* Makefile.in (mips-linux-tdep.o) Add $(solib_h) dependency.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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c906108c
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
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6* New targets
7
8Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
9
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10* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
11frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
12
13* New remote packets
14
15QPassSignals:
16 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
17 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
18
19
20*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 21
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22* New targets
23
24Xtensa xtensa-elf
25
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26* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
27(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
28running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
29
30* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
31Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
32supported.
33
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34* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
35broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
36
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37* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
38longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
39
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40* New commands
41
42set substitute-path
43unset substitute-path
44show substitute-path
45 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
46 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
47 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
48 between compilation and debugging.
49
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50set trace-commands
51show trace-commands
52 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
53 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
54 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
55
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56* REMOVED features
57
58The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
59
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60Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
61an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
62
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63The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
64
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65* New remote packets
66
67qSupported:
68 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
69 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
70 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
71 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
72 target.
73
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74qXfer:auxv:read:
75 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
76 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
77
78* Removed remote packets
79
80qPart:auxv:read:
81 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
82 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
83
e374b601 84*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 85
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86* New targets
87
88Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
89
90Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
91
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92* New commands
93
94init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
95 only if it doesn't already have a value.
96
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97The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
98
99checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
100
101restart <n> Return the program state to a
102 previously saved state.
103
104info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
105
106delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
107
108set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
109 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
110
111info forks List forks of the user program that
112 are available to be debugged.
113
114fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
115 forks of the user program that are
116 available to be debugged.
117
118delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
119 that are available to be debugged (and
120 kill the forked process).
121
122detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
123 that are available to be debugged (and
124 allow the process to continue).
125
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126* New architecture
127
128Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
129
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130* Improved Windows host support
131
132GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
133native console support, and remote communications using either
134network sockets or serial ports.
135
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136* Improved Modula-2 language support
137
138GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
139basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
140pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
141printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
142written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
143GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
144
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145* REMOVED features
146
147The ARM rdi-share module.
148
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149The Netware NLM debug server.
150
53e5f3cf 151*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 152
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153* New native configurations
154
02a677ac 155OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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156OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
157
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158* New targets
159
160Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
161
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162* New command line options
163
164--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
165--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
166 the child (debugged) program exited with.
167--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
168 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
169 specified multiple times and in conjunction
170 with the --command (-x) option.
171
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172* Deprecated commands removed
173
174The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
175removed:
176
177 Command Replacement
178 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
179 othernames set arm disassembler
180 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
181 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
182 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
183 regs info registers
184
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185* New BSD user-level threads support
186
187It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
188library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
189configurations are:
190
191FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
192FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
193OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
194
195Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
196are not yet supported.
197
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198* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
199(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
200
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201* REMOVED configurations and files
202
203VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 204Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 205National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 206
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207* New "set print array-indexes" command
208
209After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
210when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
211behavior.
212
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213* VAX floating point support
214
215GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
216
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217* User-defined command support
218
219In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
220to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
221section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
222
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223*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
224
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225* New command line option
226
227GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
228debugging.
229
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230* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
231
232GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
233information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
234by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
235proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
236to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 237
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238* Internationalization
239
240When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
241internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
242continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
243
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244* Ada
245
246Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
247implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
248into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
249
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250* New native configurations
251
252GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
253
254* Remote 'p' packet
255
256GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
257packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
258
259* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
260
261GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
262The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
263features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
264i386 application).
265
266GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
267compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
268continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
269configurations:
270
271hppa-*-hpux
272ia64-*-aix
273mips-*-irix*
274*-*-lynx
275mips-*-linux-gnu
276sds protocol
277xdr protocol
278powerpc bdm protocol
279
280Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
281made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
282
283* OBSOLETE configurations and files
284
285Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
286been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
287configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
288permanently REMOVED.
289
290h8300-*-*
291mcore-*-*
292mn10300-*-*
293ns32k-*-*
294sh64-*-*
295v850-*-*
296
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297*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
298
299* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
300
301When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
302heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
303been fixed.
304
305* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
306
307When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
308fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
309IRIX long double values).
310
311* VAX and "next"
312
313A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
314command. This problem has been fixed.
315
860660cb 316*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 317
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318* Fix for ``many threads''
319
320On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
321rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
322error message:
323
324 ptrace: No such process.
325 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
326
327This problem has been fixed.
328
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329* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
330
331Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
332GDB to dump core).
333
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334* New ``start'' command.
