New python module gdb.types.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 7.2
5
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6* Python scripting
7
8 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
9 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
10 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
11 that function like so:
12
13 result = some_value (10,20)
14
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15 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
16 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
17 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
18
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19* C++ Improvements:
20
21 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
22 instantiation. For example, if you have:
23
24 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
25
26 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
27 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
28 was added to GCC 4.5.
29
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30* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
31 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
32 execution to a label.
33
34* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
35 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
36 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
37 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
38
b56df873 39* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 40 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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41 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
42 of scope.
43
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44* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
45
46 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
47 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
48 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
49 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
50 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
51 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
52
53 (gdb) info threads
54 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
55
56 While now you see this:
57
58 (gdb) info threads
59 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
60
61 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
62 dumps.
63
64 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
65 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
66 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
67 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
68
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69* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
70
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71 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
72 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 73
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74* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
75 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
76 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
77 in the GDB user manual.
78
76b8507d 79*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 80
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81* Shared library support for remote targets by default
82
83 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
84 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
85 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
86 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
87 was always disabled for such configurations.
88
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89* C++ Improvements:
90
91 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
92
93 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
94 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
95 For example:
96 namespace A
97 {
98 class B { };
99 void foo (B) { }
100 }
101 ...
102 A::B b
103 foo(b)
104 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
105 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
106 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
107
108 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
109
110 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
111 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
112 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
113 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
114 entry.
115 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
116 mentioned flavors of operators.
117
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118 ** static const class members
119
120 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
121 class definition has been fixed.
122
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123* Windows Thread Information Block access.
124
125 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
126 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
127 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
128 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
129 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
130 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
131
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132* Static tracepoints
133
134 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
135 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
136 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
137 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
138 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
139 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
140 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
141 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
142 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
143 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
144 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
145 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
146 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
147 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
148 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
149 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
150 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
151 the "New remote packets" section below.
152
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153* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
154
155 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
156 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
157 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
158 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
159
160* Observer mode
161
162 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
163 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
164 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
165 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
166 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
167 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
168 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
169
170* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
171 current thread.
172
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173* New remote packets
174
175qGetTIBAddr
176
177 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
178
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179qRelocInsn
180
181 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
182 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
183 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
184 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
185 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
186 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
187
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188qTfSTM, qTsSTM
189
190 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
191
192qTSTMat
193
194 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
195 program.
196
197qXfer:statictrace:read
198
199 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
200 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
201 to gdb's qSupported query.
202
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203QAllow
204
205 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
206
207QTDPsrc
208
209 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
210 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
211
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212* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
213 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
214 a directory.
215
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216* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
217
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218 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
219 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
220 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
221 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
222
223 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
224 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
225 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
226 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
227 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
228 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
229 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
230
231 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
232 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 233
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234 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
235
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236* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
237 it understands register description.
238
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239* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
240
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241* X86 general purpose registers
242
243 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
244 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
245 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
246 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
247 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
248
95a42b64 249* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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250 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
251 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
252 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
253 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
254 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 255
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256* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
257 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
258 in the specified file.
259
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260* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
261 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
262 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
263 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
264 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
265 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
266 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
267 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
268 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
269 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
270
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271* New commands
272
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273eval template, expressions...
274 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
275 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
276
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277set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
278show target-file-system-kind
279 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
280 names.
281
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282save breakpoints <filename>
283 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
284 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
285 definitions, use the `source' command.
286
287`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
288is now deprecated.
289
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290info static-tracepoint-markers
291 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
292
293strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
294 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
295 function, line, address, or marker ID.
296
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297set observer on|off
298show observer
299 Enable and disable observer mode.
300
301set may-write-registers on|off
302set may-write-memory on|off
303set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
304set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
305set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
306set may-interrupt on|off
307 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
308 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
309 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
310 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
311 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
312 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
313 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
314
315set record memory-query on|off
316show record memory-query
317 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
318 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
319
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320* Changed commands
321
322disassemble
323 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
324
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325* Python scripting
326
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327** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
328 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
329 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
330 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
331 GDB using Python' in the manual.
332
adc36818 333** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
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334 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
335 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
336 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 337
fa33c3cd 338** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
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339 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
340
341** New exception gdb.GdbError.
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342
343** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 344
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345** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
346
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347** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
348 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
349 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
350
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351* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
352there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
353tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
354regular breakpoints.
355
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356* New targets
357
358ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
359
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360* D language support.
361 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
362 language.
363
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364* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
365 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
366 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
367 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
368 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
369
370* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
371 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
372 conditions of the form:
373
374 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
375
376 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
377 interface mentioned above.
378
bfbf3774 379*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 380
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381* C++ Improvements
382
383 ** Namespace Support
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384
385 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
386 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
387 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
388 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
389 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
390
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391 ** Bug Fixes
392
393 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
394 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
395 qualified name.
396
397 ** Cast Operators
398
399 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
400 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
401
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402* New targets
403
404Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 405Renesas RX rx-*-elf
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406
407* New Simulators
408
409Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 410Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 411
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412* Multi-program debugging.
413
414 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
415 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
416 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
417 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
418 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
419 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
420 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
421 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
422
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423* New tracing features
424
425 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
426
427 ** Trace state variables
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428
429 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
430 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
431 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
432 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
433 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
434 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
435 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
436 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
437 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
438 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 439
d5551862 440 ** Fast tracepoints
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441
442 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
443 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
444 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
445 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
446 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
447 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
448 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
449 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
450 the regular trace command.
451
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452 ** Disconnected tracing
453
454 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
455 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
456 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
457 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
458 connection is lost unexpectedly.
459
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460 ** Trace files
461
462 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
463 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
464 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
465 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
466 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
467 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
468 <name>".
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469
470 ** Circular trace buffer
471
472 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
473 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
474 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
475 not be available for all target agents.
476
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477* Changed commands
478
479disassemble
480 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
481 the arguments to be comma-separated.
482
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483info variables
484 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
485 which only declare a variable are not shown.
486
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487source
488 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
489 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
490 support.
491
492 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
493 "set script-extension" (see below).
494
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495* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
496
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497record save [<FILENAME>]
498 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
499 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
500
501record restore <FILENAME>
502 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
503 earlier time, for replay debugging.
504
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505add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
506 Add a new inferior.
507
508clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
509 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
510 inferior has loaded.
511
512remove-inferior ID
513 Remove an inferior.
514
515maint info program-spaces
516 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
517
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518set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
519show remote interrupt-sequence
520 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
521 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
522 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
523 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
524 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
525
526set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
527show remote interrupt-on-connect
528 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
529 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
530 Linux kernel.
531
532set remotebreak [on | off]
533show remotebreak
534Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
535
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536tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
537 Create or modify a trace state variable.
538
539info tvariables
540 List trace state variables and their values.
541
542delete tvariable $NAME ...
543 Delete one or more trace state variables.
544
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545teval EXPR, ...
546 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
547 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
548
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549ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
550 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
551
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552* New expression syntax
553
554 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
555 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
556
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557* New options
558
559set follow-exec-mode new|same
560show follow-exec-mode
561 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
562 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
563 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
564
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565set default-collect EXPR, ...
566show default-collect
567 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
568 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
569 such as registers or a critical global variable.
570
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571set disconnected-tracing
572show disconnected-tracing
573 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
574 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
575 upon disconnection.
576
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577set circular-trace-buffer
578show circular-trace-buffer
579 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
580 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
581 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
582 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
583
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584set script-extension off|soft|strict
585show script-extension
586 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
587 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
588 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
589 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
590 evaluation failed.
591 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
592
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593set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
594show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
595 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
596 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
597 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
598 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
599 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
600 is on.
