* tracepoint.c (encode_actions_1): Use the location's gdbarch.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
31916278 4*** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
d6e00af6 5
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6* GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
7 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
8
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9* GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
10 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
11 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
12 target hardware watchpoint.
13
14 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
15 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
16 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
17 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
18
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19* Python scripting
20
32d1c362 21 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
7d0aff21 22 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
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23 existing one.
24
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25 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
26 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
27 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
28 "off".
29
baacfb07 30 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3a7bf607 31 Python API.
713389e0 32
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33 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
34 modules library. This module provides functionality for
baacfb07 35 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
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36 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
37 corresponding value.
38
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39 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
40 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
41 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
42 on GDB start-up.
43
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44 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
45 static_block will return the global and static blocks
46 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
47 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
48
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49 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
50
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51 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
52 "gdb.breakpoints".
53
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54 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
55 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
56 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
57 "some_type.items()".
58
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59 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
60 new object file.
61
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62 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
63 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
64 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
65 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
66 any anonymous fields.
67
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68* libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
69 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
70 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
71 lives.
72
73 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
74 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
75 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
76 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
77 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
78
79 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
80 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
81
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82* New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
83 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
84 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
85 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
86 use this option to specify where to find it.
87
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88* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
89 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
90 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
91 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
92 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
93 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
94 section in the user manual for more details.
95
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96* The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
97 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
98 become available after that.
99
71eba9c2 100* New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
edc84990 101
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102* New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
103 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
104 gcc version 4.7.
105
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106* Changed commands
107
108watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
109 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
110 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
111
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112info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
113 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
114 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
115
71eba9c2 116info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
117 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
118 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
119 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
120 name starts with a hyphen.
121
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122collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
123 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
124 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
125 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
126 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
127 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
128 number of bytes that will be collected.
129
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130* Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
131 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
132 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
133 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
134 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
135 is running.
136
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137* New options
138
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139set extended-prompt
140show extended-prompt
141 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
142 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
143 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
144 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
145 prompt is displayed.
146
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147set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
148show print entry-values
149 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
150 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
151 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
152
153set debug entry-values
154show debug entry-values
155 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
156 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
157
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158* New remote packets
159
160QTEnable
161
162 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
163
164QTDisable
165
166 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
167
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168* Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
169 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
170
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171* New targets
172
173Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
174
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175*** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
176
177* The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
178
d6e00af6 179*** Changes in GDB 7.3
797054e6 180
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181* GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
182 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
183 matches the given regular expression.
184
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185* The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
186
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187* The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
188 dumping the instruction opcodes.
189
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190* New command line options
191
192-data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
193 This is mostly for testing purposes.
194
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195* The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
196 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
197
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198* GDB has a new command: "set directories".
199 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
200 source path list instead of augmenting it.
201
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202* GDB now understands thread names.
203
204 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
205 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
206
207 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
208 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
209
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210* OpenCL C
211 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
212 has been integrated into GDB.
213
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214* Python scripting
215
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216 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
217 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
218 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
219
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220 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
221 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
222 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
223 and allows for more dynamic content.
224
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225 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
226 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
227 have an is_valid method.
228
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229 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
230 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
231 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
232
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233 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
234
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235 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
236 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
237 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
238 that function like so:
239
240 result = some_value (10,20)
241
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242 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
243 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
244 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
245
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246 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
247 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
248 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
249 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
250 New function: register_pretty_printer.
251
252 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
253 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
254
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255 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
256
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257 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
258 selected thread.
259
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260 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
261 holds the thread's name.
262
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263 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
264 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
824446ad 265 occurring in the process being debugged.
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266 The following events are currently supported:
267 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
268 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
269 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
270
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271* C++ Improvements:
272
273 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
274 instantiation. For example, if you have:
275
276 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
277
278 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
279 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
280 was added to GCC 4.5.
281
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282 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
283 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
284 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
285 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
286 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
287 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
288
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289* GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
290 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
291 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
292 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
293 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
294
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295* GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
296 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
297 execution to a label.
298
299* GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
300 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
301 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
302 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
303
b56df873 304* The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
14c0d4e1 305 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
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306 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
307 of scope.
308
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309* GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
310
311 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
312 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
313 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
314 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
315 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
316 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
317
318 (gdb) info threads
319 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
320
321 While now you see this:
322
323 (gdb) info threads
324 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
325
326 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
327 dumps.
328
329 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
330 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
331 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
332 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
333
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334* When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
335 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
336 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
337 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
338 section in the user manual for more details.
339
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340* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
341
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342 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
343 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
248c9dbc 344
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345 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
346
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347* New native configurations
348
349ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
350
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351* New targets:
352
353Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
354
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355* Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
356 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
357 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
358 in the GDB user manual.
359
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360* Guile support was removed.
361
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362* New features in the GNU simulator
363
364 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
365
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366 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
367
76b8507d 368*** Changes in GDB 7.2
bfbf3774 369
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370* Shared library support for remote targets by default
371
372 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
373 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
374 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
375 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
376 was always disabled for such configurations.
377
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378* C++ Improvements:
379
380 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
381
382 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
383 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
384 For example:
385 namespace A
386 {
387 class B { };
388 void foo (B) { }
389 }
390 ...
391 A::B b
392 foo(b)
393 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
394 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
395 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
396
397 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
398
399 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
400 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
401 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
402 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
403 entry.
404 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
405 mentioned flavors of operators.
406
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407 ** static const class members
408
409 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
410 class definition has been fixed.
411
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412* Windows Thread Information Block access.
413
414 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
415 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
416 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
417 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
418 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
419 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
420
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421* Static tracepoints
422
423 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
424 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
425 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
426 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
427 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
428 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
429 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
430 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
431 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
432 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
433 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
434 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
435 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
436 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
437 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
438 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
439 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
440 the "New remote packets" section below.
441
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442* Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
443
444 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
445 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
446 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
447 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
448
449* Observer mode
450
451 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
452 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
453 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
454 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
455 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
456 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
457 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
458
459* The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
460 current thread.
461
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462* New remote packets
463
464qGetTIBAddr
465
466 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
467
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468qRelocInsn
469
470 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
471 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
472 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
473 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
474 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
475 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
476
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477qTfSTM, qTsSTM
478
479 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
480
481qTSTMat
482
483 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
484 program.
485
486qXfer:statictrace:read
487
488 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
489 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
490 to gdb's qSupported query.
491
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492QAllow
493
494 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
495
496QTDPsrc
497
498 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
499 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
500
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501* The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
502 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
503 a directory.
504
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505* New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
506
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507 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
508 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
509 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
510 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
511
512 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
513 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
514 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
515 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
516 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
517 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
518 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
519
520 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
521 for static tracepoints support.
d337e9f0 522
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523 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
524
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525* GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
526 it understands register description.
527
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528* The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
529
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530* X86 general purpose registers
531
532 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
533 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
534 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
535 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
536 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
537
95a42b64 538* The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
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539 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
540 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
541 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
542 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
543 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
95a42b64 544
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545* The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
546 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
547 in the specified file.
548
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549* Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
550 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
551 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
552 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
553 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
554 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
555 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
556 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
557 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
558 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
559
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560* New commands
561
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562eval template, expressions...
563 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
564 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
565
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566set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
567show target-file-system-kind
568 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
569 names.
570
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571save breakpoints <filename>
572 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
573 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
574 definitions, use the `source' command.
575
576`save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
577is now deprecated.
578
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579info static-tracepoint-markers
580 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
581
582strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
583 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
584 function, line, address, or marker ID.
585
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586set observer on|off
587show observer
588 Enable and disable observer mode.
589
590set may-write-registers on|off
591set may-write-memory on|off
592set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
593set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
594set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
595set may-interrupt on|off
596 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
597 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
598 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
599 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
600 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
601 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
602 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
603
604set record memory-query on|off
605show record memory-query
606 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
607 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
608
53a71c06
CR
609* Changed commands
610
611disassemble
612 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
613
f3e9a817
PM
614* Python scripting
615
9279c692
JB
616** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
617 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
618 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
619 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
620 GDB using Python' in the manual.
621
adc36818 622** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595939de
PM
623 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
624 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
625 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
f870a310 626
fa33c3cd 627** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
07ca107c
DE
628 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
629
630** New exception gdb.GdbError.
fa33c3cd
DE
631
632** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
f3e9a817 633
967cf477
DE
634** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
635
8a1ea21f
DE
636** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
637 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
638 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
639
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VP
640* Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
641there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
642tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
643regular breakpoints.
