packets
1661
1662QPassSignals:
1663 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1664 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1665
23181151
DJ
1666qXfer:features:read:
1667 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1668 features.
6dd09645 1669
83cc5c53
UW
1670qXfer:spu:read:
1671qXfer:spu:write:
1672 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1673 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1674
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1675qXfer:libraries:read:
1676 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1677 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1678 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1679 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1680
483367ee
DJ
1681* Removed targets
1682
1683Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1684
d08950c4
UW
1685alpha*-*-osf1*
1686alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1687d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1688hppa*-*-hiux*
1689i[34567]86-ncr-*
1690i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1691i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1692i[34567]86-*-netware*
1693i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1694i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1695i[34567]86-*-sco*
1696i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1697i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1698i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1699i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1700i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1701i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1702i[34567]86-*-isc*
1703m68*-cisco*-*
1704m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1705mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1706rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1707sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1708
7ce59000
DJ
1709* Other removed features
1710
1711target abug
1712target cpu32bug
1713target est
1714target rom68k
1715
1716 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1717
ea35711c
DJ
1718target hms
1719target e7000
1720target sh3
1721target sh3e
1722
1723 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1724 H8/300.
1725
1726target ocd
1727
1728 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1729 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1730 interfaces.
1731
7ce59000
DJ
1732DWARF 1 support
1733
1734 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1735 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1736
54d61198
DJ
1737Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1738
1739 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1740 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1741 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1742 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1743
ea35711c
DJ
1744MIPS ".pdr" sections
1745
1746 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1747 in debugging information.
1748
1749Scheme support
1750
1751 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1752 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1753
1a69e1e4
DJ
1754set mips stack-arg-size
1755set mips saved-gpreg-size
1756
1757 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1758
6dd09645 1759*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1760
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1761* New targets
1762
1763Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1764Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1765
6aec2e11
DJ
1766* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1767(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1768running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1769
1770* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1771Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1772supported.
1773
17218d91
DJ
1774* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1775broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1776
9ebce043
DJ
1777* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1778stub provides the required support.
1779
7d3d3ece
DJ
1780* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1781longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1782
4f8253f3
JB
1783* New commands
1784
1785set substitute-path
1786unset substitute-path
1787show substitute-path
1788 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1789 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1790 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1791 between compilation and debugging.
1792
9fa66fd7
AS
1793set trace-commands
1794show trace-commands
1795 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1796 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1797 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1798
1f5befc1
DJ
1799* REMOVED features
1800
1801The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1802
2ec3381a
DJ
1803Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1804an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1805
3d00d119
DJ
1806The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1807
be2a5f71
DJ
1808* New remote packets
1809
1810qSupported:
1811 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1812 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1813 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1814 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1815 target.
1816
0876f84a
DJ
1817qXfer:auxv:read:
1818 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1819 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1820
9ebce043
DJ
1821qXfer:memory-map:read:
1822 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1823 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1824
1825vFlashErase:
1826vFlashWrite:
1827vFlashDone:
1828 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1829
0876f84a
DJ
1830* Removed remote packets
1831
1832qPart:auxv:read:
1833 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1834 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1835
e374b601 1836*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1837
96309189
MS
1838* New targets
1839
1840Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1841
1842Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1843
53e5f3cf
AS
1844* New commands
1845
1846init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1847 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1848
ac264b3b
MS
1849The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1850
1851checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1852
1853restart <n> Return the program state to a
1854 previously saved state.
1855
1856info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1857
1858delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1859
1860set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1861 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1862
1863info forks List forks of the user program that
1864 are available to be debugged.
1865
1866fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1867 forks of the user program that are
1868 available to be debugged.
1869
1870delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1871 that are available to be debugged (and
1872 kill the forked process).
1873
1874detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1875 that are available to be debugged (and
1876 allow the process to continue).
1877
3950dc3f
NS
1878* New architecture
1879
1880Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1881
0ea3f30e
DJ
1882* Improved Windows host support
1883
1884GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1885native console support, and remote communications using either
1886network sockets or serial ports.
1887
f79daebb
GM
1888* Improved Modula-2 language support
1889
1890GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1891basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1892pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1893printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1894written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1895GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1896
acab6ab2
MM
1897* REMOVED features
1898
1899The ARM rdi-share module.
1900
f4267320
DJ
1901The Netware NLM debug server.
1902
53e5f3cf 1903*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1904
e0ecbda1
MK
1905* New native configurations
1906
02a677ac 1907OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1908OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1909
d64a6579
KB
1910* New targets
1911
1912Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1913
b33a6190
AS
1914* New command line options
1915
1916--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1917--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1918 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1919--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1920 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1921 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1922 with the --command (-x) option.
1923
11dced61
AC
1924* Deprecated commands removed
1925
1926The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1927removed:
1928
1929 Command Replacement
1930 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1931 othernames set arm disassembler
1932 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1933 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1934 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1935 regs info registers
1936
6fe85783
MK
1937* New BSD user-level threads support
1938
1939It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1940library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1941configurations are:
1942
1943FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1944FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1945OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1946
1947Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1948are not yet supported.