335
336This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
337
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338* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
339
340Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
341live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
342platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
343
344FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
345FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
346NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
347NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
348NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
349OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
350OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
351OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
352OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
353
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354* Signal trampoline code overhauled
355
356Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
357These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
358of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
359call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
360signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
361
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362Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
363features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
364include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 365
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366* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
367
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368* New native configurations
369
97dc871c 370GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 371OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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372OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
373OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 374OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 375NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 376OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 377
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378* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
379
380GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
381The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
382including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
383migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
384compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
385work, was also included.
386
387GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
388module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
389
390h8300-*-*
391mcore-*-*
392mn10300-*-*
393ns32k-*-*
394sh64-*-*
395v850-*-*
396xstormy16-*-*
397
398Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
399made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
400
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401* REMOVED configurations and files
402
403Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
404Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
405Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
406Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
407Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
408AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
409Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
410decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
411riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
412sonymips mips-sony-*
413sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
414
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415*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
416
417* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
418
419The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
420GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
421command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
422program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
423with GDB".
424
425* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
426
427Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
428libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
429cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
430GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
431shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
432the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
433are created.
434
435Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
436
437* Fixed ISO-C build problems
438
439The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
440non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
441compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
442
443* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
444
445Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
446wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
447
448* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
449
450The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
451permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
452systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
453
454* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
455
456Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
457has been updated to use constant array sizes.
458
459* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
460
461GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
462its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
463panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
464
465* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
466
467When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
468by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
469not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
470
faae5abe 471*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 472
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473* Removed --with-mmalloc
474
475Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
476conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
477
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478* Changes in AMD64 configurations
479
480The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
481the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
482and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
483you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
484
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485* Revised SPARC target
486
487The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
488FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
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489support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
490from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
491(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 492
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493* New C++ demangler
494
495GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
496names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
497with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
498programs.
499
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500* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
501
502GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
503arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
504encountered these.
505
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506* C++ nested types and namespaces
507
508GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
509improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
510is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
511Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
512namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
513"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
514frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
515if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
516GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
517
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518* New native configurations
519
520NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 521OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 522OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
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523OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
524OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 525
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526* New debugging protocols
527
528M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
529
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530* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
531
532The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
533and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
534tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
535
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536* OBSOLETE configurations and files
537
538Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
539been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
540configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
541permanently REMOVED.
542
543Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
544Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
545Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
546Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
547Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
548AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
549Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
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550decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
551riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
552sonymips mips-sony-*
553sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 554
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555* REMOVED configurations and files
556
557SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
558SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
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559Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
560Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
561H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
562HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
563HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
564HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
565PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 566386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
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567Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
568 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
569 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
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570SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
571SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
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572Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
573Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 574
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575*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
576
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577* Objective-C
578
579Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
580integrated into GDB.
581
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582* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
583
584DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
585information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
586By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
587backtraces.
588
589The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
590have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
591DWARF 2 CFI support.
592
593* Hosted file I/O.
594
595GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
596file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
597remote protocol documentation for details.
598
599* All targets using the new architecture framework.
600
601All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
602architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
603to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
604ppc32 on ppc64).
605
606* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
607
608GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
609per-thread variables.
610
611* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
612
613GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
614GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
615
616* Separate debug info.
617
618GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
619automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
620of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
621system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
622and optional debug files.
623
624* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
625
626DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
627describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
628debugger.
629
630GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
631for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
632
633* Java
634
635A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
636Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
637considered "useable".
638
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639* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
640
641The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
642commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
643kernel.
644
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645* GDB supports logging output to a file
646
647There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
648used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 649
6ad8ae5c
DJ
650* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
651
652The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
653disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
654command.
655
e286caf2 656* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
657
658The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
659registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
660
d28f9cdf
DJ
661* Profiling support
662
663A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
664be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
665session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
666"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
667data, for more informative profiling results.
668
da0f9dcd
AC
669* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
670
671The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
672option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 673"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
674
675Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
676removed.
677
fb9b6b35
JJ
678Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
679Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
680Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
681 in a subsequent -var-update.
682
954a4db8
MK
683* New native configurations.
684
685FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
686
6760f9e6
JB
687* Multi-arched targets.
688
b4263afa 689HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 690Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 691
1b831c93
AC
692* OBSOLETE configurations and files
693
694Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
695been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
696configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
697permanently REMOVED.
698
8b0e5691 699Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 700Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 701H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
702HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
703HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
704HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 705PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
706Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
707 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
708 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
709Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
710Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 711
5835abe7
NC
712* REMOVED configurations and files
713
714V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
715Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
716IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
717i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
718i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
719i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
720HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
721 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
722 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
723Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
724Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
725Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
726OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
727I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 728
a094c6fb
AC
729* MIPS $fp behavior changed
730
731The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
732the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
733context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
734address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
735The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
736
299ffc64 737*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 738
46248966
AC
739* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
740
741When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
742`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
743in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
744library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
745shared libs like mad''.