644
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PA
645* New targets
646
647ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
648
6aecb9c2
JB
649* D language support.
650 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
651 language.
652
431e49aa
TJB
653* GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
654 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
655 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
656 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
657 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
658
659* GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
660 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
661 conditions of the form:
662
663 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
664
665 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
666 interface mentioned above.
667
bfbf3774 668*** Changes in GDB 7.1
abc7453d 669
4eef138c
TT
670* C++ Improvements
671
672 ** Namespace Support
71dee663
SW
673
674 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
675 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
676 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
677 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
678 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
679
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TT
680 ** Bug Fixes
681
682 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
683 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
684 qualified name.
685
686 ** Cast Operators
687
688 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
689 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
690
2d1c1221
ME
691* New targets
692
693Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
34207b9e 694Renesas RX rx-*-elf
2d1c1221
ME
695
696* New Simulators
697
698Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
34207b9e 699Renesas RX rx
2d1c1221 700
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PA
701* Multi-program debugging.
702
703 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
704 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
705 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
706 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
707 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
708 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
709 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
710 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
711
d5551862
SS
712* New tracing features
713
714 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
715
716 ** Trace state variables
f61e138d
SS
717
718 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
719 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
720 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
721 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
722 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
723 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
724 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
725 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
726 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
727 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
7a697b8d 728
d5551862 729 ** Fast tracepoints
7a697b8d
SS
730
731 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
732 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
733 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
734 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
735 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
736 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
737 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
738 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
739 the regular trace command.
740
d5551862
SS
741 ** Disconnected tracing
742
743 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
744 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
745 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
746 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
747 connection is lost unexpectedly.
748
00bf0b85
SS
749 ** Trace files
750
751 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
752 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
753 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
754 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
755 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
756 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
757 <name>".
4daf5ac0
SS
758
759 ** Circular trace buffer
760
761 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
762 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
763 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
764 not be available for all target agents.
765
21a0512e
PP
766* Changed commands
767
768disassemble
769 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
770 the arguments to be comma-separated.
771
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DJ
772info variables
773 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
774 which only declare a variable are not shown.
775
fb2e7cb4
JB
776source
777 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
778 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
779 support.
780
781 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
782 "set script-extension" (see below).
783
6c95b8df
PA
784* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
785
399cd161
MS
786record save [<FILENAME>]
787 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
788 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
789
790record restore <FILENAME>
791 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
792 earlier time, for replay debugging.
793
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PA
794add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
795 Add a new inferior.
796
797clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
798 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
799 inferior has loaded.
800
801remove-inferior ID
802 Remove an inferior.
803
804maint info program-spaces
805 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
806
9a7071a8
JB
807set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
808show remote interrupt-sequence
809 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
810 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
811 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
812 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
813 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
814
815set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
816show remote interrupt-on-connect
817 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
818 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
819 Linux kernel.
820
821set remotebreak [on | off]
822show remotebreak
823Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
824
f61e138d
SS
825tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
826 Create or modify a trace state variable.
827
828info tvariables
829 List trace state variables and their values.
830
831delete tvariable $NAME ...
832 Delete one or more trace state variables.
833
6da95a67
SS
834teval EXPR, ...
835 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
836 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
837
7a697b8d
SS
838ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
839 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
840
b0f02ee9
JK
841* New expression syntax
842
843 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
844 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
845
6c95b8df
PA
846* New options
847
848set follow-exec-mode new|same
849show follow-exec-mode
850 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
851 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
852 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
853
236f1d4d
SS
854set default-collect EXPR, ...
855show default-collect
856 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
857 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
858 such as registers or a critical global variable.
859
d5551862
SS
860set disconnected-tracing
861show disconnected-tracing
862 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
863 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
864 upon disconnection.
865
4daf5ac0
SS
866set circular-trace-buffer
867show circular-trace-buffer
868 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
869 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
870 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
871 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
872
fb2e7cb4
JB
873set script-extension off|soft|strict
874show script-extension
875 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
876 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
877 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
878 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
879 evaluation failed.
880 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
881
2b71fc8e
JB
882set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
883show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
884 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
885 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
886 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
887 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
888 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
889 is on.
890
de2e5182
TT
891* Python API Improvements
892
893 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
894 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
895 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
896
897 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
898 `is_base_class' attribute.
899
900 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
901
902 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
903 evaluate an expression.
904
f61e138d
SS
905* New remote packets
906
907QTDV
908 Define a trace state variable.
909
910qTV
911 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
912
d5551862
SS
913QTDisconnected
914 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
915
4daf5ac0
SS
916QTBuffer:circular
917 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
918
d5551862
SS
919qTfP, qTsP
920 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
921
2d483d34
MS
922* Bug fixes
923
924Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
925
6e0e5977
JB
926Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
927much more reliable. In particular:
928 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
929 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
930 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
931 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
932 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
933 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
934 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
935 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
936 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
937 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
938 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
939 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
940 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
941 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
942 non-threaded programs.
943
93c26624
JK
944PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
945This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
946libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
947executable program.
948
abc7453d 949*** Changes in GDB 7.0
75feb17d 950
4efc6507
DE
951* GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
952dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
953them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
954for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
955"JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
956
782b2b07
SS
957* Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
958breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
959or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
960the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
961for tracepoint actions.
962
53a71c06
CR
963* The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
964raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
965modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
e6158f16 966
e7a8dbfb
HZ
967* Process record and replay
968
969 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
970 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
971 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
972 execute commands.
973
64644d9b
MS
974* Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
975step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
976set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
977reverse execution.
978
b9412953
DD
979* GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
980feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
9812.6.28 or later.
982
6c7a06a3
TT
983* GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
984target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
985char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
986literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
987U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
988`printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
989system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
990the installation instructions for more information.
991
f1838a98
UW
992* GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
993remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
994with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
995the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
996
55333a84
DE
997* "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
998and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
999
7f6a6314
PM
1000* Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1001now complete on file names.
1002
65d12d83
TT
1003* When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1004completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1005For instance, consider:
1006
1007 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1008 # struct example variable;
1009 (gdb) p variable.
1010
1011If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1012completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1013
edb3359d
DJ
1014* Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1015the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1016
2fae03e8
TT
1017* GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1018operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1019macros.
1020
47a3467a 1021* GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
58d6951d
DJ
1022the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1023implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1024
1025* GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1026registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1027can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1028and simulator targets may also provide them.
47a3467a 1029
08388c79
DE
1030* New remote packets
1031
1032qSearch:memory:
1033 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1034
a6f3e723
SL
1035QStartNoAckMode
1036 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1037 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1038 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1039
d7713ae0
EZ
1040vKill
1041 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1042 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1043
07e059b5
VP
1044qXfer:osdata:read
1045 Obtains additional operating system information
1046
47a3467a
PA
1047qXfer:siginfo:read
1048qXfer:siginfo:write
1049 Read or write additional signal information.
1050
060871df
PA
1051* Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1052
1053 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1054 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1055 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1056
c055b101 1057* GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
a0ef4274 1058DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
c055b101
CV
1059
1060* The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
a0ef4274
DJ
1061and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1062`set/show sh calling-convention'.
c055b101 1063
31fffb02
CS
1064* GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1065with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1066
88d8a8e0
JB
1067* 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1068
7f99b190
JB
1069* Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1070
ccd213ac
DJ
1071* Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1072which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1073
1fddbabb 1074* The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
31fffb02 1075list of section offsets.
1fddbabb 1076
a0ef4274
DJ
1077* On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1078conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1079have also been fixed.
1080
bfb8797a 1081* GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
158c7665
PH
1082From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1083are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
bfb8797a 1084
71c25dea
TT
1085* GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1086example, given:
1087
1088 template<typename T> class C { };
1089 C<char const *> c;
1090
1091GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1092
1093 ptype C<char const *>
1094 ptype C<char const*>
1095 ptype C<const char *>
1096 ptype C<const char*>
1097
ccd213ac
DJ
1098* New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1099
1100 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1101 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1102
7ae0e2a2
UW
1103 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1104 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1105 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1106
a6f3e723
SL
1107 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1108 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1109
da8bd9a3
DJ
1110 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1111 gdbserver.
1112
d70e31dd
DE
1113 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1114 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1115
1116 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1117 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1118 as appropriate.
1119
d57a3c85
TJB
1120* Python scripting
1121
1122 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1123 available is determined at configure time.