1949
5260ca71
MS
1950* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1951(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1952
e84ecc99
AC
1953* REMOVED configurations and files
1954
1955VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1956Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1957National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1958
31e35378
JB
1959* New "set print array-indexes" command
1960
1961After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1962when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1963behavior.
1964
e85e5c83
MK
1965* VAX floating point support
1966
1967GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1968
d91e9901
AS
1969* User-defined command support
1970
1971In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1972to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1973section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1974
f2cb65ca
MC
1975*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1976
f47b1503
AS
1977* New command line option
1978
1979GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1980debugging.
1981
f2cb65ca
MC
1982* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1983
1984GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1985information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1986by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1987proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1988to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1989
d08c0230
AC
1990* Internationalization
1991
1992When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1993internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1994continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1995
117ea3cf
PH
1996* Ada
1997
1998Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1999implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2000into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2001
d08c0230
AC
2002* New native configurations
2003
2004GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2005
2006* Remote 'p' packet
2007
2008GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2009packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2010
2011* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2012
2013GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2014The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2015features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2016i386 application).
2017
2018GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2019compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2020continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2021configurations:
2022
2023hppa-*-hpux
2024ia64-*-aix
2025mips-*-irix*
2026*-*-lynx
2027mips-*-linux-gnu
2028sds protocol
2029xdr protocol
2030powerpc bdm protocol
2031
2032Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2033made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2034
2035* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2036
2037Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2038been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2039configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2040permanently REMOVED.
2041
2042h8300-*-*
2043mcore-*-*
2044mn10300-*-*
2045ns32k-*-*
2046sh64-*-*
2047v850-*-*
2048
ebb7c577
AC
2049*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2050
2051* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2052
2053When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2054heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2055been fixed.
2056
2057* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2058
2059When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2060fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2061IRIX long double values).
2062
2063* VAX and "next"
2064
2065A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2066command. This problem has been fixed.
2067
860660cb 2068*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2069
0dea2468
AC
2070* Fix for ``many threads''
2071
2072On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2073rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2074error message:
2075
2076 ptrace: No such process.
2077 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2078
2079This problem has been fixed.
2080
2c07db7a
AC
2081* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2082
2083Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2084GDB to dump core).
2085
c23968a2
JB
2086* New ``start'' command.
2087
2088This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2089
71009278
MK
2090* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2091
2092Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2093live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2094platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2095
2096FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2097FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2098NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2099NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2100NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2101OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2102OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2103OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2104OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2105
3c0b7db2
AC
2106* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2107
2108Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2109These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2110of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2111call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2112signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2113
73cc75f3
AC
2114Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2115features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2116include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2117
7243600a
BF
2118* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2119
6f606e1c
MK
2120* New native configurations
2121
97dc871c 2122GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2123OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2124OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2125OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2126OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2127NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2128OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2129
a1b461bf
AC
2130* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2131
2132GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2133The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2134including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2135migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2136compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2137work, was also included.
2138
2139GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2140module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2141
2142h8300-*-*
2143mcore-*-*
2144mn10300-*-*
2145ns32k-*-*
2146sh64-*-*
2147v850-*-*
2148xstormy16-*-*
2149
2150Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2151made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2152
3c7012f5
AC
2153* REMOVED configurations and files
2154
2155Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2156Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2157Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2158Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2159Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2160AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2161Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2162decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2163riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2164sonymips mips-sony-*
2165sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2166
e5fe55f7
AC
2167*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2168
2169* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2170
2171The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2172GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2173command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2174program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2175with GDB".
2176
2177* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2178
2179Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2180libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2181cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2182GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2183shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2184the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2185are created.
2186
2187Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2188
2189* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2190
2191The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2192non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2193compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2194
2195* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2196
2197Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2198wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2199
2200* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2201
2202The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2203permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2204systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2205
2206* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2207
2208Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2209has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2210
2211* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2212
2213GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2214its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2215panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2216
2217* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2218
2219When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2220by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2221not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2222
faae5abe 2223*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2224
9175c9a3
MC
2225* Removed --with-mmalloc
2226
2227Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2228conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2229
3cc87ec0
MK
2230* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2231
2232The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2233the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2234and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2235you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2236
f0424ef6
MK
2237* Revised SPARC target
2238
2239The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2240FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2241support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2242from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2243(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2244
59659be2
ILT
2245* New C++ demangler
2246
2247GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2248names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2249with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2250programs.
2251
9e08b29b
DJ
2252* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2253
2254GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2255arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2256encountered these.
2257
8dfe8985
DC
2258* C++ nested types and namespaces
2259
2260GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2261improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2262is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2263Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2264namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2265"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2266frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2267if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2268GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2269
cced5e27
MK
2270* New native configurations
2271
2272NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2273OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2274OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2275OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2276OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2277
b4b4b794
KI
2278* New debugging protocols
2279
2280M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2281
7989c619
AC
2282* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2283
2284The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2285and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2286tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2287
5994185b
AC
2288* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2289
2290Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2291been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2292configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2293permanently REMOVED.