601
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602* Python API Improvements
603
604 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
605 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
606 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
607
608 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
609 `is_base_class' attribute.
610
611 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
612
613 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
614 evaluate an expression.
615
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616* New remote packets
617
618QTDV
619 Define a trace state variable.
620
621qTV
622 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
623
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624QTDisconnected
625 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
626
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627QTBuffer:circular
628 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
629
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630qTfP, qTsP
631 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
632
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633* Bug fixes
634
635Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
636
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637Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
638much more reliable. In particular:
639 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
640 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
641 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
642 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
643 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
644 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
645 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
646 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
647 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
648 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
649 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
650 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
651 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
652 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
653 non-threaded programs.
654
93c26624
JK
655PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
656This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
657libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
658executable program.
659
abc7453d 660*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 661
4efc6507
DE
662* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
663dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
664them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
665for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
666"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
667
782b2b07
SS
668* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
669breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
670or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
671the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
672for tracepoint actions.
673
53a71c06
CR
674* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
675raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
676modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 677
e7a8dbfb
HZ
678* Process record and replay
679
680 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
681 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
682 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
683 execute commands.
684
64644d9b
MS
685* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
686step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
687set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
688reverse execution.
689
b9412953
DD
690* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
691feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
6922.6.28 or later.
693
6c7a06a3
TT
694* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
695target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
696char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
697literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
698U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
699`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
700system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
701the installation instructions for more information.
702
f1838a98
UW
703* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
704remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
705with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
706the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
707
55333a84
DE
708* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
709and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
710
7f6a6314
PM
711* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
712now complete on file names.
713
65d12d83
TT
714* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
715completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
716For instance, consider:
717
718 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
719 # struct example variable;
720 (gdb) p variable.
721
722If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
723completions will be "f1" and "f2".
724
edb3359d
DJ
725* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
726the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
727
2fae03e8
TT
728* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
729operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
730macros.
731
47a3467a 732* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
733the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
734implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
735
736* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
737registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
738can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
739and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 740
08388c79
DE
741* New remote packets
742
743qSearch:memory:
744 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
745
a6f3e723
SL
746QStartNoAckMode
747 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
748 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
749 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
750
d7713ae0
EZ
751vKill
752 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
753 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
754
07e059b5
VP
755qXfer:osdata:read
756 Obtains additional operating system information
757
47a3467a
PA
758qXfer:siginfo:read
759qXfer:siginfo:write
760 Read or write additional signal information.
761
060871df
PA
762* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
763
764 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
765 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
766 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
767
c055b101 768* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 769DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
770
771* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
772and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
773`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 774
31fffb02
CS
775* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
776with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
777
88d8a8e0
JB
778* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
779
7f99b190
JB
780* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
781
ccd213ac
DJ
782* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
783which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
784
1fddbabb 785* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 786list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 787
a0ef4274
DJ
788* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
789conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
790have also been fixed.
791
bfb8797a 792* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
793From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
794are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 795
71c25dea
TT
796* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
797example, given:
798
799 template<typename T> class C { };
800 C<char const *> c;
801
802GDB will now correctly handle all of:
803
804 ptype C<char const *>
805 ptype C<char const*>
806 ptype C<const char *>
807 ptype C<const char*>
808
ccd213ac
DJ
809* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
810
811 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
812 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
813
7ae0e2a2
UW
814 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
815 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
816 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
817
a6f3e723
SL
818 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
819 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
820
da8bd9a3
DJ
821 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
822 gdbserver.
823
d70e31dd
DE
824 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
825 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
826
827 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
828 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
829 as appropriate.
830
d57a3c85
TJB
831* Python scripting
832
833 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
834 available is determined at configure time.
835
d8906c6f
TJB
836 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
837
aadc346a
JB
838* Ada tasking support
839
840 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
841 been introduced:
842
843 info tasks
844 Print the list of Ada tasks.
845 info task N
846 Print detailed information about task number N.
847 task
848 Print the task number of the current task.
849 task N
850 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
851
adb483fe
DJ
852* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
853add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
854
2277426b
PA
855* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
856
857 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
858 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
859 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
860 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
861 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
862 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
863 below.
864
08d16641
PA
865* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
866"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
867information.
868
e35359c5
UW
869* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
870to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
871architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
872See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
873more information.
874
85e747d2
UW
875* Multi-architecture debugging.
876
877 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
878 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
879 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
880 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
881 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
882
883* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
884use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
885Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
886powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
887--enable-targets configure option.
888
11ade57a
PA
889* Non-stop mode debugging.
890
891 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
892 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
893 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
894 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
895 section in the user manual for more information.
896
897 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
898 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
899 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
900 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
901 extensions on linux targets.
902
d7713ae0 903* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 904
a96d9b2e
SDJ
905catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
906 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
907 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
908 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
909 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
910 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
911 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
912 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
913 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
914
08388c79
DE
915find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
916 val1 [, val2, ...]
917 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
918
d57a3c85
TJB
919maint set python print-stack
920maint show python print-stack
921 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
922
923python [CODE]
924 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
925
d7713ae0
EZ
926macro define
927macro list
928macro undef
929 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
930 interactively.
931
932info os processes
933 Show operating system information about processes.
934
2277426b
PA
935info inferiors
936 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
937
938inferior NUM
939 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
940
941detach inferior NUM
942 Detach from inferior number NUM.
943
944kill inferior NUM
945 Kill inferior number NUM.
946
d7713ae0
EZ
947* New options
948
3285f3fe
UW
949set spu stop-on-load
950show spu stop-on-load
951 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
952
ff1a52c6
UW
953set spu auto-flush-cache
954show spu auto-flush-cache
955 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
956 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
957
d7713ae0
EZ
958set sh calling-convention
959show sh calling-convention
960 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
961
e0a3ce09 962set debug timestamp
75feb17d 963show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
964 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
965
966set disassemble-next-line
967show disassemble-next-line
968 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
969 the debuggee stops.
970
971set remote noack-packet
972show remote noack-packet
973 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
974 under "New remote packets."
975
976set remote query-attached-packet
977show remote query-attached-packet
978 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
979
980set remote read-siginfo-object
981show remote read-siginfo-object
982 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
983 packet.
984
985set remote write-siginfo-object
986show remote write-siginfo-object
987 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
988 packet.
989
40ab02ce
MS
990set remote reverse-continue
991show remote reverse-continue
992 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
993
994set remote reverse-step
995show remote reverse-step
996 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
997
d7713ae0
EZ
998set displaced-stepping
999show displaced-stepping
1000 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1001 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1002 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1003
1004set debug displaced
1005show debug displaced
1006 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1007
1008maint set internal-error
1009maint show internal-error
1010 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1011
1012maint set internal-warning
1013maint show internal-warning
1014 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1015
ccd213ac
DJ
1016set exec-wrapper
1017show exec-wrapper
1018unset exec-wrapper
1019 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1020
aad4b048
JB
1021set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1022show multiple-symbols
1023 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1024 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1025 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1026
74960c60
VP
1027set breakpoint always-inserted
1028show breakpoint always-inserted
1029 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1030 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1031 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1032
0428b8f5
DJ
1033set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1034show arm fallback-mode
1035set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1036show arm force-mode
1037 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1038 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1039 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1040 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1041
10568435
JK
1042set disable-randomization
1043show disable-randomization
1044 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1045 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1046 multiple debugging sessions.
1047
d7713ae0
EZ
1048set non-stop
1049show non-stop
1050 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1051 a breakpoint.