746
b9d14705 747* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 748
b9d14705
DJ
749Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
750the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
751arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
752powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 753
e0e9281e
JB
754* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
755
756GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
757and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
758they expand.
759
dd73b9bb
AC
760The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
761invocations in expression, and shows the result.
762
763The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
764macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
765
e0e9281e
JB
766Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
767information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
768your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
769information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
770
2250ee0c
CV
771* Multi-arched targets.
772
6e3ba3b8
JT
773DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
774DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 775NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 776National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
777Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
778Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 779
cd9bfe15 780* New targets.
e33ce519 781
456f8b9d
DB
782Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
783
e33ce519 784
da8ca43d
JT
785* New native configurations
786
787Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 788SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 789MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 790UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 791
cd9bfe15
AC
792* OBSOLETE configurations and files
793
794Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
795been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
796configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
797permanently REMOVED.
798
92eb23c5 799Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 800OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 801IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 802Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 803Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 804Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
805i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
806i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
807i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
808HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
809 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
810 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 811I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 812
db034ac5
AC
813* OBSOLETE languages
814
815CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
816
cd9bfe15
AC
817* REMOVED configurations and files
818
819AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
820A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
821AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
822AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
823AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
824
825testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
826
20f01a46
DH
827* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
828
829This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
830commands. The default is 1024.
831
a5941fbf
MK
832* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
833
834Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
835
89743e04
MS
836* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
837
838These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
839to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
840from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 841
9fb14e79
JB
842* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
843
844The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
845including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
846of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
847
2037aebb
AC
848*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
849
850* New targets.
851
852Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
853
854* Bug fixes
855
856gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
857mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
858Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
859
860gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
861dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
862Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
863
864Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
865Surprisingly enough, it works now.
866By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
867
868i386 hardware watchpoint support:
869avoid misses on second run for some targets.
870By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
871
37057839 872*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 873
1a703748
MS
874* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
875
876This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
877really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
878In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
879target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
880This can be a significant performance improvement on some
881(notably embedded) targets.
882
cefd4ef5
MS
883* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
884
55241689
AC
885This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
886process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
887GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
888hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 889
352ed7b4
MS
890* New command line option
891
892GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
893
894* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
895
896There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
897command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
898a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
899be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
900open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
901issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
902a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
903it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
904GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
905is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
906
fe419ffc
RE
907* Changes in ARM configurations.
908
909Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
910configuration is fully multi-arch.
911
eb7cedd9
MK
912* New native configurations
913
fe419ffc 914ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 915x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 916AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 917Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 918
c9f63e6b
CV
919* New targets
920
921Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
922
9b4ff276
AC
923* OBSOLETE configurations and files
924
925Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
926been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
927configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
928permanently REMOVED.
929
930AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
931A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
932AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
933AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
934AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
935
b4ceaee6 936testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 937
e2caac18
AC
938* REMOVED configurations and files
939
940TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 941WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
942PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
943PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
944PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 945Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
946Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
947 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 948SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 949Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
950Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
951ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 952Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 953
c2a727fa
TT
954* Changes to command line processing
955
956The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
957for the inferior from gdb's command line.
958
467d8519
TT
959* Changes to key bindings
960
961There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
962
7072a954
AC
963*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
964
965Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
966
967Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
968corrupted.
969
970Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
971
972Numerous documentation fixes.
973
974Numerous testsuite fixes.
975
34f47bc4 976*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
977
978* New native configurations
979
980Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
981x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 982MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
983MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
984ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 985s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 986
bf64bfd6
AC
987* New targets
988
def90278 989Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 990CRIS cris-axis
55241689 991UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 992
17e78a56 993* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
994
995x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 996Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
997Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
998 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
999TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1000WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1001Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1002PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1003PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1004PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1005SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1006Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1007ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1008Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1009
17e78a56
AC
1010stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1011kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1012
7fcca85b
AC
1013Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1014been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1015configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1016permanently REMOVED.
1017
a196c81c 1018* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1019
1020Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1021Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1022Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1023ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1024Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1025ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1026
6d6b80e5 1027* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1028
6d6b80e5 1029GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1030sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1031present.
1032
bf64bfd6
AC
1033* Other news:
1034
e23194cb
EZ
1035* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1036
1037* The MI enabled by default.
1038
1039The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1040revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1041engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1042using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1043which is now deprecated.
1044
1045* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1046
1047GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1048main features are supported:
1049
1050 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1051
1052 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1053 extension;
1054
1055 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1056
1057 - a Pascal expression parser.