1124
d8906c6f
TJB
1125 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1126
aadc346a
JB
1127* Ada tasking support
1128
1129 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1130 been introduced:
1131
1132 info tasks
1133 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1134 info task N
1135 Print detailed information about task number N.
1136 task
1137 Print the task number of the current task.
1138 task N
1139 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1140
adb483fe
DJ
1141* Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1142add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1143
2277426b
PA
1144* Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1145
1146 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1147 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1148 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1149 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1150 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1151 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1152 below.
1153
08d16641
PA
1154* Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1155"Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1156information.
1157
e35359c5
UW
1158* Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1159to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1160architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1161See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1162more information.
1163
85e747d2
UW
1164* Multi-architecture debugging.
1165
1166 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1167 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1168 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1169 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1170 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1171
1172* GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1173use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1174Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1175powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1176--enable-targets configure option.
1177
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PA
1178* Non-stop mode debugging.
1179
1180 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1181 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1182 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1183 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1184 section in the user manual for more information.
1185
1186 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1187 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1188 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1189 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1190 extensions on linux targets.
1191
d7713ae0 1192* New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
75feb17d 1193
a96d9b2e
SDJ
1194catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1195 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1196 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1197 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1198 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1199 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1200 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1201 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1202 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1203
08388c79
DE
1204find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1205 val1 [, val2, ...]
1206 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1207
d57a3c85
TJB
1208maint set python print-stack
1209maint show python print-stack
1210 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1211
1212python [CODE]
1213 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1214
d7713ae0
EZ
1215macro define
1216macro list
1217macro undef
1218 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1219 interactively.
1220
1221info os processes
1222 Show operating system information about processes.
1223
2277426b
PA
1224info inferiors
1225 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1226
1227inferior NUM
1228 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1229
1230detach inferior NUM
1231 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1232
1233kill inferior NUM
1234 Kill inferior number NUM.
1235
d7713ae0
EZ
1236* New options
1237
3285f3fe
UW
1238set spu stop-on-load
1239show spu stop-on-load
1240 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1241
ff1a52c6
UW
1242set spu auto-flush-cache
1243show spu auto-flush-cache
1244 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1245 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1246
d7713ae0
EZ
1247set sh calling-convention
1248show sh calling-convention
1249 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1250
e0a3ce09 1251set debug timestamp
75feb17d 1252show debug timestamp
d7713ae0
EZ
1253 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1254
1255set disassemble-next-line
1256show disassemble-next-line
1257 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1258 the debuggee stops.
1259
1260set remote noack-packet
1261show remote noack-packet
1262 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1263 under "New remote packets."
1264
1265set remote query-attached-packet
1266show remote query-attached-packet
1267 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1268
1269set remote read-siginfo-object
1270show remote read-siginfo-object
1271 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1272 packet.
1273
1274set remote write-siginfo-object
1275show remote write-siginfo-object
1276 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1277 packet.
1278
40ab02ce
MS
1279set remote reverse-continue
1280show remote reverse-continue
1281 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1282
1283set remote reverse-step
1284show remote reverse-step
1285 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1286
d7713ae0
EZ
1287set displaced-stepping
1288show displaced-stepping
1289 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1290 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1291 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1292
1293set debug displaced
1294show debug displaced
1295 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1296
1297maint set internal-error
1298maint show internal-error
1299 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1300
1301maint set internal-warning
1302maint show internal-warning
1303 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
75feb17d 1304
ccd213ac
DJ
1305set exec-wrapper
1306show exec-wrapper
1307unset exec-wrapper
1308 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
fa4727a6 1309
aad4b048
JB
1310set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1311show multiple-symbols
1312 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1313 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1314 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1315
74960c60
VP
1316set breakpoint always-inserted
1317show breakpoint always-inserted
1318 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1319 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1320 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1321
0428b8f5
DJ
1322set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1323show arm fallback-mode
1324set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1325show arm force-mode
1326 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1327 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1328 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1329 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1330
10568435
JK
1331set disable-randomization
1332show disable-randomization
1333 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1334 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1335 multiple debugging sessions.
1336
d7713ae0
EZ
1337set non-stop
1338show non-stop
1339 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1340 a breakpoint.
1341
b3eb342c 1342set target-async
d7713ae0 1343show target-async
b3eb342c
VP
1344 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1345 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1346 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1347 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1348
6c7a06a3
TT
1349set target-wide-charset
1350show target-wide-charset
1351 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1352 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1353
84603566
SL
1354set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1355show tcp auto-retry
1356set tcp connect-timeout
1357show tcp connect-timeout
1358 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1359 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1360 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1361
17a37d48
PP
1362set libthread-db-search-path
1363show libthread-db-search-path
1364 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1365 libthread_db.
1366
d4db2f36
PA
1367set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1368show schedule-multiple
1369 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1370 the current process.
1371
4e5d721f
DE
1372set stack-cache
1373show stack-cache
1374 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1375 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1376 affecting correctness.
1377
910c5da8
JB
1378set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1379show interactive-mode
1380 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1381 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1382 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1383 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1384 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1385
2277426b
PA
1386* Removed commands
1387
1388info forks
1389 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1390 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1391 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1392 command.
1393
1394fork NUM
1395 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1396 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1397 alias for the `fork' command.
1398
1399process PID
1400 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1401 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1402 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1403
1404delete fork NUM
1405 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1406 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1407 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1408 fork' command.
1409
1410detach fork NUM
1411 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1412 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1413 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1414 fork' command.
1415
a80b95ba
TG
1416* New native configurations
1417
1418x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1419
b8bfd3ed
JB
1420x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1421
75a2d5e7
TT
1422* New targets
1423
c28c63d8 1424Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
75a2d5e7 1425x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4c1d2973 1426x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
5f814c3b 1427S+core 3 score-*-*
75a2d5e7 1428
6de3146c
PA
1429* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1430 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1431
d5cbbe6e
JB
1432* Removed commands
1433
1434catch load
1435catch unload
1436 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1437
75feb17d 1438*** Changes in GDB 6.8
f9ed52be 1439
af5ca30d
NH
1440* New native configurations
1441
1442NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
94a0e877 1443Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d
NH
1444
1445* New targets
1446
1447NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
94a0e877 1448Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
af5ca30d 1449
7a404eba
PA
1450* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1451
1452 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1453 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1454 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1455 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1456
430ebac9
PA
1457* GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1458(mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1459
fe6fbf8b 1460* Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
8d5f9c6f 1461is resolved.
fe6fbf8b
VP
1462
1463* GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
8d5f9c6f
DJ
1464including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1465and in inlined functions.
fe6fbf8b 1466
10665d76
JB
1467* GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1468accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1469more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1470
7cc46491
DJ
1471* Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1472
d71340b8
DJ
1473* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1474registers on PowerPC targets.
1475
523c4513
DJ
1476* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1477targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1478
a6b151f1
DJ
1479* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1480commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1481
2d717e4f
DJ
1482* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1483extended-remote mode.
1484
24a836bd 1485* hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
d001be7a
DJ
1486The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1487error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1488The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
24a836bd 1489
d0c678e6
UW
1490* GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1491building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1492target architectures.
1493
d64a946d
TJB
1494* GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1495Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1496now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1497stored in two consecutive float registers.
1498
ee163bf5
VP
1499* The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1500breakpoints now.
1501
b93b6ca7 1502* Improved support for debugging Ada
d001be7a
DJ
1503Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1504include:
b93b6ca7
JB
1505 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1506 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1507 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1508 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1509 of an assignment
1510 - Improved command completion in Ada
1511 - Several bug fixes
1512
d001be7a
DJ
1513* GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1514process.
1515
a6b151f1
DJ
1516* New commands
1517
6d53d0af
JB
1518set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1519show print frame-arguments
1520 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1521 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1522
a6b151f1
DJ
1523remote put
1524remote get
1525remote delete
1526 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1527
1528* New MI commands
1529
1530-target-file-put
1531-target-file-get
1532-target-file-delete
1533 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1534
1535* New remote packets
1536
1537vFile:open:
1538vFile:close:
1539vFile:pread:
1540vFile:pwrite:
1541vFile:unlink:
1542 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
d0c678e6 1543
2d717e4f
DJ
1544vAttach
1545 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1546 mode.
1547
1548vRun
1549 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1550
8d5f9c6f 1551*** Changes in GDB 6.7
6dd09645 1552
19d378fc
MS
1553* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1554bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1555Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1556
3a40aaa0
UW
1557* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1558symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1559-Bsymbolic linker option.
1560
a6ec25f2
BW
1561* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1562recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1563is not supported.
1564
6dd09645
JB
1565* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1566frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1567
c9bb8148
DJ
1568* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
156932-bit or 64-bit register values.