1052
b3eb342c 1053set target-async
d7713ae0 1054show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1055 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1056 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1057 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1058 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1059
6c7a06a3
TT
1060set target-wide-charset
1061show target-wide-charset
1062 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1063 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1064
84603566
SL
1065set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1066show tcp auto-retry
1067set tcp connect-timeout
1068show tcp connect-timeout
1069 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1070 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1071 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1072
17a37d48
PP
1073set libthread-db-search-path
1074show libthread-db-search-path
1075 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1076 libthread_db.
1077
d4db2f36
PA
1078set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1079show schedule-multiple
1080 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1081 the current process.
1082
4e5d721f
DE
1083set stack-cache
1084show stack-cache
1085 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1086 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1087 affecting correctness.
1088
910c5da8
JB
1089set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1090show interactive-mode
1091 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1092 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1093 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1094 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1095 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1096
2277426b
PA
1097* Removed commands
1098
1099info forks
1100 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1101 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1102 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1103 command.
1104
1105fork NUM
1106 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1107 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1108 alias for the `fork' command.
1109
1110process PID
1111 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1112 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1113 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1114
1115delete fork NUM
1116 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1117 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1118 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1119 fork' command.
1120
1121detach fork NUM
1122 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1123 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1124 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1125 fork' command.
1126
a80b95ba
TG
1127* New native configurations
1128
1129x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1130
b8bfd3ed
JB
1131x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1132
75a2d5e7
TT
1133* New targets
1134
c28c63d8 1135Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1136x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1137x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1138S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1139
6de3146c
PA
1140* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1141 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1142
d5cbbe6e
JB
1143* Removed commands
1144
1145catch load
1146catch unload
1147 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1148
75feb17d 1149*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1150
af5ca30d
NH
1151* New native configurations
1152
1153NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1154Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1155
1156* New targets
1157
1158NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1159Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1160
7a404eba
PA
1161* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1162
1163 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1164 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1165 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1166 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1167
430ebac9
PA
1168* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1169(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1170
fe6fbf8b 1171* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1172is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1173
1174* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1175including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1176and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1177
10665d76
JB
1178* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1179accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1180more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1181
7cc46491
DJ
1182* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1183
d71340b8
DJ
1184* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1185registers on PowerPC targets.
1186
523c4513
DJ
1187* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1188targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1189
a6b151f1
DJ
1190* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1191commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1192
2d717e4f
DJ
1193* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1194extended-remote mode.
1195
24a836bd 1196* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1197The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1198error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1199The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1200
d0c678e6
UW
1201* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1202building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1203target architectures.
1204
d64a946d
TJB
1205* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1206Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1207now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1208stored in two consecutive float registers.
1209
ee163bf5
VP
1210* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1211breakpoints now.
1212
b93b6ca7 1213* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1214Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1215include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1216 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1217 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1218 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1219 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1220 of an assignment
1221 - Improved command completion in Ada
1222 - Several bug fixes
1223
d001be7a
DJ
1224* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1225process.
1226
a6b151f1
DJ
1227* New commands
1228
6d53d0af
JB
1229set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1230show print frame-arguments
1231 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1232 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1233
a6b151f1
DJ
1234remote put
1235remote get
1236remote delete
1237 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1238
1239* New MI commands
1240
1241-target-file-put
1242-target-file-get
1243-target-file-delete
1244 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1245
1246* New remote packets
1247
1248vFile:open:
1249vFile:close:
1250vFile:pread:
1251vFile:pwrite:
1252vFile:unlink:
1253 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1254
2d717e4f
DJ
1255vAttach
1256 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1257 mode.
1258
1259vRun
1260 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1261
8d5f9c6f 1262*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1263
19d378fc
MS
1264* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1265bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1266Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1267
3a40aaa0
UW
1268* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1269symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1270-Bsymbolic linker option.
1271
a6ec25f2
BW
1272* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1273recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1274is not supported.
1275
6dd09645
JB
1276* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1277frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1278
c9bb8148
DJ
1279* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
128032-bit or 64-bit register values.
1281
0d5de010
DJ
1282* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1283
23181151
DJ
1284* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1285target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1286a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1287
ea37ba09
DJ
1288* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1289automatically displayed as character or string data.
1290
1291* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1292arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1293as strings.
e1f48ead 1294
123dc839
DJ
1295* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1296for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1297only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1298
05a4558a
DJ
1299* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1300iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1301
7c963485
PA
1302* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1303ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1304has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1305
b18be20d
DJ
1306* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1307
0ca420ce
UW
1308* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1309
31d99776
DJ
1310* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1311layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1312segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1313
a4642986
MR
1314* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1315immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1316
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1317* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1318"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1319packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1320where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1321Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1322
1323* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1324(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1325
1326* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1327according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1328
c9bb8148
DJ
1329* New commands
1330
23776285
MR
1331set remoteflow
1332show remoteflow
1333 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1334 when debugging using remote targets.
1335
c9bb8148
DJ
1336set mem inaccessible-by-default
1337show mem inaccessible-by-default
1338 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1339 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1340 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1341 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1342 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1343
1344set breakpoint auto-hw
1345show breakpoint auto-hw
1346 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1347 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1348 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1349 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1350 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1351 including "next" and "finish".
1352
0e420bd8
JB
1353catch exception
1354catch exception unhandled
1355 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1356
1357catch assert
1358 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1359
f822c95b
DJ
1360set sysroot
1361show sysroot
1362 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1363 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1364 an alias to "set sysroot".
1365
83cc5c53
UW
1366info spu
1367 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1368 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1369 architecture.
1370
bd372731
MK
1371* New native configurations
1372
1373OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1374
23181151
DJ
1375set tdesc filename
1376unset tdesc filename
1377show tdesc filename
1378 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1379 not query the target for its built-in description.
1380
c9bb8148
DJ
1381* New targets
1382
54fe9172 1383OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1384MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1385Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1386
6dd09645
JB
1387* New remote packets
1388
1389QPassSignals:
1390 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1391 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1392
23181151
DJ
1393qXfer:features:read:
1394 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1395 features.
6dd09645 1396
83cc5c53
UW
1397qXfer:spu:read:
1398qXfer:spu:write:
1399 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1400 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1401
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1402qXfer:libraries:read:
1403 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1404 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1405 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1406 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1407
483367ee
DJ
1408* Removed targets
1409
1410Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1411
d08950c4
UW
1412alpha*-*-osf1*
1413alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1414d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1415hppa*-*-hiux*
1416i[34567]86-ncr-*
1417i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1418i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1419i[34567]86-*-netware*
1420i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1421i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1422i[34567]86-*-sco*
1423i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1424i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1425i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1426i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1427i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1428i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1429i[34567]86-*-isc*
1430m68*-cisco*-*
1431m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1432mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1433rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1434sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1435
7ce59000
DJ
1436* Other removed features
1437
1438target abug
1439target cpu32bug
1440target est
1441target rom68k
1442
1443 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1444
ea35711c
DJ
1445target hms
1446target e7000
1447target sh3
1448target sh3e
1449
1450 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1451 H8/300.
1452
1453target ocd
1454
1455 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1456 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1457 interfaces.
1458
7ce59000
DJ
1459DWARF 1 support
1460
1461 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1462 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1463
54d61198
DJ
1464Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1465
1466 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1467 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1468 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1469 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1470
ea35711c
DJ
1471MIPS ".pdr" sections
1472
1473 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1474 in debugging information.
1475
1476Scheme support
1477
1478 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1479 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1480
1a69e1e4
DJ
1481set mips stack-arg-size
1482set mips saved-gpreg-size
1483
1484 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1485
6dd09645 1486*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1487
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1488* New targets
1489
1490Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1491Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1492
6aec2e11
DJ
1493* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1494(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1495running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1496
1497* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1498Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1499supported.