1058
1059However, some important features are not yet supported.
1060
1061 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1062
1063 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1064
1065 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1066 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1067
1068 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1069
1070 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1071
1072* Changes in completion.
1073
1074Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1075to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1076users expect at the shell prompt.
1077
1078Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1079`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1080program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1081files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1082be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1083considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1084name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1085
1086`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1087
1088* New platform-independent commands:
1089
1090It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1091hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1092documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1093
1094* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1095
d7275149
MK
1096Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1097revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1098many threads as your system allows you to have.
1099
e23194cb
EZ
1100Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1101
d7275149
MK
1102Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1103multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1104
1105* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1106
1107Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1108
e23194cb
EZ
1109GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1110debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1111supported.)
1112
1113* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1114
1115Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1116breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1117implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1118put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1119and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1120registers.
1121
1122The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1123debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1124watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1125
1126* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1127
1128New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1129the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1130
1131New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1132display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1133IDT.
1134
1135New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1136from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1137New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1138a given linear address.
1139
1140GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1141program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1142which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1143
1144DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1145
6c56c069
EZ
1146It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1147
e23194cb
EZ
1148* Changes in documentation.
1149
1150All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1151Documentation License.
1152
1153Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1154manual.
1155
1156TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1157
1158Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1159manual.
1160
1161The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1162documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1163hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1164
5d6640b1
AC
1165* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1166
1167The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1168``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1169contents of this file.
1170
1a1d8446
AC
1171* gdba.el deleted
1172
1173GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1174
9debab2f 1175*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1176
c63ce875
EZ
1177* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1178
1179Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1180programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1181displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1182greater level of detail.
1183
1184* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1185
1186It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1187bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1188on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1189written.
1190
1191* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1192
1193The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1194necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1195machines ``out of the box''.
1196
1197The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1198possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1199signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1200would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1201interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1202
1203It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1204standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1205even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1206and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1207terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1208
1209The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1210enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1211also works.
1212
1213DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1214GDB.
1215
1216It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1217directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1218times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1219breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1220
ed9a39eb
JM
1221* New native configurations
1222
1223ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1224PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1225
7a292a7a
SS
1226* New targets
1227
96baa820 1228Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1229x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1230PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1231TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1232
085dd6e6
JM
1233* OBSOLETE configurations
1234
1235Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1236Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1237Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1238ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1239Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1240
9debab2f
AC
1241Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1242but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1243these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1244be permanently REMOVED.
1245
5330533d
SS
1246* Gould support removed
1247
1248Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1249
bc9e5bbf
AC
1250* New features for SVR4
1251
1252On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1253without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1254load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1255
1256* Many C++ enhancements
1257
1258C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1259in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1260
adf40b2e
JM
1261* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1262
1263A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1264sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1265with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1266``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1267
1268 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1269 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1270
43e526b9
JM
1271* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1272
1273A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1274expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1275instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1276
1277The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1278added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1279
96baa820
JM
1280* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1281
1282The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1283``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1284include ``set remote P-packet''.
1285
11cf8741
JM
1286* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1287
1288The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1289accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1290``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1291
7876dd43
DB
1292* ``apropos'' command added.
1293
1294The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1295documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1296try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1297
bc9e5bbf
AC
1298* New MI interface
1299
1300A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1301interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1302process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1303"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1304enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1305
1306 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1307
c906108c
SS
1308*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1309
1310* New native configurations
1311
1312HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1313HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1314M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1315
1316* New targets
1317
1318Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1319Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1320Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1321
1322* OBSOLETE configurations
1323
1324Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1325
1326Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1327but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1328these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1329be permanently REMOVED.
1330
1331* ANSI/ISO C
1332
1333As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1334buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1335containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1336use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1337available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1338configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1339information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1340already.
1341
1342* Readline 2.2
1343
1344GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1345
1346* set extension-language
1347
1348You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1349languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1350you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1351 set extension-language .c c++
1352The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1353and their associated languages.
1354
1355* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1356
1357When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1358you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1359PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1360
1361 set processor NAME
1362
1363sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1364following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1365
1366 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1367 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1368 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1369 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1370 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1371 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1372 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1373 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1374 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1375 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1376 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1377
1378At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1379special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1380registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1381only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1382
1383* HP-UX support
1384
1385Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1386more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1387library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1388support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1389for xdb and dbx commands.
1390
1391* Catchpoints
1392
1393HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1394generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1395to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1396
1397This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1398argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1399output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1400
1401* Debugging across forks
1402
1403On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1404in the inferior.