2294
2295Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2296Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2297Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2298Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2299Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2300AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2301Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2302decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2303riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2304sonymips mips-sony-*
2305sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2306
0ddabb4c
AC
2307* REMOVED configurations and files
2308
2309SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2310SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2311Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2312Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2313H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2314HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2315HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2316HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2317PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2318386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2319Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2320 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2321 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2322SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2323SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2324Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2325Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2326
c7f1390e
DJ
2327*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2328
1fe43d45
AC
2329* Objective-C
2330
2331Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2332integrated into GDB.
2333
e6beb428
AC
2334* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2335
2336DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2337information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2338By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2339backtraces.
2340
2341The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2342have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2343DWARF 2 CFI support.
2344
2345* Hosted file I/O.
2346
2347GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2348file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2349remote protocol documentation for details.
2350
2351* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2352
2353All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2354architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2355to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2356ppc32 on ppc64).
2357
2358* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2359
2360GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2361per-thread variables.
2362
2363* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2364
2365GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2366GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2367
2368* Separate debug info.
2369
2370GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2371automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2372of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2373system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2374and optional debug files.
2375
2376* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2377
2378DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2379describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2380debugger.
2381
2382GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2383for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2384
2385* Java
2386
2387A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2388Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2389considered "useable".
2390
85f8f974
DJ
2391* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2392
2393The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2394commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2395kernel.
2396
0fac0b41
DJ
2397* GDB supports logging output to a file
2398
2399There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2400used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2401
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2402* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2403
2404The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2405disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2406command.
2407
e286caf2 2408* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2409
2410The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2411registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2412
d28f9cdf
DJ
2413* Profiling support
2414
2415A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2416be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2417session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2418"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2419data, for more informative profiling results.
2420
da0f9dcd
AC
2421* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2422
2423The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2424option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2425"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2426
2427Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2428removed.
2429
fb9b6b35
JJ
2430Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2431Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2432Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2433 in a subsequent -var-update.
2434
954a4db8
MK
2435* New native configurations.
2436
2437FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2438
6760f9e6
JB
2439* Multi-arched targets.
2440
b4263afa 2441HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2442Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2443
1b831c93
AC
2444* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2445
2446Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2447been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2448configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2449permanently REMOVED.
2450
8b0e5691 2451Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2452Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2453H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2454HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2455HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2456HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2457PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2458Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2459 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2460 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2461Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2462Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2463
5835abe7
NC
2464* REMOVED configurations and files
2465
2466V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2467Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2468IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2469i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2470i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2471i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2472HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2473 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2474 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2475Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2476Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2477Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2478OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2479I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2480
a094c6fb
AC
2481* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2482
2483The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2484the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2485context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2486address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2487The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2488
299ffc64 2489*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2490
46248966
AC
2491* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2492
2493When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2494`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2495in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2496library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2497shared libs like mad''.
2498
b9d14705 2499* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2500
b9d14705
DJ
2501Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2502the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2503arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2504powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2505
e0e9281e
JB
2506* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2507
2508GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2509and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2510they expand.
2511
dd73b9bb
AC
2512The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2513invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2514
2515The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2516macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2517
e0e9281e
JB
2518Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2519information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2520your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2521information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2522
2250ee0c
CV
2523* Multi-arched targets.
2524
6e3ba3b8
JT
2525DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2526DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2527NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2528National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2529Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2530Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2531
cd9bfe15 2532* New targets.
e33ce519 2533
456f8b9d
DB
2534Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2535
e33ce519 2536
da8ca43d
JT
2537* New native configurations
2538
2539Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2540SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2541MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2542UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2543
cd9bfe15
AC
2544* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2545
2546Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2547been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2548configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2549permanently REMOVED.
2550
92eb23c5 2551Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2552OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2553IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2554Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2555Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2556Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2557i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2558i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2559i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2560HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2561 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2562 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2563I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2564
db034ac5
AC
2565* OBSOLETE languages
2566
2567CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2568
cd9bfe15
AC
2569* REMOVED configurations and files
2570
2571AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2572A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2573AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2574AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2575AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2576
2577testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2578
20f01a46
DH
2579* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2580
2581This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2582commands. The default is 1024.
2583
a5941fbf
MK
2584* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2585
2586Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2587
89743e04
MS
2588* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2589
2590These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2591to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2592from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2593
9fb14e79
JB
2594* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2595
2596The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2597including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2598of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2599
2037aebb
AC
2600*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2601
2602* New targets.
2603
2604Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2605
2606* Bug fixes
2607
2608gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2609mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2610Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2611
2612gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2613dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2614Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2615
2616Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2617Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2618By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2619
2620i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2621avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2622By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2623
37057839 2624*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2625
1a703748
MS
2626* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2627
2628This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2629really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2630In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2631target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2632This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2633(notably embedded) targets.
2634
cefd4ef5
MS
2635* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2636
55241689
AC
2637This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2638process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2639GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2640hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2641
352ed7b4
MS
2642* New command line option
2643
2644GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2645
2646* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2647
2648There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2649command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2650a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2651be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2652open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2653issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2654a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2655it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2656GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2657is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2658
fe419ffc
RE
2659* Changes in ARM configurations.