1500
17218d91
DJ
1501* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1502broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1503
9ebce043
DJ
1504* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1505stub provides the required support.
1506
7d3d3ece
DJ
1507* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1508longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1509
4f8253f3
JB
1510* New commands
1511
1512set substitute-path
1513unset substitute-path
1514show substitute-path
1515 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1516 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1517 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1518 between compilation and debugging.
1519
9fa66fd7
AS
1520set trace-commands
1521show trace-commands
1522 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1523 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1524 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1525
1f5befc1
DJ
1526* REMOVED features
1527
1528The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1529
2ec3381a
DJ
1530Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1531an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1532
3d00d119
DJ
1533The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1534
be2a5f71
DJ
1535* New remote packets
1536
1537qSupported:
1538 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1539 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1540 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1541 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1542 target.
1543
0876f84a
DJ
1544qXfer:auxv:read:
1545 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1546 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1547
9ebce043
DJ
1548qXfer:memory-map:read:
1549 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1550 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1551
1552vFlashErase:
1553vFlashWrite:
1554vFlashDone:
1555 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1556
0876f84a
DJ
1557* Removed remote packets
1558
1559qPart:auxv:read:
1560 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1561 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1562
e374b601 1563*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1564
96309189
MS
1565* New targets
1566
1567Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1568
1569Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1570
53e5f3cf
AS
1571* New commands
1572
1573init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1574 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1575
ac264b3b
MS
1576The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1577
1578checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1579
1580restart <n> Return the program state to a
1581 previously saved state.
1582
1583info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1584
1585delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1586
1587set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1588 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1589
1590info forks List forks of the user program that
1591 are available to be debugged.
1592
1593fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1594 forks of the user program that are
1595 available to be debugged.
1596
1597delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1598 that are available to be debugged (and
1599 kill the forked process).
1600
1601detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1602 that are available to be debugged (and
1603 allow the process to continue).
1604
3950dc3f
NS
1605* New architecture
1606
1607Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1608
0ea3f30e
DJ
1609* Improved Windows host support
1610
1611GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1612native console support, and remote communications using either
1613network sockets or serial ports.
1614
f79daebb
GM
1615* Improved Modula-2 language support
1616
1617GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1618basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1619pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1620printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1621written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1622GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1623
acab6ab2
MM
1624* REMOVED features
1625
1626The ARM rdi-share module.
1627
f4267320
DJ
1628The Netware NLM debug server.
1629
53e5f3cf 1630*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1631
e0ecbda1
MK
1632* New native configurations
1633
02a677ac 1634OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1635OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1636
d64a6579
KB
1637* New targets
1638
1639Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1640
b33a6190
AS
1641* New command line options
1642
1643--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1644--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1645 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1646--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1647 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1648 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1649 with the --command (-x) option.
1650
11dced61
AC
1651* Deprecated commands removed
1652
1653The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1654removed:
1655
1656 Command Replacement
1657 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1658 othernames set arm disassembler
1659 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1660 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1661 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1662 regs info registers
1663
6fe85783
MK
1664* New BSD user-level threads support
1665
1666It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1667library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1668configurations are:
1669
1670FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1671FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1672OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1673
1674Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1675are not yet supported.
1676
5260ca71
MS
1677* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1678(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1679
e84ecc99
AC
1680* REMOVED configurations and files
1681
1682VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1683Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1684National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1685
31e35378
JB
1686* New "set print array-indexes" command
1687
1688After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1689when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1690behavior.
1691
e85e5c83
MK
1692* VAX floating point support
1693
1694GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1695
d91e9901
AS
1696* User-defined command support
1697
1698In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1699to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1700section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1701
f2cb65ca
MC
1702*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1703
f47b1503
AS
1704* New command line option
1705
1706GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1707debugging.
1708
f2cb65ca
MC
1709* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1710
1711GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1712information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1713by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1714proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1715to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 1716
d08c0230
AC
1717* Internationalization
1718
1719When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1720internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1721continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1722
117ea3cf
PH
1723* Ada
1724
1725Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1726implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1727into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1728
d08c0230
AC
1729* New native configurations
1730
1731GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1732
1733* Remote 'p' packet
1734
1735GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1736packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1737
1738* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1739
1740GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1741The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1742features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1743i386 application).
1744
1745GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1746compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1747continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1748configurations:
1749
1750hppa-*-hpux
1751ia64-*-aix
1752mips-*-irix*
1753*-*-lynx
1754mips-*-linux-gnu
1755sds protocol
1756xdr protocol
1757powerpc bdm protocol
1758
1759Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1760made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1761
1762* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1763
1764Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1765been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1766configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1767permanently REMOVED.
1768
1769h8300-*-*
1770mcore-*-*
1771mn10300-*-*
1772ns32k-*-*
1773sh64-*-*
1774v850-*-*
1775
ebb7c577
AC
1776*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1777
1778* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1779
1780When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1781heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1782been fixed.
1783
1784* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1785
1786When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1787fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1788IRIX long double values).
1789
1790* VAX and "next"
1791
1792A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1793command. This problem has been fixed.
1794
860660cb 1795*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 1796
0dea2468
AC
1797* Fix for ``many threads''
1798
1799On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1800rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1801error message:
1802
1803 ptrace: No such process.
1804 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1805
1806This problem has been fixed.
1807
2c07db7a
AC
1808* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1809
1810Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1811GDB to dump core).
1812
c23968a2
JB
1813* New ``start'' command.
1814
1815This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1816
71009278
MK
1817* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1818
1819Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1820live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1821platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1822
1823FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1824FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1825NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1826NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1827NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1828OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1829OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1830OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1831OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1832
3c0b7db2
AC
1833* Signal trampoline code overhauled
1834
1835Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1836These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1837of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1838call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1839signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1840
73cc75f3
AC
1841Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1842features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1843include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 1844
7243600a
BF
1845* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1846
6f606e1c
MK
1847* New native configurations
1848
97dc871c 1849GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 1850OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
1851OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1852OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 1853OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1854NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 1855OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 1856
a1b461bf
AC
1857* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1858
1859GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1860The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1861including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1862migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1863compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1864work, was also included.
1865
1866GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1867module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1868
1869h8300-*-*
1870mcore-*-*
1871mn10300-*-*
1872ns32k-*-*
1873sh64-*-*
1874v850-*-*
1875xstormy16-*-*
1876
1877Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1878made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1879
3c7012f5
AC
1880* REMOVED configurations and files
1881
1882Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1883Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1884Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1885Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1886Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1887AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1888Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1889decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1890riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1891sonymips mips-sony-*
1892sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1893
e5fe55f7
AC
1894*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1895
1896* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1897
1898The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1899GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1900command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1901program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1902with GDB".
1903
1904* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1905
1906Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1907libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1908cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1909GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1910shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1911the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1912are created.
1913
1914Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1915
1916* Fixed ISO-C build problems
1917
1918The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1919non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1920compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1921
1922* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1923
1924Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1925wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1926
1927* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1928
1929The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1930permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1931systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1932
1933* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1934
1935Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1936has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1937
1938* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1939
1940GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1941its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1942panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1943
1944* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1945
1946When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1947by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1948not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1949
faae5abe 1950*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 1951
9175c9a3
MC
1952* Removed --with-mmalloc
1953
1954Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1955conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1956
3cc87ec0
MK
1957* Changes in AMD64 configurations
1958
1959The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1960the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1961and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1962you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1963
f0424ef6
MK
1964* Revised SPARC target
1965
1966The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1967FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
1968support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1969from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1970(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 1971
59659be2
ILT
1972* New C++ demangler
1973
1974GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1975names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1976with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1977programs.