1405
1406* TUI
1407
1408HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1409it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1410configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1411
1412* GDB remote protocol additions
1413
1414A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1415Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1416fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1417allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1418
1419For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1420full 64-bit address. The command
1421
1422 set remoteaddresssize 32
1423
1424can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1425the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1426will be discarded.
1427
1428In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1429command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1430
1431 maint packet heythere
1432
1433sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1434disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1435time.
1436
1437The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1438target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1439downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1440
1441* Tracing can collect general expressions
1442
1443You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1444further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1445doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1446
1447* mask-address variable for Mips
1448
1449For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1450a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1451of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1452
1453* Higher serial baud rates
1454
1455GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1456230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1457to achieve all of these rates.)
1458
1459* i960 simulator
1460
1461The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1462builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1463
1464
1465*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1466
1467* New native configurations
1468
1469Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1470Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1471Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1472PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1473PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1474Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1475Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1476
1477* New targets
1478
1479Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1480Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1481Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1482Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1483MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1484MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1485MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1486Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1487Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1488Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1489NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1490
1491* New debugging protocols
1492
1493ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1494M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1495DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1496PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1497PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1498Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1499
1500* DWARF 2
1501
1502All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1503format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1504information.
1505
1506* Java frontend
1507
1508GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1509only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1510
1511* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1512
1513For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1514loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1515locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1516
1517* Live range splitting
1518
1519GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1520range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1521more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1522
1523* Hurd support
1524
1525GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1526updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1527
1528* ARM Thumb support
1529
1530GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1531instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1532instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1533accordingly.
1534
1535* MIPS16 support
1536
1537GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1538instruction set.
1539
1540* Overlay support
1541
1542GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1543linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1544will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1545control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1546additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1547in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1548
1549* info symbol
1550
1551The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1552the symbol at the specified address.
1553
1554* Trace support
1555
1556The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1557asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1558extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1559includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1560file tracepoint.c for more details.
1561
1562* MIPS simulator
1563
1564Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1565by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1566of most MIPS variants.
1567
1568* Sparc simulator
1569
1570Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1571by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1572Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1573
1574* set architecture
1575
1576For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1577basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1578architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1579the possible architectures.
1580
1581*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1582
1583* New native configurations
1584
1585Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1586M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1587PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1588PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1589PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1590RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1591
1592* New targets
1593
1594ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1595I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1596MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1597MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1598PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1599Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1600Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1601
1602* PowerPC simulator
1603
1604The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1605contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1606PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1607basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1608performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1609
1610* Solaris 2.5
1611
1612GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1613
1614* Windows 95/NT native
1615
1616GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1617To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1618which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1619Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1620ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1621
1622* dont-repeat command
1623
1624If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1625command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1626useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1627extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1628
1629* Send break instead of ^C
1630
1631The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1632rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1633GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1634
1635* Remote protocol timeout
1636
1637The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1638that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1639to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1640
1641* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1642
1643By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1644loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1645stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1646when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1647in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1648
1649Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1650/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1651automatically on hpux10.
1652
1653* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1654
1655Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1656
1657* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1658
1659When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1660may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1661the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1662every character. The default value is 1050.
1663
1664* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1665
1666If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1667a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1668replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1669details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1670remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1671to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1672
1673* Speedups for remote debugging
1674
1675GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1676the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1677and more efficient S-record downloading.
1678
1679* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1680
1681GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1682Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1683
1684*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1685
1686* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1687
1688The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1689can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1690
1691* Remote targets use caching
1692
1693Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1694remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1695it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1696debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1697off' turns the the data cache off.
1698
1699* Remote targets may have threads
1700
1701The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1702in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1703gdb/remote.c for details.
1704
1705* NetROM support
1706
1707If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1708support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1709acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1710write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1711support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1712another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1713sequence is something like
1714
1715 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1716 load <prog>
1717 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1718
1719* Macintosh host
1720
1721GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1722may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1723it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1724available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1725device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1726directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1727scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1728mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1729
1730* Autoconf
1731
1732GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1733but does simplify configuration and building.
1734
1735* hpux10
1736
1737GDB now supports hpux10.
1738
1739*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1740
1741* New native configurations
1742
1743x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1744x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1745NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1746Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1747
1748* New targets
1749
1750A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1751HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1752CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1753PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1754WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1755
1756* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1757
1758GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1759possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1760filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1761the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1762if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1763
1764* Arguments to user-defined commands
1765
1766User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1767Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1768trivial example:
1769define adder
1770 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1771
1772To execute the command use:
1773adder 1 2 3
1774
1775Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1776Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1777use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1778
1779* New `if' and `while' commands
1780
1781This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1782commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1783expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1784execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1785terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1786`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1787if the expression is zero.
