2004-04-28 Andrew Cagney <cagney@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.1:
5
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6* New native configurations
7
d195bc9f 8OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 9NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 10OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 11
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12* REMOVED configurations and files
13
14Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
15Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
16Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
17Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
18Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
19AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
20Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
21decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
22riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
23sonymips mips-sony-*
24sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
25
faae5abe 26*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 27
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28* Removed --with-mmalloc
29
30Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
31conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
32
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33* Changes in AMD64 configurations
34
35The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
36the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
37and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
38you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
39
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40* Revised SPARC target
41
42The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
43FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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44support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
45from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
46(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 47
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48* New C++ demangler
49
50GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
51names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
52with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
53programs.
54
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55* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
56
57GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
58arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
59encountered these.
60
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61* C++ nested types and namespaces
62
63GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
64improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
65is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
66Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
67namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
68"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
69frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
70if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
71GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
72
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73* New native configurations
74
75NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 76OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 77OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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78OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
79OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 80
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81* New debugging protocols
82
83M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
84
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85* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
86
87The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
88and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
89tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
90
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91* OBSOLETE configurations and files
92
93Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
94been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
95configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
96permanently REMOVED.
97
98Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
99Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
100Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
101Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
102Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
103AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
104Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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105decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
106riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
107sonymips mips-sony-*
108sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 109
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110* REMOVED configurations and files
111
112SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
113SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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114Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
115Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
116H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
117HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
118HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
119HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
120PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 121386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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122Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
123 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
124 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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125SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
126SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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127Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
128Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 129
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130*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
131
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132* Objective-C
133
134Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
135integrated into GDB.
136
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137* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
138
139DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
140information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
141By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
142backtraces.
143
144The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
145have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
146DWARF 2 CFI support.
147
148* Hosted file I/O.
149
150GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
151file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
152remote protocol documentation for details.
153
154* All targets using the new architecture framework.
155
156All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
157architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
158to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
159ppc32 on ppc64).
160
161* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
162
163GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
164per-thread variables.
165
166* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
167
168GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
169GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
170
171* Separate debug info.
172
173GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
174automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
175of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
176system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
177and optional debug files.
178
179* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
180
181DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
182describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
183debugger.
184
185GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
186for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
187
188* Java
189
190A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
191Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
192considered "useable".
193
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194* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
195
196The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
197commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
198kernel.
199
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200* GDB supports logging output to a file
201
202There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
203used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 204
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205* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
206
207The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
208disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
209command.
210
e286caf2 211* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
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212
213The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
214registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
215
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216* Profiling support
217
218A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
219be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
220session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
221"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
222data, for more informative profiling results.
223
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224* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
225
226The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
227option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 228"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
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229
230Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
231removed.
232
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233Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
234Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
235Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
236 in a subsequent -var-update.
237
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238* New native configurations.
239
240FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
241
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242* Multi-arched targets.
243
b4263afa 244HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 245Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 246
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247* OBSOLETE configurations and files
248
249Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
250been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
251configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
252permanently REMOVED.
253
8b0e5691 254Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 255Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 256H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
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257HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
258HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
259HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 260PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
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261Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
262 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
263 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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264Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
265Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 266
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267* REMOVED configurations and files
268
269V850EA ISA
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270Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
271IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
272i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
273i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
274i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
275HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
276 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
277 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
278Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
279Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
280Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
281OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
282I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 283
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284* MIPS $fp behavior changed
285
286The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
287the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
288context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
289address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
290The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
291
299ffc64 292*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 293
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294* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
295
296When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
297`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
298in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
299library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
300shared libs like mad''.
301
b9d14705 302* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 303
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304Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
305the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
306arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
307powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 308
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309* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
310
311GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
312and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
313they expand.
314
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315The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
316invocations in expression, and shows the result.
317
318The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
319macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
320
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321Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
322information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
323your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
324information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
325
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326* Multi-arched targets.
327
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328DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
329DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 330NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 331National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
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332Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
333Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 334
cd9bfe15 335* New targets.
e33ce519 336
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337Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
338
e33ce519 339
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340* New native configurations
341
342Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 343SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 344MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 345UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 346
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347* OBSOLETE configurations and files
348
349Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
350been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
351configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
352permanently REMOVED.