1978
9e08b29b
DJ
1979* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1980
1981GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1982arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1983encountered these.
1984
8dfe8985
DC
1985* C++ nested types and namespaces
1986
1987GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1988improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1989is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1990Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1991namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1992"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1993frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1994if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1995GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1996
cced5e27
MK
1997* New native configurations
1998
1999NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2000OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2001OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2002OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2003OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2004
b4b4b794
KI
2005* New debugging protocols
2006
2007M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2008
7989c619
AC
2009* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2010
2011The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2012and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2013tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2014
5994185b
AC
2015* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2016
2017Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2018been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2019configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2020permanently REMOVED.
2021
2022Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2023Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2024Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2025Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2026Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2027AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2028Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2029decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2030riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2031sonymips mips-sony-*
2032sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2033
0ddabb4c
AC
2034* REMOVED configurations and files
2035
2036SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2037SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2038Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2039Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2040H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2041HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2042HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2043HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2044PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2045386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2046Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2047 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2048 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2049SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2050SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2051Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2052Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2053
c7f1390e
DJ
2054*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2055
1fe43d45
AC
2056* Objective-C
2057
2058Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2059integrated into GDB.
2060
e6beb428
AC
2061* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2062
2063DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2064information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2065By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2066backtraces.
2067
2068The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2069have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2070DWARF 2 CFI support.
2071
2072* Hosted file I/O.
2073
2074GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2075file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2076remote protocol documentation for details.
2077
2078* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2079
2080All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2081architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2082to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2083ppc32 on ppc64).
2084
2085* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2086
2087GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2088per-thread variables.
2089
2090* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2091
2092GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2093GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2094
2095* Separate debug info.
2096
2097GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2098automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2099of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2100system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2101and optional debug files.
2102
2103* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2104
2105DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2106describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2107debugger.
2108
2109GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2110for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2111
2112* Java
2113
2114A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2115Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2116considered "useable".
2117
85f8f974
DJ
2118* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2119
2120The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2121commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2122kernel.
2123
0fac0b41
DJ
2124* GDB supports logging output to a file
2125
2126There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2127used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2128
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2129* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2130
2131The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2132disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2133command.
2134
e286caf2 2135* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2136
2137The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2138registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2139
d28f9cdf
DJ
2140* Profiling support
2141
2142A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2143be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2144session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2145"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2146data, for more informative profiling results.
2147
da0f9dcd
AC
2148* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2149
2150The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2151option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2152"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2153
2154Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2155removed.
2156
fb9b6b35
JJ
2157Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2158Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2159Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2160 in a subsequent -var-update.
2161
954a4db8
MK
2162* New native configurations.
2163
2164FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2165
6760f9e6
JB
2166* Multi-arched targets.
2167
b4263afa 2168HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2169Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2170
1b831c93
AC
2171* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2172
2173Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2174been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2175configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2176permanently REMOVED.
2177
8b0e5691 2178Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2179Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2180H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2181HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2182HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2183HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2184PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2185Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2186 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2187 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2188Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2189Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2190
5835abe7
NC
2191* REMOVED configurations and files
2192
2193V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2194Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2195IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2196i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2197i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2198i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2199HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2200 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2201 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2202Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2203Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2204Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2205OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2206I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2207
a094c6fb
AC
2208* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2209
2210The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2211the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2212context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2213address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2214The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2215
299ffc64 2216*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2217
46248966
AC
2218* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2219
2220When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2221`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2222in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2223library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2224shared libs like mad''.
2225
b9d14705 2226* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2227
b9d14705
DJ
2228Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2229the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2230arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2231powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2232
e0e9281e
JB
2233* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2234
2235GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2236and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2237they expand.
2238
dd73b9bb
AC
2239The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2240invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2241
2242The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2243macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2244
e0e9281e
JB
2245Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2246information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2247your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2248information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2249
2250ee0c
CV
2250* Multi-arched targets.
2251
6e3ba3b8
JT
2252DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2253DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2254NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2255National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2256Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2257Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2258
cd9bfe15 2259* New targets.
e33ce519 2260
456f8b9d
DB
2261Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2262
e33ce519 2263
da8ca43d
JT
2264* New native configurations
2265
2266Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2267SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2268MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2269UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2270
cd9bfe15
AC
2271* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2272
2273Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2274been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2275configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2276permanently REMOVED.
2277
92eb23c5 2278Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2279OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2280IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2281Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2282Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2283Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2284i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2285i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2286i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2287HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2288 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2289 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2290I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2291
db034ac5
AC
2292* OBSOLETE languages
2293
2294CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2295
cd9bfe15
AC
2296* REMOVED configurations and files
2297
2298AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2299A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2300AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2301AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2302AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2303
2304testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2305
20f01a46
DH
2306* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2307
2308This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2309commands. The default is 1024.
2310
a5941fbf
MK
2311* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2312
2313Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2314
89743e04
MS
2315* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2316
2317These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2318to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2319from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2320
9fb14e79
JB
2321* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2322
2323The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2324including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2325of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2326
2037aebb
AC
2327*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2328
2329* New targets.
2330
2331Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2332
2333* Bug fixes
2334
2335gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2336mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2337Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2338
2339gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2340dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2341Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2342
2343Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2344Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2345By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2346
2347i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2348avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2349By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2350
37057839 2351*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2352
1a703748
MS
2353* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2354
2355This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2356really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2357In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2358target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2359This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2360(notably embedded) targets.
2361
cefd4ef5
MS
2362* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2363
55241689
AC
2364This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2365process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2366GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2367hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2368
352ed7b4
MS
2369* New command line option
2370
2371GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2372
2373* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2374
2375There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2376command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2377a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2378be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2379open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2380issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2381a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2382it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2383GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2384is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2385
fe419ffc
RE
2386* Changes in ARM configurations.
2387
2388Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2389configuration is fully multi-arch.
2390
eb7cedd9
MK
2391* New native configurations
2392
fe419ffc 2393ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2394x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2395AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2396Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2397
c9f63e6b
CV
2398* New targets
2399
2400Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2401
9b4ff276
AC
2402* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2403
2404Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2405been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2406configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2407permanently REMOVED.
2408
2409AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2410A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2411AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2412AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2413AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2414
b4ceaee6 2415testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2416
e2caac18
AC
2417* REMOVED configurations and files
2418
2419TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2420WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2421PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2422PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2423PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2424Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2425Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2426 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2427SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2428Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2429Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2430ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2431Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2432
c2a727fa
TT
2433* Changes to command line processing
2434
2435The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2436for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2437
467d8519
TT
2438* Changes to key bindings
2439
2440There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2441
7072a954
AC
2442*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2443
2444Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2445
2446Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2447corrupted.
2448
2449Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2450
2451Numerous documentation fixes.
2452
2453Numerous testsuite fixes.
2454
34f47bc4 2455*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2456
2457* New native configurations
2458
2459Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2460x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2461MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2462MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2463ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2464s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2465
bf64bfd6
AC
2466* New targets
2467
def90278 2468Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2469CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2470UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2471
17e78a56 2472* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2473
2474x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2475Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2476Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2477 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2478TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2479WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2480Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2481PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2482PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2483PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2484SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2485Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2486ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2487Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2488
17e78a56
AC
2489stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2490kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2491
7fcca85b
AC
2492Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2493been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2494configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2495permanently REMOVED.
2496
a196c81c 2497* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2498
2499Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2500Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2501Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2502ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2503Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2504ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2505
6d6b80e5 2506* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2507
6d6b80e5 2508GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2509sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2510present.
2511
bf64bfd6
AC
2512* Other news:
2513
e23194cb
EZ
2514* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2515
2516* The MI enabled by default.
2517
2518The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2519revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2520engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2521using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2522which is now deprecated.