1788
1789* Fortran source language mode
1790
1791GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1792Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1793variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1794with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1795Fortran compilers.
1796
1797* Better HPUX support
1798
1799Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1800running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1801processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1802for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1803that behavior do the following before running the program:
1804
1805 adb -w a.out
1806 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1807 control-d
1808
1809This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1810To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1811
1812 adb -w a.out
1813 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1814 control-d
1815
1816You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1817the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1818external linkage.
1819
1820GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1821HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1822
1823* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1824
1825You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1826commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1827current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1828"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1829associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1830configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1831
1832* New DOS host serial code
1833
1834This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1835no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1836a PC's serial port.
1837
1838*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1839
1840* New "complete" command
1841
1842This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1843were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1844
1845* Trailing space optional in prompt
1846
1847"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1848allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1849
1850* Breakpoint hit counts
1851
1852"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1853has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1854can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1855to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1856less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1857that breakpoint.
1858
1859* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1860
1861"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1862an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1863arrays actually contain only short strings.
1864
1865* Shared library breakpoints
1866
1867In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1868breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1869
1870* Hardware watchpoints
1871
1872There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1873targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1874
55241689 1875Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
1876
1877* Annotations
1878
1879Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1880and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1881
1882* Improved Irix 5 support
1883
1884GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1885
1886* Improved HPPA support
1887
1888GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1889
1890* New native configurations
1891
1892Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1893HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1894Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1895RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1896
1897* New targets
1898
1899OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1900MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1901Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
1902
1903* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1904
1905There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1906This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1907
1908* Fixes
1909
1910As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1911and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1912
1913*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1914
1915* Irix 5 is now supported
1916
1917* HPPA support
1918
1919GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1920to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1921GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1922of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1923can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1924
1925
1926*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1927
1928* User visible changes:
1929
1930* Remote Debugging
1931
1932The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1933target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1934debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1935integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1936debugging info for the mips target).
1937
1938* DEC Alpha native support
1939
1940GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1941debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1942work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1943Alpha-specific notes.
1944
1945* Preliminary thread implementation
1946
1947GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1948
1949* LynxOS native and target support for 386
1950
1951This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1952to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1953for details).
1954
1955* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1956
1957This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1958mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1959call methods, ...etc.
1960
1961*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1962
1963 * User visible changes:
1964
1965Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1966supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1967other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1968somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1969
1970Filename completion now works.
1971
1972When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1973arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1974addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1975
1976All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1977vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1978should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1979your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1980to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1981
1982 * DEC alpha support
1983
1984This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1985cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1986
1987
1988*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1989
1990 * Testsuite
1991
1992This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1993The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1994via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1995
1996 * C++ demangling
1997
1998'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1999emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2000Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2001disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2002use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2003
2004 * Simulators
2005
2006GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2007So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2008Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2009
2010 * New targets supported
2011
2012H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2013H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2014SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2015Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2016IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2017
2018Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2019version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2020GO32 memory extender.
2021
2022 * New remote protocols
2023
2024MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2025
2026 * New source languages supported
2027
2028This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2029used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2030into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2031
2032
2033*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2034
2035 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2036
2037GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2038version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2039University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2040compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2041format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2042(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2043
2044Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2045
2046 * Faster and better demangling
2047
2048We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2049demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2050character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2051only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2052This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2053increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2054symbol lookups.
2055
2056`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2057from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2058compiler does not actually implement.
2059
2060 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2061
2062In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2063inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2064recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2065very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2066The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2067circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2068fix.
2069
2070The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2071release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2072
2073 * Improved configure script
2074
2075The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2076you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2077host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2078done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2079
2080We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2081version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2082`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2083The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2084only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2085We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2086
2087 * Documentation improvements
2088
2089There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2090produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2091before submitting changes.
2092
2093The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2094M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2095`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2096you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2097a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2098
2099*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2100We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2101been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2102or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2103`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2104around this problem.
2105
2106 * New features
2107
2108GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2109the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2110`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2111the target program.
2112
2113The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2114how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2115
2116 * New native hosts supported
2117
2118HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2119386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2120
2121 * New targets supported
2122
2123AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2124
2125 * New file formats supported
2126
2127BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2128HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2129
2130 * Major bug fixes
2131
2132Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2133
2134We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2135printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2136
2137We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2138for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2139release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2140
2141You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2142will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2143
2144We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2145for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2146especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2147libraries.