353
92eb23c5 354Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 355OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 356IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 357Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 358Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 359Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
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360i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
361i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
362i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
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363HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
364 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
365 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 366I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 367
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368* OBSOLETE languages
369
370CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
371
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372* REMOVED configurations and files
373
374AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
375A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
376AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
377AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
378AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
379
380testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
381
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382* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
383
384This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
385commands. The default is 1024.
386
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387* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
388
389Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
390
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391* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
392
393These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
394to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
395from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 396
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397* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
398
399The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
400including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
401of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
402
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403*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
404
405* New targets.
406
407Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
408
409* Bug fixes
410
411gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
412mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
413Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
414
415gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
416dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
417Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
418
419Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
420Surprisingly enough, it works now.
421By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
422
423i386 hardware watchpoint support:
424avoid misses on second run for some targets.
425By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
426
37057839 427*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 428
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429* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
430
431This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
432really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
433In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
434target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
435This can be a significant performance improvement on some
436(notably embedded) targets.
437
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438* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
439
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440This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
441process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
442GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
443hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 444
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445* New command line option
446
447GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
448
449* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
450
451There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
452command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
453a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
454be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
455open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
456issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
457a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
458it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
459GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
460is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
461
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462* Changes in ARM configurations.
463
464Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
465configuration is fully multi-arch.
466
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467* New native configurations
468
fe419ffc 469ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 470x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 471AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 472Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 473
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474* New targets
475
476Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
477
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478* OBSOLETE configurations and files
479
480Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
481been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
482configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
483permanently REMOVED.
484
485AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
486A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
487AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
488AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
489AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
490
b4ceaee6 491testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 492
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493* REMOVED configurations and files
494
495TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 496WDC 65816 w65-*-*
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497PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
498PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
499PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 500Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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501Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
502 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 503SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 504Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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505Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
506ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 507Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 508
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509* Changes to command line processing
510
511The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
512for the inferior from gdb's command line.
513
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514* Changes to key bindings
515
516There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
517
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518*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
519
520Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
521
522Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
523corrupted.
524
525Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
526
527Numerous documentation fixes.
528
529Numerous testsuite fixes.
530
34f47bc4 531*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
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532
533* New native configurations
534
535Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
536x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 537MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
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538MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
539ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 540s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 541
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542* New targets
543
def90278 544Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 545CRIS cris-axis
55241689 546UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 547
17e78a56 548* OBSOLETE configurations and files
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549
550x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 551Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
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552Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
553 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
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554TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
555WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 556Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
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557PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
558PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
559PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 560SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
561Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
562ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 563Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 564
17e78a56
AC
565stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
566kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
567
7fcca85b
AC
568Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
569been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
570configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
571permanently REMOVED.
572
a196c81c 573* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
574
575Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
576Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
577Pyramid pyramid-*-*
578ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
579Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 580ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 581
6d6b80e5 582* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 583
6d6b80e5 584GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
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585sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
586present.
587
bf64bfd6
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588* Other news:
589
e23194cb
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590* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
591
592* The MI enabled by default.
593
594The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
595revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
596engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
597using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
598which is now deprecated.
599
600* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
601
602GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
603main features are supported:
604
605 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
606
607 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
608 extension;
609
610 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
611
612 - a Pascal expression parser.
613
614However, some important features are not yet supported.
615
616 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
617
618 - there are some problems with boolean types;
619
620 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
621 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
622
623 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
624
625 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
626
627* Changes in completion.
628
629Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
630to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
631users expect at the shell prompt.
632
633Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
634`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
635program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
636files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
637be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
638considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
639name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
640
641`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
642
643* New platform-independent commands:
644
645It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
646hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
647documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
648
649* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
650
d7275149
MK
651Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
652revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
653many threads as your system allows you to have.
654
e23194cb
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655Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
656
d7275149
MK
657Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
658multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
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659
660* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
661
662Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
663
e23194cb
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664GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
665debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
666supported.)
667
668* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
669
670Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
671breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
672implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
673put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
674and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
675registers.
676
677The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
678debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
679watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
680
681* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
682
683New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
684the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
685
686New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
687display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
688IDT.
689
690New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
691from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
692New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
693a given linear address.
694
695GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
696program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
697which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
698
699DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
700
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701It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
702
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703* Changes in documentation.
704
705All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
706Documentation License.
707
708Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
709manual.
710
711TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
712
713Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
714manual.
715
716The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
717documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
718hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
719
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AC
720* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
721
722The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
723``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
724contents of this file.