2523
2524* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2525
2526GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2527main features are supported:
2528
2529 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2530
2531 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2532 extension;
2533
2534 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2535
2536 - a Pascal expression parser.
2537
2538However, some important features are not yet supported.
2539
2540 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2541
2542 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2543
2544 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2545 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2546
2547 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2548
2549 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2550
2551* Changes in completion.
2552
2553Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2554to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2555users expect at the shell prompt.
2556
2557Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2558`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2559program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2560files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2561be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2562considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2563name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2564
2565`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2566
2567* New platform-independent commands:
2568
2569It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2570hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2571documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2572
2573* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2574
d7275149
MK
2575Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2576revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2577many threads as your system allows you to have.
2578
e23194cb
EZ
2579Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2580
d7275149
MK
2581Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2582multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2583
2584* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2585
2586Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2587
e23194cb
EZ
2588GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2589debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2590supported.)
2591
2592* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2593
2594Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2595breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2596implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2597put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2598and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2599registers.
2600
2601The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2602debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2603watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2604
2605* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2606
2607New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2608the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2609
2610New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2611display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2612IDT.
2613
2614New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2615from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2616New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2617a given linear address.
2618
2619GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2620program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2621which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2622
2623DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2624
6c56c069
EZ
2625It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2626
e23194cb
EZ
2627* Changes in documentation.
2628
2629All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2630Documentation License.
2631
2632Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2633manual.
2634
2635TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2636
2637Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2638manual.
2639
2640The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2641documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2642hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2643
5d6640b1
AC
2644* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2645
2646The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2647``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2648contents of this file.
2649
1a1d8446
AC
2650* gdba.el deleted
2651
2652GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2653
9debab2f 2654*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2655
c63ce875
EZ
2656* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2657
2658Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2659programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2660displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2661greater level of detail.
2662
2663* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2664
2665It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2666bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2667on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2668written.
2669
2670* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2671
2672The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2673necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2674machines ``out of the box''.
2675
2676The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2677possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2678signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2679would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2680interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2681
2682It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2683standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2684even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2685and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2686terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2687
2688The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2689enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2690also works.
2691
2692DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2693GDB.
2694
2695It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2696directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2697times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2698breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2699
ed9a39eb
JM
2700* New native configurations
2701
2702ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2703PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2704
7a292a7a
SS
2705* New targets
2706
96baa820 2707Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2708x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2709PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2710TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2711
085dd6e6
JM
2712* OBSOLETE configurations
2713
2714Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2715Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 2716Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 2717ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 2718Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 2719
9debab2f
AC
2720Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2721but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2722these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2723be permanently REMOVED.
2724
5330533d
SS
2725* Gould support removed
2726
2727Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2728
bc9e5bbf
AC
2729* New features for SVR4
2730
2731On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2732without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2733load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2734
2735* Many C++ enhancements
2736
2737C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2738in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2739
adf40b2e
JM
2740* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2741
2742A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2743sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2744with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2745``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2746
2747 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2748 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2749
43e526b9
JM
2750* MIPS 64 remote protocol
2751
2752A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2753expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2754instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2755
2756The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2757added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2758
96baa820
JM
2759* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2760
2761The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2762``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2763include ``set remote P-packet''.
2764
11cf8741
JM
2765* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2766
2767The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2768accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2769``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2770
7876dd43
DB
2771* ``apropos'' command added.
2772
2773The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2774documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2775try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2776
bc9e5bbf
AC
2777* New MI interface
2778
2779A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2780interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
2781process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2782"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2783enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
2784
2785 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2786
c906108c
SS
2787*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2788
2789* New native configurations
2790
2791HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2792HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 2793M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
2794
2795* New targets
2796
2797Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2798Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2799Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2800
2801* OBSOLETE configurations
2802
2803Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2804
2805Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2806but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2807these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2808be permanently REMOVED.
2809
2810* ANSI/ISO C
2811
2812As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2813buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2814containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2815use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2816available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2817configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2818information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2819already.
2820
2821* Readline 2.2
2822
2823GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2824
2825* set extension-language
2826
2827You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2828languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2829you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2830 set extension-language .c c++
2831The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2832and their associated languages.
2833
2834* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2835
2836When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2837you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2838PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2839
2840 set processor NAME
2841
2842sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2843following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2844
2845 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2846 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2847 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2848 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2849 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2850 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2851 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2852 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2853 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2854 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2855 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2856
2857At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2858special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2859registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2860only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2861
2862* HP-UX support
2863
2864Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2865more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2866library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2867support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2868for xdb and dbx commands.
2869
2870* Catchpoints
2871
2872HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2873generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2874to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2875
2876This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2877argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2878output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2879
2880* Debugging across forks
2881
2882On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2883in the inferior.
2884
2885* TUI
2886
2887HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2888it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2889configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2890
2891* GDB remote protocol additions
2892
2893A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2894Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2895fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2896allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2897
2898For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2899full 64-bit address. The command
2900
2901 set remoteaddresssize 32
2902
2903can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2904the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2905will be discarded.
2906
2907In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2908command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2909
2910 maint packet heythere
2911
2912sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2913disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2914time.
2915
2916The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2917target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2918downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2919
2920* Tracing can collect general expressions
2921
2922You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2923further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2924doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2925
2926* mask-address variable for Mips
2927
2928For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2929a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2930of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2931
2932* Higher serial baud rates
2933
2934GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2935230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2936to achieve all of these rates.)
2937
2938* i960 simulator
2939
2940The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2941builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2942
2943
2944*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2945
2946* New native configurations
2947
2948Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2949Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2950Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2951PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2952PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2953Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2954Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2955
2956* New targets
2957
2958Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2959Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2960Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2961Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2962MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2963MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2964MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2965Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2966Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2967Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2968NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2969
2970* New debugging protocols
2971
2972ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2973M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2974DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2975PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2976PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2977Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2978
2979* DWARF 2
2980
2981All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2982format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2983information.
2984
2985* Java frontend
2986
2987GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2988only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2989
2990* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2991
2992For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2993loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2994locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2995
2996* Live range splitting
2997
2998GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2999range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3000more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3001
3002* Hurd support
3003
3004GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3005updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3006
3007* ARM Thumb support
3008
3009GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3010instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3011instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3012accordingly.
3013
3014* MIPS16 support
3015
3016GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3017instruction set.
3018
3019* Overlay support
3020
3021GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3022linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3023will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3024control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3025additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3026in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3027
3028* info symbol
3029
3030The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3031the symbol at the specified address.
3032
3033* Trace support
3034
3035The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3036asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3037extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3038includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3039file tracepoint.c for more details.
3040
3041* MIPS simulator
3042
3043Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3044by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3045of most MIPS variants.
3046
3047* Sparc simulator
3048
3049Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3050by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3051Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3052
3053* set architecture
3054
3055For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3056basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3057architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3058the possible architectures.
3059
3060*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3061
3062* New native configurations
3063
3064Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3065M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3066PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3067PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3068PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3069RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3070
3071* New targets
3072
3073ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3074I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3075MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3076MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3077PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3078Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3079Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3080
3081* PowerPC simulator
3082
3083The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3084contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3085PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3086basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3087performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3088
3089* Solaris 2.5
3090
3091GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3092
3093* Windows 95/NT native
3094
3095GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3096To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3097which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3098Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3099ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3100
3101* dont-repeat command
3102
3103If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3104command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3105useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3106extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3107
3108* Send break instead of ^C
3109
3110The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3111rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3112GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3113
3114* Remote protocol timeout
3115
3116The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3117that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3118to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3119
3120* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3121
3122By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3123loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3124stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3125when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3126in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3127
3128Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3129/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3130automatically on hpux10.