2660
2661Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2662configuration is fully multi-arch.
2663
eb7cedd9
MK
2664* New native configurations
2665
fe419ffc 2666ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2667x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2668AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2669Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2670
c9f63e6b
CV
2671* New targets
2672
2673Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2674
9b4ff276
AC
2675* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2676
2677Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2678been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2679configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2680permanently REMOVED.
2681
2682AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2683A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2684AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2685AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2686AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2687
b4ceaee6 2688testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2689
e2caac18
AC
2690* REMOVED configurations and files
2691
2692TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2693WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2694PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2695PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2696PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2697Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2698Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2699 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2700SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2701Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2702Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2703ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2704Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2705
c2a727fa
TT
2706* Changes to command line processing
2707
2708The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2709for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2710
467d8519
TT
2711* Changes to key bindings
2712
2713There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2714
7072a954
AC
2715*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2716
2717Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2718
2719Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2720corrupted.
2721
2722Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2723
2724Numerous documentation fixes.
2725
2726Numerous testsuite fixes.
2727
34f47bc4 2728*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2729
2730* New native configurations
2731
2732Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2733x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2734MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2735MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2736ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2737s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2738
bf64bfd6
AC
2739* New targets
2740
def90278 2741Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2742CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2743UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2744
17e78a56 2745* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2746
2747x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2748Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2749Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2750 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2751TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2752WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2753Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2754PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2755PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2756PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2757SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2758Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2759ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2760Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2761
17e78a56
AC
2762stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2763kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2764
7fcca85b
AC
2765Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2766been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2767configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2768permanently REMOVED.
2769
a196c81c 2770* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2771
2772Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2773Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2774Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2775ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2776Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2777ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2778
6d6b80e5 2779* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2780
6d6b80e5 2781GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2782sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2783present.
2784
bf64bfd6
AC
2785* Other news:
2786
e23194cb
EZ
2787* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2788
2789* The MI enabled by default.
2790
2791The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2792revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2793engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2794using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2795which is now deprecated.
2796
2797* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2798
2799GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2800main features are supported:
2801
2802 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2803
2804 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2805 extension;
2806
2807 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2808
2809 - a Pascal expression parser.
2810
2811However, some important features are not yet supported.
2812
2813 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2814
2815 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2816
2817 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2818 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2819
2820 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2821
2822 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2823
2824* Changes in completion.
2825
2826Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2827to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2828users expect at the shell prompt.
2829
2830Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2831`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2832program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2833files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2834be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2835considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2836name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2837
2838`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2839
2840* New platform-independent commands:
2841
2842It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2843hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2844documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2845
2846* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2847
d7275149
MK
2848Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2849revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2850many threads as your system allows you to have.
2851
e23194cb
EZ
2852Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2853
d7275149
MK
2854Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2855multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2856
2857* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2858
2859Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2860
e23194cb
EZ
2861GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2862debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2863supported.)
2864
2865* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2866
2867Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2868breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2869implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2870put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2871and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2872registers.
2873
2874The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2875debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2876watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2877
2878* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2879
2880New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2881the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2882
2883New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2884display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2885IDT.
2886
2887New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2888from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2889New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2890a given linear address.
2891
2892GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2893program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2894which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2895
2896DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2897
6c56c069
EZ
2898It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2899
e23194cb
EZ
2900* Changes in documentation.
2901
2902All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2903Documentation License.
2904
2905Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2906manual.
2907
2908TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2909
2910Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2911manual.
2912
2913The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2914documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2915hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2916
5d6640b1
AC
2917* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2918
2919The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2920``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2921contents of this file.
2922
1a1d8446
AC
2923* gdba.el deleted
2924
2925GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2926
9debab2f 2927*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2928
c63ce875
EZ
2929* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2930
2931Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2932programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2933displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2934greater level of detail.
2935
2936* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2937
2938It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2939bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2940on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2941written.
2942
2943* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2944
2945The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2946necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2947machines ``out of the box''.
2948
2949The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2950possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2951signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2952would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2953interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2954
2955It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2956standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2957even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2958and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2959terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2960
2961The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2962enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2963also works.
2964
2965DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2966GDB.
2967
2968It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2969directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2970times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2971breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2972
ed9a39eb
JM
2973* New native configurations
2974
2975ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2976PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2977
7a292a7a
SS
2978* New targets
2979
96baa820 2980Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2981x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2982PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2983TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2984
085dd6e6
JM
2985* OBSOLETE configurations
2986
2987Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2988Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2989Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2990ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2991Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2992
9debab2f
AC
2993Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2994but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2995these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2996be permanently REMOVED.
2997
5330533d
SS
2998* Gould support removed
2999
3000Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3001
bc9e5bbf
AC
3002* New features for SVR4
3003
3004On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3005without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3006load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3007
3008* Many C++ enhancements
3009
3010C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3011in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3012
adf40b2e
JM
3013* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3014
3015A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3016sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3017with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3018``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3019
3020 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3021 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3022
43e526b9
JM
3023* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3024
3025A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3026expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3027instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3028
3029The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3030added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3031
96baa820
JM
3032* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3033
3034The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3035``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3036include ``set remote P-packet''.