725
1a1d8446
AC
726* gdba.el deleted
727
728GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 729
9debab2f 730*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 731
c63ce875
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732* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
733
734Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
735programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
736displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
737greater level of detail.
738
739* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
740
741It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
742bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
743on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
744written.
745
746* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
747
748The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
749necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
750machines ``out of the box''.
751
752The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
753possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
754signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
755would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
756interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
757
758It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
759standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
760even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
761and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
762terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
763
764The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
765enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
766also works.
767
768DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
769GDB.
770
771It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
772directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
773times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
774breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
775
ed9a39eb
JM
776* New native configurations
777
778ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 779PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 780
7a292a7a
SS
781* New targets
782
96baa820 783Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
784x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
785PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
786TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
787
085dd6e6
JM
788* OBSOLETE configurations
789
790Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
791Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 792Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 793ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 794Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 795
9debab2f
AC
796Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
797but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
798these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
799be permanently REMOVED.
800
5330533d
SS
801* Gould support removed
802
803Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
804
bc9e5bbf
AC
805* New features for SVR4
806
807On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
808without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
809load symbols from the running process's executable file.
810
811* Many C++ enhancements
812
813C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
814in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
815
adf40b2e
JM
816* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
817
818A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
819sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
820with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
821``|<program> <args>'' vis:
822
823 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
824 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
825
43e526b9
JM
826* MIPS 64 remote protocol
827
828A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
829expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
830instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
831
832The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
833added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
834
96baa820
JM
835* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
836
837The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
838``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
839include ``set remote P-packet''.
840
11cf8741
JM
841* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
842
843The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
844accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
845``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
846
7876dd43
DB
847* ``apropos'' command added.
848
849The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
850documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
851try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
852
bc9e5bbf
AC
853* New MI interface
854
855A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
856interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
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857process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
858"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
859enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
860
861 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
862
c906108c
SS
863*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
864
865* New native configurations
866
867HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
868HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 869M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
870
871* New targets
872
873Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
874Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
875Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
876
877* OBSOLETE configurations
878
879Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
880
881Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
882but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
883these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
884be permanently REMOVED.
885
886* ANSI/ISO C
887
888As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
889buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
890containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
891use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
892available. If this is not true, please report the affected
893configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
894information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
895already.
896
897* Readline 2.2
898
899GDB now uses readline 2.2.
900
901* set extension-language
902
903You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
904languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
905you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
906 set extension-language .c c++
907The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
908and their associated languages.
909
910* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
911
912When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
913you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
914PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
915
916 set processor NAME
917
918sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
919following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
920
921 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
922 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
923 403 IBM PowerPC 403
924 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
925 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
926 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
927 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
928 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
929 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
930 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
931 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
932
933At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
934special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
935registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
936only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
937
938* HP-UX support
939
940Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
941more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
942library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
943support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
944for xdb and dbx commands.
945
946* Catchpoints
947
948HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
949generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
950to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
951
952This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
953argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
954output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
955
956* Debugging across forks
957
958On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
959in the inferior.
960
961* TUI
962
963HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
964it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
965configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
966
967* GDB remote protocol additions
968
969A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
970Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
971fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
972allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
973
974For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
975full 64-bit address. The command
976
977 set remoteaddresssize 32
978
979can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
980the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
981will be discarded.
982
983In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
984command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
985
986 maint packet heythere
987
988sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
989disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
990time.
991
992The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
993target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
994downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
995
996* Tracing can collect general expressions
997
998You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
999further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1000doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1001
1002* mask-address variable for Mips
1003
1004For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1005a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1006of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1007
1008* Higher serial baud rates
1009
1010GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1011230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1012to achieve all of these rates.)
1013
1014* i960 simulator
1015
1016The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1017builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1018
1019
1020*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1021
1022* New native configurations
1023
1024Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1025Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1026Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1027PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1028PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1029Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1030Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1031
1032* New targets
1033
1034Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1035Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1036Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1037Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1038MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1039MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1040MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1041Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1042Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1043Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1044NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1045
1046* New debugging protocols
1047
1048ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1049M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1050DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1051PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1052PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1053Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1054
1055* DWARF 2
1056
1057All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1058format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1059information.