2148
2149The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2150information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2151command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2152any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2153when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2154
2155 * Internal improvements
2156
2157GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2158debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2159
2160GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2161Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2162symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2163contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2164shared code that handles any of them.
2165
2166 * New command line options
2167
2168We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2169
2170 * Mmalloc licensing
2171
2172The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2173General Public License.
2174
2175*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2176
2177 * Host/native/target split
2178
2179GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2180hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2181target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2182local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2183ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2184
2185The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2186GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2187is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2188code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2189any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2190built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2191handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2192
2193GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2194It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2195plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2196
2197 * New hosts supported
2198
2199HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2200386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2201386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2202
2203 * New targets supported
2204
2205Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
220668030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2207
2208 * New native hosts supported
2209
2210386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2211 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2212386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2213
2214 * New file formats supported
2215
2216BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2217supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2218format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2219
2220 * New commands
2221
2222`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2223`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2224These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2225
2226`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2227
2228You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2229scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2230prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2231executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2232
2233 * C++ improvements
2234
2235We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2236info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2237symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2238
2239Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2240
2241 * Major bug fixes
2242
2243The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2244fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2245by the compiler.
2246
2247We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2248support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2249
2250John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2251slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2252that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2253purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2254the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2255mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2256
2257Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2258about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2259completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2260we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2261
2262 * AMD 29k support
2263
2264A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2265specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2266calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2267usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2268in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2269
2270We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2271Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2272of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2273resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2274
2275 * Remote interfaces
2276
2277We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2278with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2279message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2280This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2281needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2282breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2283each instruction being stepped through.
2284
2285The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2286registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2287
2288There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2289find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2290Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2291processor with a serial port.
2292
2293 * Configuration
2294
2295Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2296`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2297supported, and what files each one uses.
2298
2299 * Library changes
2300
2301There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2302disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2303Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2304disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2305
2306The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2307Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2308can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2309grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2310
2311 * Documentation
2312
2313The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2314reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2315as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2316encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2317system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2318bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2319
2320And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2321
2322
2323*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2324
2325 * Better support for C++ function names
2326
2327GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2328names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2329(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2330single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2331Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2332
2333GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2334the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2335You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2336lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2337for the list of formats.
2338
2339 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2340
2341Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2342C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2343directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2344can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2345usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2346about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2347this problem.)
2348
2349 * New 'maintenance' command
2350
2351All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2352the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2353can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2354
2355 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2356 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2357 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2358 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2359 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2360 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2361
2362The following commands are new:
2363
2364 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2365 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2366 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2367
2368 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2369
2370We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2371(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2372be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2373read after argv processing.
2374
2375 * New hosts supported
2376
2377Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2378
55241689 2379GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2380
2381We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2382is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2383for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2384masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2385fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2386It costs extra.
2387
2388 * New targets supported
2389
2390Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2391
2392 * More smarts about finding #include files
2393
2394GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2395all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2396greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2397especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2398the one that contains your sources.
2399
2400We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2401breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2402try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2403
2404 * Interesting infernals change
2405
2406GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2407section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2408target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2409stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2410
2411 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2412
2413There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2414 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2415 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2416
2417See the ChangeLog for details.
2418
2419*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2420
2421 * New machines supported (host and target)
2422
2423IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2424
2425SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2426
2427 * New malloc package
2428
2429GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2430Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2431capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2432This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2433pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2434more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2435
2436 * info proc
2437
2438The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2439'help info proc' for details.
2440
2441 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2442
2443The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2444Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2445possible.
2446
2447 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2448
2449Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2450support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2451conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2452environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2453that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2454in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2455
2456 * Cross byte order fixes
2457
2458Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2459targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2460
2461 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2462
2463If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2464system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2465`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2466program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2467called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2468Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2469and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2470the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2471option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2472starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2473
2474You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2475the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2476information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2477slower, but makes future operations faster.
2478
2479The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2480build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2481A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2482use is:
2483
2484 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2485
2486The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2487It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2488shared across multiple host platforms.
2489
2490 * longjmp() handling
2491
2492GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2493siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2494all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2495platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2496
2497 * Solaris 2.0
2498
2499Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2500this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2501reading symbols.
2502
2503 * Bug fixes
2504
2505As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2506People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2507crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2508
2509*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2510
2511 * New machines supported (host and target)
2512
2513SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2514 (except core files)
2515BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2516Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2517
2518 * New machines supported (target)
2519
2520AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2521
2522 * C++ support
2523
2524GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2525The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2526per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2527
2528GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2529`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2530extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2531good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2532will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2533released.
2534
2535 * New features for SVR4
2536
2537GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2538shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2539only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2540
2541The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2542on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2543it prints the address mappings of the process.