3037
11cf8741
JM
3038* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3039
3040The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3041accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3042``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3043
7876dd43
DB
3044* ``apropos'' command added.
3045
3046The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3047documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3048try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3049
bc9e5bbf
AC
3050* New MI interface
3051
3052A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3053interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3054process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3055"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3056enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3057
3058 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3059
c906108c
SS
3060*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3061
3062* New native configurations
3063
3064HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3065HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3066M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3067
3068* New targets
3069
3070Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3071Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3072Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3073
3074* OBSOLETE configurations
3075
3076Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3077
3078Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3079but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3080these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3081be permanently REMOVED.
3082
3083* ANSI/ISO C
3084
3085As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3086buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3087containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3088use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3089available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3090configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3091information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3092already.
3093
3094* Readline 2.2
3095
3096GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3097
3098* set extension-language
3099
3100You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3101languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3102you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3103 set extension-language .c c++
3104The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3105and their associated languages.
3106
3107* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3108
3109When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3110you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3111PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3112
3113 set processor NAME
3114
3115sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3116following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3117
3118 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3119 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3120 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3121 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3122 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3123 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3124 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3125 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3126 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3127 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3128 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3129
3130At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3131special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3132registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3133only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3134
3135* HP-UX support
3136
3137Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3138more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3139library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3140support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3141for xdb and dbx commands.
3142
3143* Catchpoints
3144
3145HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3146generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3147to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3148
3149This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3150argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3151output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3152
3153* Debugging across forks
3154
3155On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3156in the inferior.
3157
3158* TUI
3159
3160HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3161it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3162configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3163
3164* GDB remote protocol additions
3165
3166A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3167Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3168fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3169allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3170
3171For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3172full 64-bit address. The command
3173
3174 set remoteaddresssize 32
3175
3176can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3177the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3178will be discarded.
3179
3180In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3181command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3182
3183 maint packet heythere
3184
3185sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3186disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3187time.
3188
3189The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3190target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3191downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3192
3193* Tracing can collect general expressions
3194
3195You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3196further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3197doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3198
3199* mask-address variable for Mips
3200
3201For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3202a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3203of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3204
3205* Higher serial baud rates
3206
3207GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3208230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3209to achieve all of these rates.)
3210
3211* i960 simulator
3212
3213The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3214builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3215
3216
3217*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3218
3219* New native configurations
3220
3221Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3222Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3223Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3224PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3225PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3226Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3227Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3228
3229* New targets
3230
3231Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3232Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3233Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3234Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3235MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3236MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3237MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3238Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3239Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3240Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3241NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3242
3243* New debugging protocols
3244
3245ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3246M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3247DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3248PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3249PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3250Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3251
3252* DWARF 2
3253
3254All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3255format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3256information.
3257
3258* Java frontend
3259
3260GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3261only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3262
3263* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3264
3265For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3266loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3267locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3268
3269* Live range splitting
3270
3271GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3272range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3273more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3274
3275* Hurd support
3276
3277GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3278updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3279
3280* ARM Thumb support
3281
3282GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3283instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3284instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3285accordingly.
3286
3287* MIPS16 support
3288
3289GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3290instruction set.
3291
3292* Overlay support
3293
3294GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3295linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3296will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3297control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3298additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3299in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3300
3301* info symbol
3302
3303The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3304the symbol at the specified address.
3305
3306* Trace support
3307
3308The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3309asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3310extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3311includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3312file tracepoint.c for more details.
3313
3314* MIPS simulator
3315
3316Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3317by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3318of most MIPS variants.
3319
3320* Sparc simulator
3321
3322Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3323by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3324Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3325
3326* set architecture
3327
3328For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3329basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3330architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3331the possible architectures.
3332
3333*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3334
3335* New native configurations
3336
3337Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3338M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3339PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3340PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3341PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3342RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3343
3344* New targets
3345
3346ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3347I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3348MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3349MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3350PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3351Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3352Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3353
3354* PowerPC simulator
3355
3356The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3357contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3358PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3359basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3360performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3361
3362* Solaris 2.5
3363
3364GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3365
3366* Windows 95/NT native
3367
3368GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3369To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3370which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3371Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3372ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3373
3374* dont-repeat command
3375
3376If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3377command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3378useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3379extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3380
3381* Send break instead of ^C
3382
3383The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3384rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3385GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3386
3387* Remote protocol timeout
3388
3389The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3390that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3391to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3392
3393* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3394
3395By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3396loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3397stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3398when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3399in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3400
3401Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3402/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3403automatically on hpux10.
3404
3405* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3406
3407Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3408
3409* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3410
3411When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3412may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3413the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3414every character. The default value is 1050.
3415
3416* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3417
3418If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3419a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3420replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3421details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3422remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3423to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3424
3425* Speedups for remote debugging
3426
3427GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3428the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3429and more efficient S-record downloading.