1060
1061* Java frontend
1062
1063GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1064only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1065
1066* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1067
1068For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1069loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1070locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1071
1072* Live range splitting
1073
1074GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1075range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1076more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1077
1078* Hurd support
1079
1080GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1081updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1082
1083* ARM Thumb support
1084
1085GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1086instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1087instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1088accordingly.
1089
1090* MIPS16 support
1091
1092GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1093instruction set.
1094
1095* Overlay support
1096
1097GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1098linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1099will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1100control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1101additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1102in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1103
1104* info symbol
1105
1106The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1107the symbol at the specified address.
1108
1109* Trace support
1110
1111The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1112asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1113extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1114includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1115file tracepoint.c for more details.
1116
1117* MIPS simulator
1118
1119Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1120by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1121of most MIPS variants.
1122
1123* Sparc simulator
1124
1125Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1126by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1127Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1128
1129* set architecture
1130
1131For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1132basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1133architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1134the possible architectures.
1135
1136*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1137
1138* New native configurations
1139
1140Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1141M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1142PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1143PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1144PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1145RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1146
1147* New targets
1148
1149ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1150I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1151MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1152MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1153PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1154Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1155Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1156
1157* PowerPC simulator
1158
1159The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1160contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1161PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1162basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1163performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1164
1165* Solaris 2.5
1166
1167GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1168
1169* Windows 95/NT native
1170
1171GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1172To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1173which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1174Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1175ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1176
1177* dont-repeat command
1178
1179If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1180command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1181useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1182extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1183
1184* Send break instead of ^C
1185
1186The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1187rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1188GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1189
1190* Remote protocol timeout
1191
1192The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1193that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1194to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1195
1196* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1197
1198By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1199loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1200stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1201when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1202in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1203
1204Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1205/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1206automatically on hpux10.
1207
1208* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1209
1210Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1211
1212* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1213
1214When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1215may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1216the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1217every character. The default value is 1050.
1218
1219* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1220
1221If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1222a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1223replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1224details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1225remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1226to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1227
1228* Speedups for remote debugging
1229
1230GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1231the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1232and more efficient S-record downloading.
1233
1234* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1235
1236GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1237Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1238
1239*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1240
1241* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1242
1243The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1244can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1245
1246* Remote targets use caching
1247
1248Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1249remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1250it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1251debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1252off' turns the the data cache off.
1253
1254* Remote targets may have threads
1255
1256The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1257in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1258gdb/remote.c for details.
1259
1260* NetROM support
1261
1262If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1263support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1264acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1265write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1266support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1267another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1268sequence is something like
1269
1270 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1271 load <prog>
1272 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1273
1274* Macintosh host
1275
1276GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1277may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1278it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1279available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1280device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1281directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1282scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1283mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1284
1285* Autoconf
1286
1287GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1288but does simplify configuration and building.
1289
1290* hpux10
1291
1292GDB now supports hpux10.
1293
1294*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1295
1296* New native configurations
1297
1298x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1299x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1300NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1301Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1302
1303* New targets
1304
1305A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1306HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1307CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1308PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1309WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1310
1311* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1312
1313GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1314possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1315filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1316the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1317if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1318
1319* Arguments to user-defined commands
1320
1321User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1322Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1323trivial example:
1324define adder
1325 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1326
1327To execute the command use:
1328adder 1 2 3
1329
1330Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1331Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1332use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1333
1334* New `if' and `while' commands
1335
1336This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1337commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1338expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1339execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1340terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1341`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1342if the expression is zero.
1343
1344* Fortran source language mode
1345
1346GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1347Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1348variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1349with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1350Fortran compilers.
1351
1352* Better HPUX support
1353
1354Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1355running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1356processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1357for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1358that behavior do the following before running the program:
1359
1360 adb -w a.out
1361 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1362 control-d
1363
1364This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1365To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1366
1367 adb -w a.out
1368 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1369 control-d
1370
1371You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1372the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1373external linkage.
1374
1375GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1376HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1377
1378* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1379
1380You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1381commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1382current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1383"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1384associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1385configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1386
1387* New DOS host serial code
1388
1389This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1390no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1391a PC's serial port.
1392
1393*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1394
1395* New "complete" command
1396
1397This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1398were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1399
1400* Trailing space optional in prompt
1401
1402"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1403allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1404
1405* Breakpoint hit counts
1406
1407"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1408has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1409can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1410to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1411less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1412that breakpoint.