1570
0d5de010
DJ
1571* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1572
23181151
DJ
1573* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1574target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1575a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1576
ea37ba09
DJ
1577* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1578automatically displayed as character or string data.
1579
1580* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1581arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1582as strings.
e1f48ead 1583
123dc839
DJ
1584* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1585for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
8d5f9c6f 1586only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
123dc839 1587
05a4558a
DJ
1588* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1589iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 1590
7c963485
PA
1591* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1592ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1593has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1594
b18be20d
DJ
1595* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1596
0ca420ce
UW
1597* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1598
31d99776
DJ
1599* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1600layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1601segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1602
a4642986
MR
1603* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1604immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1605
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1606* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1607"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1608packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1609where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1610Windows and SymbianOS).
255e7678
DJ
1611
1612* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1613(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
f5db8714
JK
1614
1615* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1616according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 1617
c9bb8148
DJ
1618* New commands
1619
23776285
MR
1620set remoteflow
1621show remoteflow
1622 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1623 when debugging using remote targets.
1624
c9bb8148
DJ
1625set mem inaccessible-by-default
1626show mem inaccessible-by-default
1627 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1628 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1629 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1630 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1631 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1632
1633set breakpoint auto-hw
1634show breakpoint auto-hw
1635 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1636 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1637 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1638 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1639 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1640 including "next" and "finish".
1641
0e420bd8
JB
1642catch exception
1643catch exception unhandled
1644 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1645
1646catch assert
1647 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1648
f822c95b
DJ
1649set sysroot
1650show sysroot
1651 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1652 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1653 an alias to "set sysroot".
1654
83cc5c53
UW
1655info spu
1656 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1657 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1658 architecture.
1659
bd372731
MK
1660* New native configurations
1661
1662OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1663
23181151
DJ
1664set tdesc filename
1665unset tdesc filename
1666show tdesc filename
1667 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1668 not query the target for its built-in description.
1669
c9bb8148
DJ
1670* New targets
1671
54fe9172 1672OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 1673MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 1674Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 1675
6dd09645
JB
1676* New remote packets
1677
1678QPassSignals:
1679 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1680 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1681
23181151
DJ
1682qXfer:features:read:
1683 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1684 features.
6dd09645 1685
83cc5c53
UW
1686qXfer:spu:read:
1687qXfer:spu:write:
1688 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1689 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1690
cfa9d6d9
DJ
1691qXfer:libraries:read:
1692 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1693 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1694 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1695 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1696
483367ee
DJ
1697* Removed targets
1698
1699Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1700
d08950c4
UW
1701alpha*-*-osf1*
1702alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 1703d10v-*-*
483367ee
DJ
1704hppa*-*-hiux*
1705i[34567]86-ncr-*
1706i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1707i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1708i[34567]86-*-netware*
1709i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1710i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1711i[34567]86-*-sco*
1712i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1713i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1714i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1715i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1716i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1717i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1718i[34567]86-*-isc*
1719m68*-cisco*-*
1720m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 1721mips*-*-pe
483367ee 1722rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 1723sh*-*-pe
483367ee 1724
7ce59000
DJ
1725* Other removed features
1726
1727target abug
1728target cpu32bug
1729target est
1730target rom68k
1731
1732 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1733
ea35711c
DJ
1734target hms
1735target e7000
1736target sh3
1737target sh3e
1738
1739 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1740 H8/300.
1741
1742target ocd
1743
1744 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1745 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1746 interfaces.
1747
7ce59000
DJ
1748DWARF 1 support
1749
1750 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1751 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1752
54d61198
DJ
1753Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1754
1755 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1756 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1757 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1758 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1759
ea35711c
DJ
1760MIPS ".pdr" sections
1761
1762 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1763 in debugging information.
1764
1765Scheme support
1766
1767 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1768 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1769
1a69e1e4
DJ
1770set mips stack-arg-size
1771set mips saved-gpreg-size
1772
1773 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1774
6dd09645 1775*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 1776
ca3bf3bd
DJ
1777* New targets
1778
1779Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 1780Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 1781
6aec2e11
DJ
1782* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1783(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1784running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1785
1786* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1787Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1788supported.
1789
17218d91
DJ
1790* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1791broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1792
9ebce043
DJ
1793* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1794stub provides the required support.
1795
7d3d3ece
DJ
1796* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1797longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1798
4f8253f3
JB
1799* New commands
1800
1801set substitute-path
1802unset substitute-path
1803show substitute-path
1804 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1805 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1806 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1807 between compilation and debugging.
1808
9fa66fd7
AS
1809set trace-commands
1810show trace-commands
1811 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1812 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1813 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1814
1f5befc1
DJ
1815* REMOVED features
1816
1817The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1818
2ec3381a
DJ
1819Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1820an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1821
3d00d119
DJ
1822The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1823
be2a5f71
DJ
1824* New remote packets
1825
1826qSupported:
1827 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1828 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1829 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1830 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1831 target.
1832
0876f84a
DJ
1833qXfer:auxv:read:
1834 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1835 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1836
9ebce043
DJ
1837qXfer:memory-map:read:
1838 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1839 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1840
1841vFlashErase:
1842vFlashWrite:
1843vFlashDone:
1844 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1845
0876f84a
DJ
1846* Removed remote packets
1847
1848qPart:auxv:read:
1849 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1850 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1851
e374b601 1852*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 1853
96309189
MS
1854* New targets
1855
1856Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1857
1858Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1859
53e5f3cf
AS
1860* New commands
1861
1862init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1863 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1864
ac264b3b
MS
1865The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1866
1867checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1868
1869restart <n> Return the program state to a
1870 previously saved state.
1871
1872info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1873
1874delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1875
1876set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1877 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1878
1879info forks List forks of the user program that
1880 are available to be debugged.
1881
1882fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1883 forks of the user program that are
1884 available to be debugged.
1885
1886delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1887 that are available to be debugged (and
1888 kill the forked process).
1889
1890detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1891 that are available to be debugged (and
1892 allow the process to continue).
1893
3950dc3f
NS
1894* New architecture
1895
1896Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1897
0ea3f30e
DJ
1898* Improved Windows host support
1899
1900GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1901native console support, and remote communications using either
1902network sockets or serial ports.
1903
f79daebb
GM
1904* Improved Modula-2 language support
1905
1906GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1907basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1908pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1909printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1910written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1911GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1912
acab6ab2
MM
1913* REMOVED features
1914
1915The ARM rdi-share module.
1916
f4267320
DJ
1917The Netware NLM debug server.
1918
53e5f3cf 1919*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 1920
e0ecbda1
MK
1921* New native configurations
1922
02a677ac 1923OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
e0ecbda1
MK
1924OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1925
d64a6579
KB
1926* New targets
1927
1928Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1929
b33a6190
AS
1930* New command line options
1931
1932--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1933--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1934 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1935--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1936 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1937 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1938 with the --command (-x) option.
1939
11dced61
AC
1940* Deprecated commands removed
1941
1942The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1943removed:
1944
1945 Command Replacement
1946 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1947 othernames set arm disassembler
1948 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1949 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1950 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1951 regs info registers
1952
6fe85783
MK
1953* New BSD user-level threads support
1954
1955It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1956library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1957configurations are:
1958
1959FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1960FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1961OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1962
1963Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1964are not yet supported.
1965
5260ca71
MS
1966* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1967(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1968
e84ecc99
AC
1969* REMOVED configurations and files
1970
1971VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 1972Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 1973National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 1974
31e35378
JB
1975* New "set print array-indexes" command
1976
1977After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1978when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1979behavior.
1980
e85e5c83
MK
1981* VAX floating point support
1982
1983GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1984
d91e9901
AS
1985* User-defined command support
1986
1987In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1988to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1989section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1990
f2cb65ca
MC
1991*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1992
f47b1503
AS
1993* New command line option
1994
1995GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1996debugging.
1997
f2cb65ca
MC
1998* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1999
2000GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2001information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2002by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2003proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2004to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 2005
d08c0230
AC
2006* Internationalization
2007
2008When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2009internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2010continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2011
117ea3cf
PH
2012* Ada
2013
2014Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2015implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2016into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2017
d08c0230
AC
2018* New native configurations
2019
2020GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2021
2022* Remote 'p' packet
2023
2024GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2025packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2026
2027* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2028
2029GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2030The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2031features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2032i386 application).