3430
3431* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3432
3433GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3434Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3435
3436*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3437
3438* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3439
3440The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3441can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3442
3443* Remote targets use caching
3444
3445Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3446remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3447it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3448debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3449off' turns the the data cache off.
3450
3451* Remote targets may have threads
3452
3453The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3454in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3455gdb/remote.c for details.
3456
3457* NetROM support
3458
3459If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3460support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3461acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3462write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3463support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3464another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3465sequence is something like
3466
3467 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3468 load <prog>
3469 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3470
3471* Macintosh host
3472
3473GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3474may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3475it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3476available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3477device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3478directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3479scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3480mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3481
3482* Autoconf
3483
3484GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3485but does simplify configuration and building.
3486
3487* hpux10
3488
3489GDB now supports hpux10.
3490
3491*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3492
3493* New native configurations
3494
3495x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3496x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3497NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3498Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3499
3500* New targets
3501
3502A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3503HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3504CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3505PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3506WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3507
3508* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3509
3510GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3511possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3512filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3513the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3514if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3515
3516* Arguments to user-defined commands
3517
3518User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3519Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3520trivial example:
3521define adder
3522 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3523
3524To execute the command use:
3525adder 1 2 3
3526
3527Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3528Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3529use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3530
3531* New `if' and `while' commands
3532
3533This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3534commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3535expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3536execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3537terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3538`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3539if the expression is zero.
3540
3541* Fortran source language mode
3542
3543GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3544Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3545variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3546with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3547Fortran compilers.
3548
3549* Better HPUX support
3550
3551Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3552running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3553processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3554for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3555that behavior do the following before running the program:
3556
3557 adb -w a.out
3558 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3559 control-d
3560
3561This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3562To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3563
3564 adb -w a.out
3565 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3566 control-d
3567
3568You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3569the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3570external linkage.
3571
3572GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3573HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3574
3575* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3576
3577You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3578commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3579current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3580"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3581associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3582configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3583
3584* New DOS host serial code
3585
3586This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3587no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3588a PC's serial port.
3589
3590*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3591
3592* New "complete" command
3593
3594This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3595were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3596
3597* Trailing space optional in prompt
3598
3599"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3600allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3601
3602* Breakpoint hit counts
3603
3604"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3605has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3606can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3607to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3608less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3609that breakpoint.
3610
3611* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3612
3613"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3614an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3615arrays actually contain only short strings.
3616
3617* Shared library breakpoints
3618
3619In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3620breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3621
3622* Hardware watchpoints
3623
3624There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3625targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3626
55241689 3627Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3628
3629* Annotations
3630
3631Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3632and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3633
3634* Improved Irix 5 support
3635
3636GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3637
3638* Improved HPPA support
3639
3640GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3641
3642* New native configurations
3643
3644Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3645HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3646Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3647RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3648
3649* New targets
3650
3651OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3652MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3653Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3654
3655* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3656
3657There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3658This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3659
3660* Fixes
3661
3662As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3663and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3664
3665*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3666
3667* Irix 5 is now supported
3668
3669* HPPA support
3670
3671GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3672to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3673GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3674of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3675can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3676
3677
3678*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3679
3680* User visible changes:
3681
3682* Remote Debugging
3683
3684The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3685target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3686debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3687integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3688debugging info for the mips target).
3689
3690* DEC Alpha native support
3691
3692GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3693debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3694work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3695Alpha-specific notes.
3696
3697* Preliminary thread implementation
3698
3699GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3700
3701* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3702
3703This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3704to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3705for details).
3706
3707* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3708
3709This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3710mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3711call methods, ...etc.
3712
3713*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3714
3715 * User visible changes:
3716
3717Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3718supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3719other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3720somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3721
3722Filename completion now works.
3723
3724When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3725arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3726addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3727
3728All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3729vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3730should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3731your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3732to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3733
3734 * DEC alpha support
3735
3736This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3737cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3738
3739
3740*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3741
3742 * Testsuite
3743
3744This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3745The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3746via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3747
3748 * C++ demangling
3749
3750'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3751emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3752Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3753disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3754use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3755
3756 * Simulators
3757
3758GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3759So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3760Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3761
3762 * New targets supported
3763
3764H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3765H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3766SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3767Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3768IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3769
3770Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3771version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3772GO32 memory extender.
3773
3774 * New remote protocols
3775
3776MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3777
3778 * New source languages supported
3779
3780This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3781used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3782into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3783
3784
3785*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3786
3787 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3788
3789GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3790version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3791University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3792compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3793format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3794(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3795
3796Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3797
3798 * Faster and better demangling
3799
3800We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3801demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3802character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3803only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3804This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3805increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3806symbol lookups.
3807
3808`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3809from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3810compiler does not actually implement.
3811
3812 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3813
3814In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3815inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3816recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3817very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3818The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3819circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3820fix.