1413
1414* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1415
1416"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1417an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1418arrays actually contain only short strings.
1419
1420* Shared library breakpoints
1421
1422In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1423breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1424
1425* Hardware watchpoints
1426
1427There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1428targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1429
55241689 1430Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1431
1432* Annotations
1433
1434Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1435and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1436
1437* Improved Irix 5 support
1438
1439GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1440
1441* Improved HPPA support
1442
1443GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1444
1445* New native configurations
1446
1447Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1448HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1449Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1450RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1451
1452* New targets
1453
1454OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1455MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1456Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1457
1458* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1459
1460There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1461This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1462
1463* Fixes
1464
1465As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1466and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1467
1468*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1469
1470* Irix 5 is now supported
1471
1472* HPPA support
1473
1474GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1475to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1476GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1477of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1478can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1479
1480
1481*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1482
1483* User visible changes:
1484
1485* Remote Debugging
1486
1487The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1488target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1489debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1490integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1491debugging info for the mips target).
1492
1493* DEC Alpha native support
1494
1495GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1496debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1497work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1498Alpha-specific notes.
1499
1500* Preliminary thread implementation
1501
1502GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1503
1504* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1505
1506This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1507to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1508for details).
1509
1510* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1511
1512This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1513mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1514call methods, ...etc.
1515
1516*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1517
1518 * User visible changes:
1519
1520Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1521supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1522other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1523somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1524
1525Filename completion now works.
1526
1527When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1528arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1529addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1530
1531All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1532vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1533should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1534your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1535to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1536
1537 * DEC alpha support
1538
1539This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1540cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1541
1542
1543*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1544
1545 * Testsuite
1546
1547This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1548The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1549via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1550
1551 * C++ demangling
1552
1553'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1554emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1555Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1556disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1557use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1558
1559 * Simulators
1560
1561GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1562So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1563Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1564
1565 * New targets supported
1566
1567H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1568H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1569SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1570Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1571IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1572
1573Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1574version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1575GO32 memory extender.
1576
1577 * New remote protocols
1578
1579MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1580
1581 * New source languages supported
1582
1583This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1584used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1585into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1586
1587
1588*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1589
1590 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1591
1592GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1593version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1594University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1595compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1596format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1597(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1598
1599Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1600
1601 * Faster and better demangling
1602
1603We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1604demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1605character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1606only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1607This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1608increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1609symbol lookups.
1610
1611`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1612from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1613compiler does not actually implement.
1614
1615 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1616
1617In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1618inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1619recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1620very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1621The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1622circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1623fix.
1624
1625The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1626release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1627
1628 * Improved configure script
1629
1630The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1631you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1632host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1633done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1634
1635We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1636version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1637`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1638The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1639only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1640We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1641
1642 * Documentation improvements
1643
1644There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1645produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1646before submitting changes.
1647
1648The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1649M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1650`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1651you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1652a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1653
1654*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1655We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1656been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1657or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1658`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1659around this problem.
1660
1661 * New features
1662
1663GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1664the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1665`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1666the target program.
1667
1668The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1669how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1670
1671 * New native hosts supported
1672
1673HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1674386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1675
1676 * New targets supported
1677
1678AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1679
1680 * New file formats supported
1681
1682BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1683HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1684
1685 * Major bug fixes
1686
1687Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1688
1689We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1690printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1691
1692We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1693for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1694release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1695
1696You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1697will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1698
1699We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1700for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1701especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1702libraries.
1703
1704The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1705information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1706command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1707any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1708when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1709
1710 * Internal improvements
1711
1712GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1713debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1714
1715GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1716Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1717symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1718contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1719shared code that handles any of them.
1720
1721 * New command line options
1722
1723We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1724
1725 * Mmalloc licensing
1726
1727The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1728General Public License.