2033
2034GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2035compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2036continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2037configurations:
2038
2039hppa-*-hpux
2040ia64-*-aix
2041mips-*-irix*
2042*-*-lynx
2043mips-*-linux-gnu
2044sds protocol
2045xdr protocol
2046powerpc bdm protocol
2047
2048Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2049made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2050
2051* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2052
2053Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2054been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2055configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2056permanently REMOVED.
2057
2058h8300-*-*
2059mcore-*-*
2060mn10300-*-*
2061ns32k-*-*
2062sh64-*-*
2063v850-*-*
2064
ebb7c577
AC
2065*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2066
2067* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2068
2069When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2070heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2071been fixed.
2072
2073* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2074
2075When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2076fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2077IRIX long double values).
2078
2079* VAX and "next"
2080
2081A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2082command. This problem has been fixed.
2083
860660cb 2084*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 2085
0dea2468
AC
2086* Fix for ``many threads''
2087
2088On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2089rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2090error message:
2091
2092 ptrace: No such process.
2093 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2094
2095This problem has been fixed.
2096
2c07db7a
AC
2097* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2098
2099Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2100GDB to dump core).
2101
c23968a2
JB
2102* New ``start'' command.
2103
2104This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2105
71009278
MK
2106* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2107
2108Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2109live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2110platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2111
2112FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2113FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2114NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2115NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2116NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2117OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2118OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2119OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2120OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2121
3c0b7db2
AC
2122* Signal trampoline code overhauled
2123
2124Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2125These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2126of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2127call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2128signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2129
73cc75f3
AC
2130Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2131features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2132include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 2133
7243600a
BF
2134* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2135
6f606e1c
MK
2136* New native configurations
2137
97dc871c 2138GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 2139OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
bf2ca189
MK
2140OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2141OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 2142OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2143NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 2144OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 2145
a1b461bf
AC
2146* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2147
2148GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2149The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2150including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2151migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2152compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2153work, was also included.
2154
2155GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2156module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2157
2158h8300-*-*
2159mcore-*-*
2160mn10300-*-*
2161ns32k-*-*
2162sh64-*-*
2163v850-*-*
2164xstormy16-*-*
2165
2166Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2167made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2168
3c7012f5
AC
2169* REMOVED configurations and files
2170
2171Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2172Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2173Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2174Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2175Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2176AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2177Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2178decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2179riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2180sonymips mips-sony-*
2181sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2182
e5fe55f7
AC
2183*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2184
2185* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2186
2187The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2188GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2189command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2190program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2191with GDB".
2192
2193* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2194
2195Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2196libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2197cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2198GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2199shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2200the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2201are created.
2202
2203Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2204
2205* Fixed ISO-C build problems
2206
2207The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2208non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2209compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2210
2211* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2212
2213Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2214wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2215
2216* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2217
2218The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2219permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2220systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2221
2222* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2223
2224Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2225has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2226
2227* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2228
2229GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2230its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2231panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2232
2233* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2234
2235When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2236by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2237not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2238
faae5abe 2239*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 2240
9175c9a3
MC
2241* Removed --with-mmalloc
2242
2243Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2244conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2245
3cc87ec0
MK
2246* Changes in AMD64 configurations
2247
2248The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2249the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2250and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2251you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2252
f0424ef6
MK
2253* Revised SPARC target
2254
2255The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2256FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
2257support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2258from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2259(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 2260
59659be2
ILT
2261* New C++ demangler
2262
2263GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2264names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2265with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2266programs.
2267
9e08b29b
DJ
2268* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2269
2270GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2271arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2272encountered these.
2273
8dfe8985
DC
2274* C++ nested types and namespaces
2275
2276GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2277improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2278is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2279Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2280namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2281"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2282frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2283if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2284GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2285
cced5e27
MK
2286* New native configurations
2287
2288NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 2289OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 2290OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
2291OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2292OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 2293
b4b4b794
KI
2294* New debugging protocols
2295
2296M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2297
7989c619
AC
2298* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2299
2300The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2301and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2302tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2303
5994185b
AC
2304* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2305
2306Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2307been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2308configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2309permanently REMOVED.
2310
2311Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2312Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2313Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2314Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2315Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2316AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2317Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
2318decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2319riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2320sonymips mips-sony-*
2321sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 2322
0ddabb4c
AC
2323* REMOVED configurations and files
2324
2325SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2326SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
2327Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2328Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2329H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2330HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2331HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2332HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2333PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 2334386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
2335Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2336 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2337 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
2338SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2339SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
2340Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2341Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 2342
c7f1390e
DJ
2343*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2344
1fe43d45
AC
2345* Objective-C
2346
2347Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2348integrated into GDB.
2349
e6beb428
AC
2350* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2351
2352DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2353information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2354By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2355backtraces.
2356
2357The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2358have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2359DWARF 2 CFI support.
2360
2361* Hosted file I/O.
2362
2363GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2364file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2365remote protocol documentation for details.
2366
2367* All targets using the new architecture framework.
2368
2369All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2370architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2371to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2372ppc32 on ppc64).
2373
2374* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2375
2376GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2377per-thread variables.
2378
2379* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2380
2381GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2382GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2383
2384* Separate debug info.
2385
2386GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2387automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2388of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2389system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2390and optional debug files.
2391
2392* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2393
2394DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2395describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2396debugger.
2397
2398GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2399for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2400
2401* Java
2402
2403A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2404Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2405considered "useable".
2406
85f8f974
DJ
2407* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2408
2409The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2410commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2411kernel.
2412
0fac0b41
DJ
2413* GDB supports logging output to a file
2414
2415There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2416used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 2417
6ad8ae5c
DJ
2418* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2419
2420The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2421disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2422command.
2423
e286caf2 2424* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
2425
2426The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2427registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2428
d28f9cdf
DJ
2429* Profiling support
2430
2431A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2432be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2433session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2434"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2435data, for more informative profiling results.
2436
da0f9dcd
AC
2437* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2438
2439The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2440option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 2441"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
2442
2443Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2444removed.
2445
fb9b6b35
JJ
2446Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2447Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2448Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2449 in a subsequent -var-update.
2450
954a4db8
MK
2451* New native configurations.
2452
2453FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2454
6760f9e6
JB
2455* Multi-arched targets.
2456
b4263afa 2457HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 2458Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 2459
1b831c93
AC
2460* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2461
2462Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2463been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2464configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2465permanently REMOVED.
2466
8b0e5691 2467Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 2468Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 2469H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
2470HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2471HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2472HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 2473PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
2474Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2475 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2476 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
2477Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2478Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 2479
5835abe7
NC
2480* REMOVED configurations and files
2481
2482V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
2483Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2484IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2485i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2486i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2487i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2488HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2489 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2490 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2491Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2492Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2493Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2494OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2495I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 2496
a094c6fb
AC
2497* MIPS $fp behavior changed
2498
2499The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2500the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2501context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2502address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2503The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2504
299ffc64 2505*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 2506
46248966
AC
2507* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2508
2509When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2510`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2511in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2512library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2513shared libs like mad''.
2514
b9d14705 2515* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 2516
b9d14705
DJ
2517Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2518the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2519arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2520powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 2521
e0e9281e
JB
2522* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2523
2524GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2525and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2526they expand.
2527
dd73b9bb
AC
2528The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2529invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2530
2531The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2532macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2533
e0e9281e
JB
2534Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2535information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2536your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2537information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2538
2250ee0c
CV
2539* Multi-arched targets.
2540
6e3ba3b8
JT
2541DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2542DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 2543NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 2544National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
2545Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2546Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 2547
cd9bfe15 2548* New targets.
e33ce519 2549
456f8b9d
DB
2550Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2551
e33ce519 2552
da8ca43d
JT
2553* New native configurations
2554
2555Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 2556SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 2557MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 2558UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 2559
cd9bfe15
AC
2560* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2561
2562Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2563been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2564configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2565permanently REMOVED.
2566
92eb23c5 2567Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 2568OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 2569IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 2570Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 2571Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 2572Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
2573i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2574i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2575i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
2576HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2577 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2578 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 2579I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 2580
db034ac5
AC
2581* OBSOLETE languages
2582
2583CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2584
cd9bfe15
AC
2585* REMOVED configurations and files
2586
2587AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2588A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2589AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2590AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2591AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2592
2593testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2594
20f01a46
DH
2595* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2596
2597This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2598commands. The default is 1024.
2599
a5941fbf
MK
2600* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2601
2602Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2603
89743e04
MS
2604* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2605
2606These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2607to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2608from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 2609
9fb14e79
JB
2610* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2611
2612The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2613including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2614of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2615
2037aebb
AC
2616*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2617
2618* New targets.