3821
3822The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3823release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3824
3825 * Improved configure script
3826
3827The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3828you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3829host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3830done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3831
3832We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3833version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3834`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3835The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3836only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3837We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3838
3839 * Documentation improvements
3840
3841There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3842produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3843before submitting changes.
3844
3845The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3846M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3847`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3848you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3849a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3850
3851*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3852We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3853been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3854or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3855`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3856around this problem.
3857
3858 * New features
3859
3860GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3861the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3862`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3863the target program.
3864
3865The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3866how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3867
3868 * New native hosts supported
3869
3870HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3871386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3872
3873 * New targets supported
3874
3875AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3876
3877 * New file formats supported
3878
3879BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3880HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3881
3882 * Major bug fixes
3883
3884Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3885
3886We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3887printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3888
3889We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3890for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3891release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3892
3893You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3894will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3895
3896We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3897for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3898especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3899libraries.
3900
3901The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3902information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3903command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3904any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3905when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3906
3907 * Internal improvements
3908
3909GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3910debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3911
3912GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3913Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3914symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3915contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3916shared code that handles any of them.
3917
3918 * New command line options
3919
3920We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3921
3922 * Mmalloc licensing
3923
3924The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3925General Public License.
3926
3927*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3928
3929 * Host/native/target split
3930
3931GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3932hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3933target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3934local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3935ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3936
3937The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3938GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3939is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3940code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3941any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3942built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3943handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3944
3945GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3946It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3947plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3948
3949 * New hosts supported
3950
3951HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3952386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3953386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3954
3955 * New targets supported
3956
3957Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
395868030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3959
3960 * New native hosts supported
3961
3962386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3963 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3964386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3965
3966 * New file formats supported
3967
3968BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3969supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3970format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3971
3972 * New commands
3973
3974`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3975`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3976These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3977
3978`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3979
3980You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3981scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3982prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3983executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3984
3985 * C++ improvements
3986
3987We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3988info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3989symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3990
3991Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3992
3993 * Major bug fixes
3994
3995The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3996fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3997by the compiler.
3998
3999We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4000support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4001
4002John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4003slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4004that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4005purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4006the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4007mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4008
4009Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4010about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4011completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4012we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4013
4014 * AMD 29k support
4015
4016A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4017specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4018calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4019usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4020in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4021
4022We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4023Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4024of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4025resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4026
4027 * Remote interfaces
4028
4029We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4030with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4031message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4032This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4033needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4034breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4035each instruction being stepped through.
4036
4037The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4038registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4039
4040There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4041find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4042Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4043processor with a serial port.
4044
4045 * Configuration
4046
4047Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4048`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4049supported, and what files each one uses.
4050
4051 * Library changes
4052
4053There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4054disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4055Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4056disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4057
4058The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4059Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4060can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4061grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4062
4063 * Documentation
4064
4065The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4066reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4067as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4068encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4069system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4070bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4071
4072And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4073
4074
4075*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4076
4077 * Better support for C++ function names
4078
4079GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4080names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4081(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4082single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4083Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4084
4085GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4086the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4087You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4088lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4089for the list of formats.
4090
4091 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4092
4093Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4094C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4095directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4096can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4097usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4098about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4099this problem.)
4100
4101 * New 'maintenance' command
4102
4103All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4104the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4105can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4106
4107 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4108 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4109 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4110 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4111 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4112 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4113
4114The following commands are new:
4115
4116 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4117 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4118 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4119
4120 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4121
4122We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4123(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4124be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4125read after argv processing.
4126
4127 * New hosts supported
4128
4129Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4130
55241689 4131GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4132
4133We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4134is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4135for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4136masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4137fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4138It costs extra.
4139
4140 * New targets supported
4141
4142Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4143
4144 * More smarts about finding #include files
4145
4146GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4147all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4148greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4149especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4150the one that contains your sources.
4151
4152We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4153breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4154try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4155
4156 * Interesting infernals change
4157
4158GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4159section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4160target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4161stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4162
4163 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4164
4165There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4166 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4167 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4168
4169See the ChangeLog for details.
4170
4171*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4172
4173 * New machines supported (host and target)
4174
4175IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4176
4177SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4178
4179 * New malloc package
4180
4181GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4182Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4183capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4184This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4185pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4186more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4187
4188 * info proc
4189
4190The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4191'help info proc' for details.
4192
4193 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4194
4195The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4196Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4197possible.
4198
4199 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4200
4201Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4202support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4203conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4204environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4205that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4206in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4207
4208 * Cross byte order fixes
4209
4210Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4211targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4212
4213 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4214
4215If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4216system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4217`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4218program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4219called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4220Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4221and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4222the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4223option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4224starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4225
4226You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4227the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4228information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4229slower, but makes future operations faster.
4230
4231The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4232build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4233A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4234use is:
4235
4236 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4237
4238The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4239It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4240shared across multiple host platforms.
4241
4242 * longjmp() handling
4243
4244GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4245siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4246all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4247platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4248
4249 * Solaris 2.0
4250
4251Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4252this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4253reading symbols.