2544
2545If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2546bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2547
2548 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2549
2550Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2551now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2552skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2553make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2554same code linked statically.
2555
2556 * New Getopt
2557
2558GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2559version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2560continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2561Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2562added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2563future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2564
2565 * Bugs fixed
2566
2567The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2568Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2569See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2570
2571
2572*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2573
2574 * New machines supported (host and target)
2575
2576Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2577NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2578Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2579
2580 * Almost SCO Unix support
2581
2582We had hoped to support:
2583SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2584(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2585that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2586about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2587
2588 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2589
2590GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2591debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2592is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2593send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2594reqired (if any).
2595
2596 * New Readline
2597
2598GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2599is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2600required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2601
2602 * Bugs fixed
2603
2604The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2605Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2606See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2607
2608 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2609
2610GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2611supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2612symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2613
2614Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2615mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2616debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2617mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2618version 2.
2619
2620Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2621really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2622line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2623variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2624situation somewhat.
2625
2626When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2627However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2628methods.
2629
2630We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2631DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2632encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2633
2634
2635*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2636
2637 * Improved configuration
2638
2639Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2640Porting BFD is simpler.
2641
2642 * Stepping improved
2643
2644The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2645of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2646in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2647function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2648
2649 * Bug fixing
2650
2651Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2652
2653 * New host supported (not target)
2654
2655Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2656
2657
2658*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2659
2660 * Multiple source language support
2661
2662GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2663It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2664and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2665language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2666You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2667`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2668
2669 * GDB and Modula-2
2670
2671GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2672currently under development at the State University of New York at
2673Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2674continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2675
2676Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2677debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2678symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2679
2680There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2681in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2682
2683 * set write on/off
2684
2685GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2686a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2687the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2688by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2689effect immediately.
2690
2691 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2692
2693When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2694shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2695The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2696examining core files.
2697
2698 * set listsize
2699
2700You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2701The default is 10.
2702
2703 * New machines supported (host and target)
2704
2705SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2706Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2707Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2708
2709 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2710
2711IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2712
2713 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2714
2715AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2716AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2717Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2718
2719 * New remote interfaces
2720
2721AMD 29000 Adapt
2722AMD 29000 Minimon
2723
2724
2725*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2726
2727 * New Facilities
2728
2729Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2730
2731Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2732target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2733is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2734remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2735remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2736also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2737using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2738stub on the target system.
2739
2740New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2741
2742GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2743library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2744object file types such as a.out and coff.
2745
2746There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2747refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2748
2749
2750 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2751
2752All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2753by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2754
2755For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2756``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2757Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2758
2759What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2760print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2761will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2762all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2763
2764confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2765 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2766 it is already running. Default is ON.
2767
2768editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2769 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2770 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2771 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2772 Default is ON.
2773
2774history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2775 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2776 or the value of the environment variable
2777 GDBHISTFILE.
2778
2779history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2780 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2781 HISTSIZE.
2782
2783history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2784 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2785 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2786
2787history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2788 history expansion will be performed on
2789 command line input. The default is OFF.
2790
2791radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2792 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2793 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2794
2795height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2796 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2797 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2798 variable TERM.
2799
2800width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2801 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2802 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2803 variable TERM.
2804
2805Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2806``set width'' instead.
2807
2808print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2809 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2810 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2811 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2812
2813print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2814 is OFF.
2815
2816print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2817 "raw" form if off.
2818
2819print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2820 like instructions.
2821
2822print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2823
2824
2825 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2826
2827The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2828new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2829are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2830window.
2831
2832
2833 * Support for Shared Libraries
2834
2835GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2836Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2837before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2838happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2839At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2840from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2841shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2842It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2843
2844sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2845 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2846 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2847
2848info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2849
2850
2851 * Watchpoints
2852
2853A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2854expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2855tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2856quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2857problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2858more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2859
2860watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2861
2862info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2863
2864delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2865disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2866enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2867
2868
2869 * C++ multiple inheritance
2870
2871When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2872for C++ programs.
2873
2874 * C++ exception handling
2875
2876Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2877ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2878the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2879handler's context).
2880
2881catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2882 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2883 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2884
2885info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2886 current stack frame.
2887
2888
2889 * Minor command changes
2890
2891The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2892command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2893is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2894
2895The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2896at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2897frames without printing.
2898
2899 * New directory command
2900
2901'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2902The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2903about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2904with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2905find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2906
2907 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2908
2909For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2910for more details.
2911
2912GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2913two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2914Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2915where the program that you are debugging will run.
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