2619
2620Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2621
2622* Bug fixes
2623
2624gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2625mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2626Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2627
2628gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2629dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2630Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2631
2632Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2633Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2634By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2635
2636i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2637avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2638By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2639
37057839 2640*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 2641
1a703748
MS
2642* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2643
2644This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2645really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2646In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2647target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2648This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2649(notably embedded) targets.
2650
cefd4ef5
MS
2651* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2652
55241689
AC
2653This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2654process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2655GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2656hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 2657
352ed7b4
MS
2658* New command line option
2659
2660GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2661
2662* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2663
2664There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2665command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2666a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2667be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2668open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2669issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2670a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2671it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2672GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2673is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2674
fe419ffc
RE
2675* Changes in ARM configurations.
2676
2677Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2678configuration is fully multi-arch.
2679
eb7cedd9
MK
2680* New native configurations
2681
fe419ffc 2682ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 2683x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 2684AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 2685Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 2686
c9f63e6b
CV
2687* New targets
2688
2689Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2690
9b4ff276
AC
2691* OBSOLETE configurations and files
2692
2693Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2694been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2695configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2696permanently REMOVED.
2697
2698AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2699A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2700AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2701AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2702AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2703
b4ceaee6 2704testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 2705
e2caac18
AC
2706* REMOVED configurations and files
2707
2708TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 2709WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
2710PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2711PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2712PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 2713Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
2714Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2715 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 2716SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 2717Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
2718Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2719ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 2720Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 2721
c2a727fa
TT
2722* Changes to command line processing
2723
2724The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2725for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2726
467d8519
TT
2727* Changes to key bindings
2728
2729There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2730
7072a954
AC
2731*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2732
2733Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2734
2735Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2736corrupted.
2737
2738Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2739
2740Numerous documentation fixes.
2741
2742Numerous testsuite fixes.
2743
34f47bc4 2744*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
2745
2746* New native configurations
2747
2748Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2749x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 2750MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
2751MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2752ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 2753s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 2754
bf64bfd6
AC
2755* New targets
2756
def90278 2757Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 2758CRIS cris-axis
55241689 2759UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 2760
17e78a56 2761* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
2762
2763x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 2764Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
2765Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2766 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
2767TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2768WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 2769Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
2770PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2771PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2772PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 2773SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
2774Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2775ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 2776Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 2777
17e78a56
AC
2778stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2779kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2780
7fcca85b
AC
2781Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2782been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2783configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2784permanently REMOVED.
2785
a196c81c 2786* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
2787
2788Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2789Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2790Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2791ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2792Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 2793ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 2794
6d6b80e5 2795* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 2796
6d6b80e5 2797GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
2798sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2799present.
2800
bf64bfd6
AC
2801* Other news:
2802
e23194cb
EZ
2803* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2804
2805* The MI enabled by default.
2806
2807The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2808revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2809engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2810using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2811which is now deprecated.
2812
2813* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2814
2815GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2816main features are supported:
2817
2818 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2819
2820 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2821 extension;
2822
2823 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2824
2825 - a Pascal expression parser.
2826
2827However, some important features are not yet supported.
2828
2829 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2830
2831 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2832
2833 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2834 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2835
2836 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2837
2838 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2839
2840* Changes in completion.
2841
2842Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2843to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2844users expect at the shell prompt.
2845
2846Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2847`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2848program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2849files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2850be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2851considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2852name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2853
2854`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2855
2856* New platform-independent commands:
2857
2858It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2859hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2860documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2861
2862* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2863
d7275149
MK
2864Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2865revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2866many threads as your system allows you to have.
2867
e23194cb
EZ
2868Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2869
d7275149
MK
2870Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2871multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
2872
2873* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
2874
2875Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2876
e23194cb
EZ
2877GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2878debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2879supported.)
2880
2881* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2882
2883Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2884breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2885implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2886put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2887and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2888registers.
2889
2890The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2891debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2892watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2893
2894* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2895
2896New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2897the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2898
2899New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2900display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2901IDT.
2902
2903New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2904from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2905New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2906a given linear address.
2907
2908GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2909program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2910which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2911
2912DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2913
6c56c069
EZ
2914It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2915
e23194cb
EZ
2916* Changes in documentation.
2917
2918All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2919Documentation License.
2920
2921Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2922manual.
2923
2924TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2925
2926Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2927manual.
2928
2929The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2930documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2931hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2932
5d6640b1
AC
2933* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2934
2935The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2936``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2937contents of this file.
2938
1a1d8446
AC
2939* gdba.el deleted
2940
2941GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 2942
9debab2f 2943*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 2944
c63ce875
EZ
2945* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2946
2947Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2948programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2949displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2950greater level of detail.
2951
2952* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2953
2954It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2955bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2956on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2957written.
2958
2959* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2960
2961The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2962necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2963machines ``out of the box''.
2964
2965The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2966possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2967signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2968would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2969interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2970
2971It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2972standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2973even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2974and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2975terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2976
2977The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2978enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2979also works.
2980
2981DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2982GDB.
2983
2984It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2985directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2986times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2987breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2988
ed9a39eb
JM
2989* New native configurations
2990
2991ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 2992PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 2993
7a292a7a
SS
2994* New targets
2995
96baa820 2996Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
2997x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2998PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
2999TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3000
085dd6e6
JM
3001* OBSOLETE configurations
3002
3003Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3004Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 3005Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 3006ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 3007Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 3008
9debab2f
AC
3009Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3010but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3011these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3012be permanently REMOVED.
3013
5330533d
SS
3014* Gould support removed
3015
3016Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3017
bc9e5bbf
AC
3018* New features for SVR4
3019
3020On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3021without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3022load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3023
3024* Many C++ enhancements
3025
3026C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3027in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3028
adf40b2e
JM
3029* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3030
3031A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3032sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3033with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3034``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3035
3036 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3037 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3038
43e526b9
JM
3039* MIPS 64 remote protocol
3040
3041A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3042expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3043instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3044
3045The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3046added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3047
96baa820
JM
3048* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3049
3050The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3051``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3052include ``set remote P-packet''.
3053
11cf8741
JM
3054* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3055
3056The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3057accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3058``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3059
7876dd43
DB
3060* ``apropos'' command added.
3061
3062The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3063documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3064try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3065
bc9e5bbf
AC
3066* New MI interface
3067
3068A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3069interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
3070process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3071"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3072enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
3073
3074 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3075
c906108c
SS
3076*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3077
3078* New native configurations
3079
3080HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3081HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 3082M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
3083
3084* New targets
3085
3086Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3087Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3088Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3089
3090* OBSOLETE configurations
3091
3092Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3093
3094Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3095but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3096these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3097be permanently REMOVED.
3098
3099* ANSI/ISO C
3100
3101As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3102buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3103containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3104use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3105available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3106configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3107information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3108already.
3109
3110* Readline 2.2
3111
3112GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3113
3114* set extension-language
3115
3116You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3117languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3118you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3119 set extension-language .c c++
3120The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3121and their associated languages.
3122
3123* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3124
3125When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3126you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3127PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3128
3129 set processor NAME
3130
3131sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3132following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3133
3134 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3135 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3136 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3137 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3138 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3139 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3140 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3141 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3142 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3143 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3144 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3145
3146At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3147special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3148registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3149only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3150
3151* HP-UX support
3152
3153Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3154more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3155library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3156support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3157for xdb and dbx commands.
3158
3159* Catchpoints
3160
3161HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3162generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3163to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3164
3165This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3166argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3167output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3168
3169* Debugging across forks
3170
3171On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3172in the inferior.
3173
3174* TUI
3175
3176HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3177it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3178configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3179
3180* GDB remote protocol additions
3181
3182A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3183Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3184fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3185allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3186
3187For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3188full 64-bit address. The command
3189
3190 set remoteaddresssize 32
3191
3192can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3193the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3194will be discarded.
3195
3196In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3197command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3198
3199 maint packet heythere
3200
3201sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3202disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3203time.
3204
3205The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3206target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3207downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3208
3209* Tracing can collect general expressions
3210
3211You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3212further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3213doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3214
3215* mask-address variable for Mips
3216
3217For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3218a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3219of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3220
3221* Higher serial baud rates
3222
3223GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3224230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3225to achieve all of these rates.)
3226
3227* i960 simulator
3228
3229The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3230builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3231
3232
3233*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3234
3235* New native configurations
3236
3237Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3238Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3239Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3240PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3241PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3242Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3243Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3244
3245* New targets
3246
3247Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3248Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3249Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3250Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3251MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3252MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3253MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3254Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3255Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3256Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3257NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3258
3259* New debugging protocols
3260
3261ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3262M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3263DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3264PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3265PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3266Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3267
3268* DWARF 2
3269
3270All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3271format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3272information.