1729
1730*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1731
1732 * Host/native/target split
1733
1734GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1735hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1736target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1737local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1738ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1739
1740The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1741GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1742is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1743code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1744any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1745built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1746handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1747
1748GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1749It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1750plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1751
1752 * New hosts supported
1753
1754HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1755386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1756386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1757
1758 * New targets supported
1759
1760Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
176168030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1762
1763 * New native hosts supported
1764
1765386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1766 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1767386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1768
1769 * New file formats supported
1770
1771BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1772supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1773format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1774
1775 * New commands
1776
1777`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1778`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1779These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1780
1781`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1782
1783You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1784scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1785prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1786executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1787
1788 * C++ improvements
1789
1790We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1791info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1792symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1793
1794Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1795
1796 * Major bug fixes
1797
1798The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1799fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1800by the compiler.
1801
1802We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1803support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1804
1805John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1806slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1807that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1808purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1809the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1810mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1811
1812Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1813about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1814completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1815we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1816
1817 * AMD 29k support
1818
1819A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1820specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1821calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1822usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1823in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1824
1825We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1826Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1827of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1828resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1829
1830 * Remote interfaces
1831
1832We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1833with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1834message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1835This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1836needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1837breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1838each instruction being stepped through.
1839
1840The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1841registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1842
1843There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1844find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1845Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1846processor with a serial port.
1847
1848 * Configuration
1849
1850Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1851`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1852supported, and what files each one uses.
1853
1854 * Library changes
1855
1856There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1857disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1858Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1859disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1860
1861The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1862Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1863can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1864grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1865
1866 * Documentation
1867
1868The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1869reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1870as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1871encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1872system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1873bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1874
1875And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1876
1877
1878*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1879
1880 * Better support for C++ function names
1881
1882GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1883names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1884(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1885single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1886Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1887
1888GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1889the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1890You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1891lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1892for the list of formats.
1893
1894 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1895
1896Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1897C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1898directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1899can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1900usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1901about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1902this problem.)
1903
1904 * New 'maintenance' command
1905
1906All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1907the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1908can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1909
1910 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1911 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1912 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1913 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1914 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1915 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1916
1917The following commands are new:
1918
1919 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1920 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1921 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1922
1923 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1924
1925We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1926(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1927be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1928read after argv processing.
1929
1930 * New hosts supported
1931
1932Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1933
55241689 1934GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
1935
1936We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1937is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1938for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1939masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1940fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1941It costs extra.
1942
1943 * New targets supported
1944
1945Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1946
1947 * More smarts about finding #include files
1948
1949GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1950all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1951greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1952especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1953the one that contains your sources.
1954
1955We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1956breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1957try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1958
1959 * Interesting infernals change
1960
1961GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1962section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1963target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1964stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1965
1966 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1967
1968There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1969 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1970 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1971
1972See the ChangeLog for details.
1973
1974*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1975
1976 * New machines supported (host and target)
1977
1978IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1979
1980SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1981
1982 * New malloc package
1983
1984GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1985Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1986capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1987This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1988pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1989more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1990
1991 * info proc
1992
1993The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1994'help info proc' for details.
1995
1996 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1997
1998The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1999Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2000possible.
2001
2002 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2003
2004Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2005support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2006conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2007environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2008that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2009in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2010
2011 * Cross byte order fixes
2012
2013Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2014targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2015
2016 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2017
2018If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2019system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2020`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2021program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2022called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2023Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2024and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2025the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2026option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2027starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2028
2029You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2030the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2031information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2032slower, but makes future operations faster.
2033
2034The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2035build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2036A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2037use is:
2038
2039 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2040
2041The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2042It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2043shared across multiple host platforms.
2044
2045 * longjmp() handling
2046
2047GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2048siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2049all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2050platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2051
2052 * Solaris 2.0
2053
2054Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2055this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2056reading symbols.
2057
2058 * Bug fixes
2059
2060As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2061People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2062crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2063
2064*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2065
2066 * New machines supported (host and target)
2067
2068SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2069 (except core files)
2070BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2071Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2072
2073 * New machines supported (target)
2074
2075AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2076
2077 * C++ support
2078
2079GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2080The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2081per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2082
2083GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2084`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2085extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2086good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2087will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2088released.
2089
2090 * New features for SVR4
2091
2092GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2093shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2094only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2095
2096The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2097on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2098it prints the address mappings of the process.
2099
2100If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2101bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2102
2103 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2104
2105Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2106now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2107skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2108make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2109same code linked statically.