4254
4255 * Bug fixes
4256
4257As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4258People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4259crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4260
4261*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4262
4263 * New machines supported (host and target)
4264
4265SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4266 (except core files)
4267BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4268Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4269
4270 * New machines supported (target)
4271
4272AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4273
4274 * C++ support
4275
4276GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4277The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4278per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4279
4280GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4281`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4282extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4283good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4284will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4285released.
4286
4287 * New features for SVR4
4288
4289GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4290shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4291only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4292
4293The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4294on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4295it prints the address mappings of the process.
4296
4297If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4298bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4299
4300 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4301
4302Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4303now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4304skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4305make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4306same code linked statically.
4307
4308 * New Getopt
4309
4310GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4311version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4312continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4313Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4314added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4315future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4316
4317 * Bugs fixed
4318
4319The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4320Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4321See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4322
4323
4324*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4325
4326 * New machines supported (host and target)
4327
4328Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4329NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4330Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4331
4332 * Almost SCO Unix support
4333
4334We had hoped to support:
4335SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4336(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4337that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4338about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4339
4340 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4341
4342GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4343debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4344is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4345send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4346reqired (if any).
4347
4348 * New Readline
4349
4350GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4351is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4352required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4353
4354 * Bugs fixed
4355
4356The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4357Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4358See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4359
4360 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4361
4362GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4363supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4364symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4365
4366Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4367mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4368debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4369mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4370version 2.
4371
4372Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4373really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4374line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4375variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4376situation somewhat.
4377
4378When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4379However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4380methods.
4381
4382We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4383DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4384encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4385
4386
4387*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4388
4389 * Improved configuration
4390
4391Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4392Porting BFD is simpler.
4393
4394 * Stepping improved
4395
4396The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4397of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4398in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4399function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4400
4401 * Bug fixing
4402
4403Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4404
4405 * New host supported (not target)
4406
4407Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4408
4409
4410*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4411
4412 * Multiple source language support
4413
4414GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4415It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4416and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4417language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4418You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4419`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4420
4421 * GDB and Modula-2
4422
4423GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4424currently under development at the State University of New York at
4425Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4426continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4427
4428Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4429debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4430symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4431
4432There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4433in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4434
4435 * set write on/off
4436
4437GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4438a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4439the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4440by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4441effect immediately.
4442
4443 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4444
4445When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4446shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4447The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4448examining core files.
4449
4450 * set listsize
4451
4452You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4453The default is 10.
4454
4455 * New machines supported (host and target)
4456
4457SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4458Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4459Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4460
4461 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4462
4463IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4464
4465 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4466
4467AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4468AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4469Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4470
4471 * New remote interfaces
4472
4473AMD 29000 Adapt
4474AMD 29000 Minimon
4475
4476
4477*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4478
4479 * New Facilities
4480
4481Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4482
4483Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4484target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4485is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4486remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4487remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4488also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4489using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4490stub on the target system.
4491
4492New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4493
4494GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4495library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4496object file types such as a.out and coff.
4497
4498There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4499refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4500
4501
4502 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4503
4504All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4505by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4506
4507For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4508``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4509Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4510
4511What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4512print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4513will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4514all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4515
4516confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4517 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4518 it is already running. Default is ON.
4519
4520editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4521 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4522 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4523 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4524 Default is ON.
4525
4526history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4527 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4528 or the value of the environment variable
4529 GDBHISTFILE.
4530
4531history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4532 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4533 HISTSIZE.
4534
4535history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4536 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4537 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4538
4539history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4540 history expansion will be performed on
4541 command line input. The default is OFF.
4542
4543radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4544 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4545 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4546
4547height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4548 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4549 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4550 variable TERM.
4551
4552width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4553 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4554 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4555 variable TERM.
4556
4557Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4558``set width'' instead.
4559
4560print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4561 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4562 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4563 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4564
4565print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4566 is OFF.
4567
4568print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4569 "raw" form if off.
4570
4571print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4572 like instructions.
4573
4574print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4575
4576
4577 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4578
4579The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4580new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4581are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4582window.
4583
4584
4585 * Support for Shared Libraries
4586
4587GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4588Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4589before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4590happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4591At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4592from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4593shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4594It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4595
4596sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4597 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4598 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4599
4600info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4601
4602
4603 * Watchpoints
4604
4605A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4606expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4607tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4608quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4609problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4610more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4611
4612watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4613
4614info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4615
4616delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4617disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4618enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4619
4620
4621 * C++ multiple inheritance
4622
4623When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4624for C++ programs.
4625
4626 * C++ exception handling
4627
4628Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4629ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4630the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4631handler's context).
4632
4633catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4634 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4635 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4636
4637info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4638 current stack frame.
4639
4640
4641 * Minor command changes
4642
4643The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4644command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4645is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4646
4647The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4648at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4649frames without printing.
4650
4651 * New directory command
4652
4653'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4654The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4655about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4656with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4657find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4658
4659 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4660
4661For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4662for more details.
4663
4664GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4665two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4666Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4667where the program that you are debugging will run.
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