3273
3274* Java frontend
3275
3276GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3277only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3278
3279* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3280
3281For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3282loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3283locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3284
3285* Live range splitting
3286
3287GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3288range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3289more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3290
3291* Hurd support
3292
3293GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3294updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3295
3296* ARM Thumb support
3297
3298GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3299instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3300instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3301accordingly.
3302
3303* MIPS16 support
3304
3305GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3306instruction set.
3307
3308* Overlay support
3309
3310GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3311linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3312will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3313control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3314additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3315in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3316
3317* info symbol
3318
3319The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3320the symbol at the specified address.
3321
3322* Trace support
3323
3324The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3325asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3326extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3327includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3328file tracepoint.c for more details.
3329
3330* MIPS simulator
3331
3332Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3333by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3334of most MIPS variants.
3335
3336* Sparc simulator
3337
3338Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3339by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3340Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3341
3342* set architecture
3343
3344For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3345basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3346architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3347the possible architectures.
3348
3349*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3350
3351* New native configurations
3352
3353Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3354M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3355PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3356PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3357PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3358RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3359
3360* New targets
3361
3362ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3363I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3364MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3365MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3366PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3367Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3368Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3369
3370* PowerPC simulator
3371
3372The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3373contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3374PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3375basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3376performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3377
3378* Solaris 2.5
3379
3380GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3381
3382* Windows 95/NT native
3383
3384GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3385To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3386which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3387Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3388ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3389
3390* dont-repeat command
3391
3392If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3393command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3394useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3395extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3396
3397* Send break instead of ^C
3398
3399The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3400rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3401GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3402
3403* Remote protocol timeout
3404
3405The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3406that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3407to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3408
3409* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3410
3411By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3412loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3413stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3414when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3415in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3416
3417Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3418/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3419automatically on hpux10.
3420
3421* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3422
3423Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3424
3425* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3426
3427When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3428may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3429the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3430every character. The default value is 1050.
3431
3432* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3433
3434If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3435a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3436replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3437details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3438remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3439to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3440
3441* Speedups for remote debugging
3442
3443GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3444the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3445and more efficient S-record downloading.
3446
3447* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3448
3449GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3450Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3451
3452*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3453
3454* Psymtabs for XCOFF
3455
3456The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3457can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3458
3459* Remote targets use caching
3460
3461Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3462remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3463it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3464debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3465off' turns the the data cache off.
3466
3467* Remote targets may have threads
3468
3469The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3470in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3471gdb/remote.c for details.
3472
3473* NetROM support
3474
3475If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3476support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3477acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3478write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3479support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3480another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3481sequence is something like
3482
3483 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3484 load <prog>
3485 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3486
3487* Macintosh host
3488
3489GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3490may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3491it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3492available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3493device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3494directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3495scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3496mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3497
3498* Autoconf
3499
3500GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3501but does simplify configuration and building.
3502
3503* hpux10
3504
3505GDB now supports hpux10.
3506
3507*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3508
3509* New native configurations
3510
3511x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3512x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3513NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3514Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3515
3516* New targets
3517
3518A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3519HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3520CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3521PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3522WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3523
3524* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3525
3526GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3527possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3528filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3529the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3530if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3531
3532* Arguments to user-defined commands
3533
3534User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3535Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3536trivial example:
3537define adder
3538 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3539
3540To execute the command use:
3541adder 1 2 3
3542
3543Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3544Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3545use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3546
3547* New `if' and `while' commands
3548
3549This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3550commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3551expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3552execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3553terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3554`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3555if the expression is zero.
3556
3557* Fortran source language mode
3558
3559GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3560Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3561variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3562with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3563Fortran compilers.
3564
3565* Better HPUX support
3566
3567Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3568running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3569processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3570for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3571that behavior do the following before running the program:
3572
3573 adb -w a.out
3574 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3575 control-d
3576
3577This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3578To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3579
3580 adb -w a.out
3581 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3582 control-d
3583
3584You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3585the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3586external linkage.
3587
3588GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3589HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3590
3591* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3592
3593You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3594commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3595current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3596"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3597associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3598configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3599
3600* New DOS host serial code
3601
3602This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3603no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3604a PC's serial port.
3605
3606*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3607
3608* New "complete" command
3609
3610This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3611were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3612
3613* Trailing space optional in prompt
3614
3615"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3616allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3617
3618* Breakpoint hit counts
3619
3620"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3621has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3622can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3623to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3624less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3625that breakpoint.
3626
3627* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3628
3629"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3630an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3631arrays actually contain only short strings.
3632
3633* Shared library breakpoints
3634
3635In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3636breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3637
3638* Hardware watchpoints
3639
3640There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3641targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3642
55241689 3643Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
3644
3645* Annotations
3646
3647Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3648and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3649
3650* Improved Irix 5 support
3651
3652GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3653
3654* Improved HPPA support
3655
3656GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3657
3658* New native configurations
3659
3660Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3661HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3662Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3663RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3664
3665* New targets
3666
3667OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3668MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3669Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3670
3671* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3672
3673There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3674This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3675
3676* Fixes
3677
3678As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3679and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3680
3681*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3682
3683* Irix 5 is now supported
3684
3685* HPPA support
3686
3687GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3688to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3689GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3690of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3691can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3692
3693
3694*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3695
3696* User visible changes:
3697
3698* Remote Debugging
3699
3700The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3701target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3702debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3703integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3704debugging info for the mips target).
3705
3706* DEC Alpha native support
3707
3708GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3709debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3710work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3711Alpha-specific notes.
3712
3713* Preliminary thread implementation
3714
3715GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3716
3717* LynxOS native and target support for 386
3718
3719This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3720to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3721for details).
3722
3723* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3724
3725This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3726mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3727call methods, ...etc.
3728
3729*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3730
3731 * User visible changes:
3732
3733Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3734supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3735other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3736somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3737
3738Filename completion now works.
3739
3740When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3741arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3742addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3743
3744All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3745vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3746should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3747your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3748to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3749
3750 * DEC alpha support
3751
3752This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3753cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3754
3755
3756*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3757
3758 * Testsuite
3759
3760This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3761The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3762via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3763
3764 * C++ demangling
3765
3766'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3767emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3768Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3769disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3770use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3771
3772 * Simulators
3773
3774GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3775So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3776Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3777
3778 * New targets supported
3779
3780H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3781H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3782SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3783Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3784IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3785
3786Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3787version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3788GO32 memory extender.
3789
3790 * New remote protocols
3791
3792MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3793
3794 * New source languages supported
3795
3796This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3797used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3798into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3799
3800
3801*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3802
3803 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3804
3805GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3806version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3807University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3808compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3809format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3810(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3811
3812Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3813
3814 * Faster and better demangling
3815
3816We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3817demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3818character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3819only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3820This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3821increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3822symbol lookups.
3823
3824`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3825from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3826compiler does not actually implement.
3827
3828 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3829
3830In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3831inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3832recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3833very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3834The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3835circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3836fix.
3837
3838The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3839release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3840
3841 * Improved configure script
3842
3843The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3844you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3845host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3846done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3847
3848We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3849version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3850`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3851The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3852only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3853We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3854
3855 * Documentation improvements
3856
3857There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3858produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3859before submitting changes.
3860
3861The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3862M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3863`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3864you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3865a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3866
3867*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3868We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3869been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3870or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3871`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3872around this problem.
3873
3874 * New features
3875
3876GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3877the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3878`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3879the target program.
3880
3881The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3882how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3883
3884 * New native hosts supported
3885
3886HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3887386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3888
3889 * New targets supported
3890
3891AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3892
3893 * New file formats supported
3894
3895BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3896HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3897
3898 * Major bug fixes
3899
3900Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3901
3902We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3903printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3904
3905We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3906for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3907release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3908
3909You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3910will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3911
3912We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3913for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3914especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3915libraries.
3916
3917The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3918information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3919command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3920any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3921when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3922
3923 * Internal improvements
3924
3925GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3926debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3927
3928GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3929Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3930symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3931contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3932shared code that handles any of them.
3933
3934 * New command line options
3935
3936We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3937
3938 * Mmalloc licensing
3939
3940The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3941General Public License.