2110
2111 * New Getopt
2112
2113GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2114version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2115continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2116Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2117added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2118future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2119
2120 * Bugs fixed
2121
2122The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2123Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2124See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2125
2126
2127*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2128
2129 * New machines supported (host and target)
2130
2131Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2132NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2133Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2134
2135 * Almost SCO Unix support
2136
2137We had hoped to support:
2138SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2139(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2140that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2141about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2142
2143 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2144
2145GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2146debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2147is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2148send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2149reqired (if any).
2150
2151 * New Readline
2152
2153GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2154is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2155required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2156
2157 * Bugs fixed
2158
2159The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2160Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2161See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2162
2163 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2164
2165GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2166supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2167symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2168
2169Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2170mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2171debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2172mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2173version 2.
2174
2175Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2176really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2177line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2178variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2179situation somewhat.
2180
2181When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2182However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2183methods.
2184
2185We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2186DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2187encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2188
2189
2190*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2191
2192 * Improved configuration
2193
2194Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2195Porting BFD is simpler.
2196
2197 * Stepping improved
2198
2199The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2200of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2201in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2202function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2203
2204 * Bug fixing
2205
2206Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2207
2208 * New host supported (not target)
2209
2210Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2211
2212
2213*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2214
2215 * Multiple source language support
2216
2217GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2218It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2219and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2220language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2221You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2222`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2223
2224 * GDB and Modula-2
2225
2226GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2227currently under development at the State University of New York at
2228Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2229continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2230
2231Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2232debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2233symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2234
2235There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2236in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2237
2238 * set write on/off
2239
2240GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2241a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2242the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2243by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2244effect immediately.
2245
2246 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2247
2248When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2249shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2250The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2251examining core files.
2252
2253 * set listsize
2254
2255You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2256The default is 10.
2257
2258 * New machines supported (host and target)
2259
2260SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2261Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2262Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2263
2264 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2265
2266IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2267
2268 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2269
2270AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2271AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2272Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2273
2274 * New remote interfaces
2275
2276AMD 29000 Adapt
2277AMD 29000 Minimon
2278
2279
2280*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2281
2282 * New Facilities
2283
2284Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2285
2286Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2287target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2288is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2289remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2290remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2291also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2292using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2293stub on the target system.
2294
2295New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2296
2297GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2298library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2299object file types such as a.out and coff.
2300
2301There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2302refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2303
2304
2305 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2306
2307All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2308by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2309
2310For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2311``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2312Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2313
2314What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2315print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2316will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2317all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2318
2319confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2320 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2321 it is already running. Default is ON.
2322
2323editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2324 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2325 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2326 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2327 Default is ON.
2328
2329history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2330 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2331 or the value of the environment variable
2332 GDBHISTFILE.
2333
2334history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2335 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2336 HISTSIZE.
2337
2338history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2339 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2340 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2341
2342history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2343 history expansion will be performed on
2344 command line input. The default is OFF.
2345
2346radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2347 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2348 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2349
2350height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2351 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2352 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2353 variable TERM.
2354
2355width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2356 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2357 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2358 variable TERM.
2359
2360Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2361``set width'' instead.
2362
2363print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2364 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2365 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2366 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2367
2368print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2369 is OFF.
2370
2371print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2372 "raw" form if off.
2373
2374print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2375 like instructions.
2376
2377print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2378
2379
2380 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2381
2382The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2383new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2384are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2385window.
2386
2387
2388 * Support for Shared Libraries
2389
2390GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2391Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2392before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2393happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2394At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2395from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2396shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2397It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2398
2399sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2400 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2401 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2402
2403info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2404
2405
2406 * Watchpoints
2407
2408A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2409expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2410tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2411quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2412problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2413more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2414
2415watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2416
2417info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2418
2419delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2420disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2421enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2422
2423
2424 * C++ multiple inheritance
2425
2426When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2427for C++ programs.
2428
2429 * C++ exception handling
2430
2431Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2432ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2433the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2434handler's context).
2435
2436catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2437 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2438 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2439
2440info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2441 current stack frame.
2442
2443
2444 * Minor command changes
2445
2446The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2447command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2448is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2449
2450The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2451at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2452frames without printing.
2453
2454 * New directory command
2455
2456'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2457The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2458about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2459with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2460find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2461
2462 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2463
2464For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2465for more details.
2466
2467GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2468two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2469Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2470where the program that you are debugging will run.
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