3131
3132* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3133
3134Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3135
3136* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3137
3138When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3139may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3140the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3141every character. The default value is 1050.
3142
3143* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3144
3145If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3146a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3147replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3148details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3149remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3150to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3151
3152* Speedups for remote debugging
3153
3154GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3155the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3156and more efficient S-record downloading.
3157
3158* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3159
3160GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3161Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3162
3163*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3164
3165* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3166
3167The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3168can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3169
3170* Remote targets use caching
3171
3172Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3173remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3174it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3175debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3176off' turns the the data cache off.
3177
3178* Remote targets may have threads
3179
3180The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3181in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3182gdb/remote.c for details.
3183
3184* NetROM support
3185
3186If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3187support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3188acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3189write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3190support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3191another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3192sequence is something like
3193
3194 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3195 load <prog>
3196 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3197
3198* Macintosh host
3199
3200GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3201may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3202it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3203available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3204device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3205directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3206scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3207mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3208
3209* Autoconf
3210
3211GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3212but does simplify configuration and building.
3213
3214* hpux10
3215
3216GDB now supports hpux10.
3217
3218*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3219
3220* New native configurations
3221
3222x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3223x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3224NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3225Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3226
3227* New targets
3228
3229A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3230HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3231CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3232PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3233WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3234
3235* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3236
3237GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3238possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3239filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3240the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3241if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3242
3243* Arguments to user-defined commands
3244
3245User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3246Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3247trivial example:
3248define adder
3249 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3250
3251To execute the command use:
3252adder 1 2 3
3253
3254Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3255Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3256use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3257
3258* New `if' and `while' commands
3259
3260This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3261commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3262expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3263execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3264terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3265`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3266if the expression is zero.
3267
3268* Fortran source language mode
3269
3270GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3271Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3272variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3273with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3274Fortran compilers.
3275
3276* Better HPUX support
3277
3278Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3279running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3280processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3281for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3282that behavior do the following before running the program:
3283
3284 adb -w a.out
3285 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3286 control-d
3287
3288This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3289To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3290
3291 adb -w a.out
3292 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3293 control-d
3294
3295You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3296the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3297external linkage.
3298
3299GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3300HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3301
3302* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3303
3304You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3305commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3306current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3307"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3308associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3309configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3310
3311* New DOS host serial code
3312
3313This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3314no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3315a PC's serial port.
3316
3317*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3318
3319* New "complete" command
3320
3321This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3322were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3323
3324* Trailing space optional in prompt
3325
3326"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3327allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3328
3329* Breakpoint hit counts
3330
3331"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3332has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3333can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3334to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3335less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3336that breakpoint.
3337
3338* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3339
3340"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3341an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3342arrays actually contain only short strings.
3343
3344* Shared library breakpoints
3345
3346In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3347breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3348
3349* Hardware watchpoints
3350
3351There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3352targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3353
55241689 3354Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3355
3356* Annotations
3357
3358Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3359and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3360
3361* Improved Irix 5 support
3362
3363GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3364
3365* Improved HPPA support
3366
3367GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3368
3369* New native configurations
3370
3371Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3372HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3373Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3374RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3375
3376* New targets
3377
3378OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3379MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3380Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3381
3382* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3383
3384There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3385This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3386
3387* Fixes
3388
3389As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3390and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3391
3392*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3393
3394* Irix 5 is now supported
3395
3396* HPPA support
3397
3398GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3399to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3400GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3401of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3402can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3403
3404
3405*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3406
3407* User visible changes:
3408
3409* Remote Debugging
3410
3411The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3412target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3413debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3414integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3415debugging info for the mips target).
3416
3417* DEC Alpha native support
3418
3419GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3420debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3421work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3422Alpha-specific notes.
3423
3424* Preliminary thread implementation
3425
3426GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3427
3428* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3429
3430This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3431to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3432for details).
3433
3434* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3435
3436This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3437mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3438call methods, ...etc.
3439
3440*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3441
3442 * User visible changes:
3443
3444Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3445supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3446other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3447somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3448
3449Filename completion now works.
3450
3451When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3452arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3453addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3454
3455All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3456vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3457should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3458your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3459to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3460
3461 * DEC alpha support
3462
3463This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3464cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3465
3466
3467*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3468
3469 * Testsuite
3470
3471This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3472The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3473via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3474
3475 * C++ demangling
3476
3477'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3478emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3479Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3480disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3481use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3482
3483 * Simulators
3484
3485GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3486So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3487Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3488
3489 * New targets supported
3490
3491H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3492H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3493SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3494Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3495IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3496
3497Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3498version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3499GO32 memory extender.
3500
3501 * New remote protocols
3502
3503MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3504
3505 * New source languages supported
3506
3507This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3508used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3509into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3510
3511
3512*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3513
3514 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3515
3516GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3517version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3518University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3519compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3520format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3521(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3522
3523Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3524
3525 * Faster and better demangling
3526
3527We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3528demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3529character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3530only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3531This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3532increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3533symbol lookups.
3534
3535`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3536from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3537compiler does not actually implement.
3538
3539 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3540
3541In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3542inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3543recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3544very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3545The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3546circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3547fix.
3548
3549The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3550release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3551
3552 * Improved configure script
3553
3554The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3555you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3556host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3557done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3558
3559We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3560version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3561`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3562The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3563only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3564We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3565
3566 * Documentation improvements
3567
3568There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3569produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3570before submitting changes.
3571
3572The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3573M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3574`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3575you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3576a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3577
3578*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3579We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3580been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3581or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3582`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3583around this problem.
3584
3585 * New features
3586
3587GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3588the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3589`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3590the target program.
3591
3592The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3593how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3594
3595 * New native hosts supported
3596
3597HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3598386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3599
3600 * New targets supported
3601
3602AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3603
3604 * New file formats supported
3605
3606BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3607HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3608
3609 * Major bug fixes
3610
3611Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3612
3613We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3614printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3615
3616We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3617for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3618release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3619
3620You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3621will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3622
3623We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3624for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3625especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3626libraries.
3627
3628The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3629information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3630command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3631any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3632when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3633
3634 * Internal improvements
3635
3636GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3637debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3638
3639GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3640Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3641symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3642contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3643shared code that handles any of them.
3644
3645 * New command line options
3646
3647We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3648
3649 * Mmalloc licensing
3650
3651The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3652General Public License.
3653
3654*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3655
3656 * Host/native/target split
3657
3658GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3659hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3660target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3661local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3662ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3663
3664The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3665GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3666is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3667code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3668any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3669built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3670handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3671
3672GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3673It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3674plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3675
3676 * New hosts supported
3677
3678HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3679386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3680386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3681
3682 * New targets supported
3683
3684Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
368568030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3686
3687 * New native hosts supported
3688
3689386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3690 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3691386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3692
3693 * New file formats supported
3694
3695BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3696supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3697format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3698
3699 * New commands
3700
3701`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3702`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3703These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3704
3705`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3706
3707You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3708scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3709prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3710executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3711
3712 * C++ improvements
3713
3714We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3715info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3716symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3717
3718Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3719
3720 * Major bug fixes
3721
3722The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3723fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3724by the compiler.
3725
3726We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3727support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3728
3729John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3730slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3731that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3732purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3733the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3734mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3735
3736Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3737about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3738completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3739we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3740
3741 * AMD 29k support
3742
3743A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3744specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3745calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3746usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3747in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3748
3749We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3750Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3751of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3752resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3753
3754 * Remote interfaces
3755
3756We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3757with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3758message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3759This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3760needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3761breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3762each instruction being stepped through.