3942
3943*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3944
3945 * Host/native/target split
3946
3947GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3948hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3949target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3950local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3951ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3952
3953The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3954GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3955is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3956code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3957any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3958built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3959handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3960
3961GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3962It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3963plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3964
3965 * New hosts supported
3966
3967HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3968386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3969386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3970
3971 * New targets supported
3972
3973Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
397468030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3975
3976 * New native hosts supported
3977
3978386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3979 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3980386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3981
3982 * New file formats supported
3983
3984BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3985supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3986format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3987
3988 * New commands
3989
3990`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3991`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3992These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3993
3994`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3995
3996You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3997scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3998prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3999executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4000
4001 * C++ improvements
4002
4003We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4004info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4005symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4006
4007Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4008
4009 * Major bug fixes
4010
4011The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4012fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4013by the compiler.
4014
4015We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4016support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4017
4018John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4019slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4020that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4021purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4022the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4023mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4024
4025Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4026about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4027completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4028we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4029
4030 * AMD 29k support
4031
4032A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4033specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4034calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4035usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4036in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4037
4038We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4039Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4040of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4041resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4042
4043 * Remote interfaces
4044
4045We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4046with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4047message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4048This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4049needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4050breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4051each instruction being stepped through.
4052
4053The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4054registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4055
4056There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4057find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4058Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4059processor with a serial port.
4060
4061 * Configuration
4062
4063Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4064`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4065supported, and what files each one uses.
4066
4067 * Library changes
4068
4069There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4070disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4071Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4072disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4073
4074The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4075Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4076can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4077grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4078
4079 * Documentation
4080
4081The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4082reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4083as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4084encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4085system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4086bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4087
4088And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4089
4090
4091*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4092
4093 * Better support for C++ function names
4094
4095GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4096names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4097(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4098single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4099Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4100
4101GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4102the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4103You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4104lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4105for the list of formats.
4106
4107 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4108
4109Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4110C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4111directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4112can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4113usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4114about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4115this problem.)
4116
4117 * New 'maintenance' command
4118
4119All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4120the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4121can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4122
4123 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4124 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4125 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4126 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4127 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4128 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4129
4130The following commands are new:
4131
4132 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4133 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4134 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4135
4136 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4137
4138We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4139(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4140be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4141read after argv processing.
4142
4143 * New hosts supported
4144
4145Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4146
55241689 4147GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
4148
4149We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4150is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4151for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4152masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4153fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4154It costs extra.
4155
4156 * New targets supported
4157
4158Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4159
4160 * More smarts about finding #include files
4161
4162GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4163all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4164greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4165especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4166the one that contains your sources.
4167
4168We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4169breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4170try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4171
4172 * Interesting infernals change
4173
4174GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4175section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4176target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4177stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4178
4179 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4180
4181There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4182 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4183 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4184
4185See the ChangeLog for details.
4186
4187*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4188
4189 * New machines supported (host and target)
4190
4191IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4192
4193SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4194
4195 * New malloc package
4196
4197GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4198Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4199capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4200This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4201pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4202more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4203
4204 * info proc
4205
4206The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4207'help info proc' for details.
4208
4209 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4210
4211The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4212Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4213possible.
4214
4215 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4216
4217Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4218support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4219conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4220environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4221that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4222in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4223
4224 * Cross byte order fixes
4225
4226Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4227targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4228
4229 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4230
4231If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4232system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4233`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4234program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4235called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4236Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4237and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4238the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4239option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4240starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4241
4242You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4243the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4244information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4245slower, but makes future operations faster.
4246
4247The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4248build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4249A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4250use is:
4251
4252 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4253
4254The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4255It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4256shared across multiple host platforms.
4257
4258 * longjmp() handling
4259
4260GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4261siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4262all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4263platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4264
4265 * Solaris 2.0
4266
4267Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4268this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4269reading symbols.
4270
4271 * Bug fixes
4272
4273As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4274People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4275crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4276
4277*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4278
4279 * New machines supported (host and target)
4280
4281SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4282 (except core files)
4283BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4284Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4285
4286 * New machines supported (target)
4287
4288AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4289
4290 * C++ support
4291
4292GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4293The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4294per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4295
4296GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4297`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4298extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4299good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4300will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4301released.
4302
4303 * New features for SVR4
4304
4305GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4306shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4307only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4308
4309The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4310on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4311it prints the address mappings of the process.
4312
4313If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4314bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4315
4316 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4317
4318Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4319now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4320skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4321make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4322same code linked statically.
4323
4324 * New Getopt
4325
4326GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4327version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4328continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4329Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4330added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4331future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4332
4333 * Bugs fixed
4334
4335The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4336Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4337See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4338
4339
4340*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4341
4342 * New machines supported (host and target)
4343
4344Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4345NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4346Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4347
4348 * Almost SCO Unix support
4349
4350We had hoped to support:
4351SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4352(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4353that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4354about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4355
4356 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4357
4358GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4359debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4360is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4361send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4362reqired (if any).
4363
4364 * New Readline
4365
4366GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4367is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4368required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4369
4370 * Bugs fixed
4371
4372The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4373Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4374See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4375
4376 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4377
4378GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4379supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4380symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4381
4382Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4383mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4384debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4385mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4386version 2.
4387
4388Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4389really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4390line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4391variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4392situation somewhat.
4393
4394When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4395However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4396methods.
4397
4398We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4399DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4400encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4401
4402
4403*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4404
4405 * Improved configuration
4406
4407Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4408Porting BFD is simpler.
4409
4410 * Stepping improved
4411
4412The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4413of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4414in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4415function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4416
4417 * Bug fixing
4418
4419Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4420
4421 * New host supported (not target)
4422
4423Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4424
4425
4426*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4427
4428 * Multiple source language support
4429
4430GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4431It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4432and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4433language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4434You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4435`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4436
4437 * GDB and Modula-2
4438
4439GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4440currently under development at the State University of New York at
4441Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4442continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4443
4444Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4445debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4446symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4447
4448There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4449in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4450
4451 * set write on/off
4452
4453GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4454a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4455the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4456by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4457effect immediately.
4458
4459 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4460
4461When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4462shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4463The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4464examining core files.
4465
4466 * set listsize
4467
4468You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4469The default is 10.
4470
4471 * New machines supported (host and target)
4472
4473SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4474Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4475Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4476
4477 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4478
4479IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4480
4481 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4482
4483AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4484AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4485Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4486
4487 * New remote interfaces
4488
4489AMD 29000 Adapt
4490AMD 29000 Minimon
4491
4492
4493*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4494
4495 * New Facilities
4496
4497Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4498
4499Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4500target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4501is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4502remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4503remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4504also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4505using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4506stub on the target system.
4507
4508New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4509
4510GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4511library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4512object file types such as a.out and coff.
4513
4514There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4515refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4516
4517
4518 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4519
4520All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4521by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4522
4523For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4524``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4525Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4526
4527What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4528print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4529will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4530all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4531
4532confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4533 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4534 it is already running. Default is ON.
4535
4536editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4537 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4538 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4539 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4540 Default is ON.
4541
4542history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4543 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4544 or the value of the environment variable
4545 GDBHISTFILE.
4546
4547history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4548 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4549 HISTSIZE.
4550
4551history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4552 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4553 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4554
4555history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4556 history expansion will be performed on
4557 command line input. The default is OFF.
4558
4559radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4560 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4561 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4562
4563height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4564 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4565 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4566 variable TERM.
4567
4568width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4569 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4570 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4571 variable TERM.
4572
4573Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4574``set width'' instead.
4575
4576print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4577 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4578 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4579 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4580
4581print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4582 is OFF.
4583
4584print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4585 "raw" form if off.
4586
4587print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4588 like instructions.
4589
4590print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4591
4592
4593 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4594
4595The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4596new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4597are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4598window.
4599
4600
4601 * Support for Shared Libraries
4602
4603GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4604Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4605before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4606happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4607At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4608from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4609shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4610It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4611
4612sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4613 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4614 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4615
4616info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4617
4618
4619 * Watchpoints
4620
4621A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4622expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4623tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4624quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4625problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4626more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4627
4628watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4629
4630info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4631
4632delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4633disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4634enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4635
4636
4637 * C++ multiple inheritance
4638
4639When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4640for C++ programs.
4641
4642 * C++ exception handling
4643
4644Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4645ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4646the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4647handler's context).
4648
4649catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4650 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4651 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4652
4653info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4654 current stack frame.
4655
4656
4657 * Minor command changes
4658
4659The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4660command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4661is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4662
4663The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4664at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4665frames without printing.
4666
4667 * New directory command
4668
4669'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4670The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4671about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4672with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4673find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4674
4675 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4676
4677For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4678for more details.
4679
4680GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4681two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4682Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4683where the program that you are debugging will run.
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