3763
3764The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3765registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3766
3767There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3768find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3769Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3770processor with a serial port.
3771
3772 * Configuration
3773
3774Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3775`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3776supported, and what files each one uses.
3777
3778 * Library changes
3779
3780There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3781disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3782Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3783disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3784
3785The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3786Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3787can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3788grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3789
3790 * Documentation
3791
3792The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3793reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3794as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3795encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3796system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3797bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3798
3799And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3800
3801
3802*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3803
3804 * Better support for C++ function names
3805
3806GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3807names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3808(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3809single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3810Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3811
3812GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3813the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3814You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3815lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3816for the list of formats.
3817
3818 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3819
3820Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3821C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3822directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3823can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3824usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3825about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3826this problem.)
3827
3828 * New 'maintenance' command
3829
3830All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3831the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3832can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3833
3834 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3835 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3836 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3837 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3838 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3839 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3840
3841The following commands are new:
3842
3843 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3844 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3845 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3846
3847 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3848
3849We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3850(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3851be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3852read after argv processing.
3853
3854 * New hosts supported
3855
3856Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3857
55241689 3858GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
3859
3860We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3861is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3862for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3863masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3864fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3865It costs extra.
3866
3867 * New targets supported
3868
3869Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3870
3871 * More smarts about finding #include files
3872
3873GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3874all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3875greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3876especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3877the one that contains your sources.
3878
3879We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3880breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3881try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3882
3883 * Interesting infernals change
3884
3885GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3886section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3887target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3888stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3889
3890 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3891
3892There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3893 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3894 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3895
3896See the ChangeLog for details.
3897
3898*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3899
3900 * New machines supported (host and target)
3901
3902IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3903
3904SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3905
3906 * New malloc package
3907
3908GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3909Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3910capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3911This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3912pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3913more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3914
3915 * info proc
3916
3917The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3918'help info proc' for details.
3919
3920 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3921
3922The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3923Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3924possible.
3925
3926 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3927
3928Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3929support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3930conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3931environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3932that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3933in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3934
3935 * Cross byte order fixes
3936
3937Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3938targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3939
3940 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3941
3942If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3943system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3944`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3945program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3946called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3947Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3948and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3949the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3950option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3951starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3952
3953You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3954the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3955information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3956slower, but makes future operations faster.
3957
3958The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3959build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3960A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3961use is:
3962
3963 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3964
3965The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3966It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3967shared across multiple host platforms.
3968
3969 * longjmp() handling
3970
3971GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3972siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3973all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3974platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3975
3976 * Solaris 2.0
3977
3978Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3979this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3980reading symbols.
3981
3982 * Bug fixes
3983
3984As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3985People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3986crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3987
3988*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3989
3990 * New machines supported (host and target)
3991
3992SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3993 (except core files)
3994BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3995Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3996
3997 * New machines supported (target)
3998
3999AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4000
4001 * C++ support
4002
4003GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4004The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4005per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4006
4007GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4008`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4009extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4010good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4011will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4012released.
4013
4014 * New features for SVR4
4015
4016GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4017shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4018only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4019
4020The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4021on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4022it prints the address mappings of the process.
4023
4024If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4025bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4026
4027 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4028
4029Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4030now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4031skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4032make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4033same code linked statically.
4034
4035 * New Getopt
4036
4037GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4038version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4039continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4040Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4041added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4042future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4043
4044 * Bugs fixed
4045
4046The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4047Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4048See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4049
4050
4051*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4052
4053 * New machines supported (host and target)
4054
4055Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4056NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4057Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4058
4059 * Almost SCO Unix support
4060
4061We had hoped to support:
4062SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4063(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4064that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4065about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4066
4067 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4068
4069GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4070debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4071is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4072send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4073reqired (if any).
4074
4075 * New Readline
4076
4077GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4078is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4079required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4080
4081 * Bugs fixed
4082
4083The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4084Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4085See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4086
4087 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4088
4089GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4090supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4091symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4092
4093Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4094mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4095debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4096mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4097version 2.
4098
4099Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4100really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4101line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4102variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4103situation somewhat.
4104
4105When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4106However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4107methods.
4108
4109We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4110DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4111encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4112
4113
4114*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4115
4116 * Improved configuration
4117
4118Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4119Porting BFD is simpler.
4120
4121 * Stepping improved
4122
4123The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4124of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4125in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4126function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4127
4128 * Bug fixing
4129
4130Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4131
4132 * New host supported (not target)
4133
4134Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4135
4136
4137*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4138
4139 * Multiple source language support
4140
4141GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4142It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4143and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4144language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4145You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4146`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4147
4148 * GDB and Modula-2
4149
4150GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4151currently under development at the State University of New York at
4152Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4153continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4154
4155Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4156debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4157symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4158
4159There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4160in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4161
4162 * set write on/off
4163
4164GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4165a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4166the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4167by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4168effect immediately.
4169
4170 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4171
4172When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4173shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4174The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4175examining core files.
4176
4177 * set listsize
4178
4179You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4180The default is 10.
4181
4182 * New machines supported (host and target)
4183
4184SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4185Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4186Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4187
4188 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4189
4190IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4191
4192 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4193
4194AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4195AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4196Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4197
4198 * New remote interfaces
4199
4200AMD 29000 Adapt
4201AMD 29000 Minimon
4202
4203
4204*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4205
4206 * New Facilities
4207
4208Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4209
4210Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4211target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4212is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4213remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4214remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4215also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4216using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4217stub on the target system.
4218
4219New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4220
4221GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4222library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4223object file types such as a.out and coff.
4224
4225There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4226refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4227
4228
4229 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4230
4231All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4232by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4233
4234For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4235``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4236Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4237
4238What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4239print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4240will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4241all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4242
4243confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4244 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4245 it is already running. Default is ON.
4246
4247editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4248 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4249 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4250 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4251 Default is ON.
4252
4253history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4254 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4255 or the value of the environment variable
4256 GDBHISTFILE.
4257
4258history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4259 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4260 HISTSIZE.
4261
4262history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4263 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4264 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4265
4266history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4267 history expansion will be performed on
4268 command line input. The default is OFF.
4269
4270radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4271 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4272 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4273
4274height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4275 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4276 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4277 variable TERM.
4278
4279width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4280 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4281 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4282 variable TERM.
4283
4284Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4285``set width'' instead.
4286
4287print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4288 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4289 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4290 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4291
4292print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4293 is OFF.
4294
4295print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4296 "raw" form if off.
4297
4298print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4299 like instructions.
4300
4301print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4302
4303
4304 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4305
4306The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4307new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4308are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4309window.
4310
4311
4312 * Support for Shared Libraries
4313
4314GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4315Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4316before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4317happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4318At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4319from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4320shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4321It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4322
4323sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4324 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4325 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4326
4327info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4328
4329
4330 * Watchpoints
4331
4332A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4333expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4334tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4335quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4336problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4337more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4338
4339watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4340
4341info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4342
4343delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4344disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4345enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4346
4347
4348 * C++ multiple inheritance
4349
4350When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4351for C++ programs.
4352
4353 * C++ exception handling
4354
4355Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4356ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4357the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4358handler's context).
4359
4360catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4361 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4362 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4363
4364info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4365 current stack frame.
4366
4367
4368 * Minor command changes
4369
4370The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4371command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4372is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4373
4374The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4375at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4376frames without printing.
4377
4378 * New directory command
4379
4380'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4381The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4382about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4383with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4384find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4385
4386 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4387
4388For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4389for more details.
4390
4391GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4392two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4393Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4394where the program that you are debugging will run.
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