Delete tic80 target.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
CommitLineData
c906108c
SS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
eb7cedd9
MK
4*** Changes since GDB 5.1:
5
6* New native configurations
7
8x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
9
e2caac18
AC
10* REMOVED configurations and files
11
12TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
13
c2a727fa
TT
14* Changes to command line processing
15
16The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
17for the inferior from gdb's command line.
18
467d8519
TT
19* Changes to key bindings
20
21There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
22
34f47bc4 23*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
24
25* New native configurations
26
27Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
28x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2aa830e4 29MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
30MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
31ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
5769d3cd 32s390 and s390x Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 33
bf64bfd6
AC
34* New targets
35
def90278 36Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 37CRIS cris-axis
e23194cb 38UltraSparc running Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 39
17e78a56 40* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
41
42x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 43Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
44Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
45 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
46TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
47WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 48Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
49PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
50PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
51PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 52SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
53Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
54ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 55Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 56
17e78a56
AC
57stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
58kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
59
7fcca85b
AC
60Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
61been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
62configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
63permanently REMOVED.
64
a196c81c 65* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
66
67Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
68Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
69Pyramid pyramid-*-*
70ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
71Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 72ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 73
6d6b80e5 74* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 75
6d6b80e5 76GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
77sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
78present.
79
bf64bfd6
AC
80* Other news:
81
e23194cb
EZ
82* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
83
84* The MI enabled by default.
85
86The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
87revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
88engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
89using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
90which is now deprecated.
91
92* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
93
94GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
95main features are supported:
96
97 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
98
99 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
100 extension;
101
102 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
103
104 - a Pascal expression parser.
105
106However, some important features are not yet supported.
107
108 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
109
110 - there are some problems with boolean types;
111
112 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
113 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
114
115 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
116
117 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
118
119* Changes in completion.
120
121Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
122to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
123users expect at the shell prompt.
124
125Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
126`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
127program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
128files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
129be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
130considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
131name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
132
133`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
134
135* New platform-independent commands:
136
137It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
138hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
139documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
140
141* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
142
d7275149
MK
143Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
144revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
145many threads as your system allows you to have.
146
e23194cb
EZ
147Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
148
d7275149
MK
149Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
150multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
151
152* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
153
154Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
155
e23194cb
EZ
156GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
157debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
158supported.)
159
160* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
161
162Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
163breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
164implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
165put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
166and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
167registers.
168
169The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
170debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
171watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
172
173* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
174
175New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
176the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
177
178New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
179display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
180IDT.
181
182New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
183from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
184New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
185a given linear address.
186
187GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
188program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
189which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
190
191DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
192
6c56c069
EZ
193It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
194
e23194cb
EZ
195* Changes in documentation.
196
197All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
198Documentation License.
199
200Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
201manual.
202
203TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
204
205Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
206manual.
207
208The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
209documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
210hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
211
5d6640b1
AC
212* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
213
214The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
215``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
216contents of this file.
217
1a1d8446
AC
218* gdba.el deleted
219
220GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 221
9debab2f 222*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 223
c63ce875
EZ
224* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
225
226Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
227programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
228displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
229greater level of detail.
230
231* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
232
233It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
234bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
235on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
236written.
237
238* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
239
240The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
241necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
242machines ``out of the box''.
243
244The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
245possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
246signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
247would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
248interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
249
250It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
251standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
252even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
253and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
254terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
255
256The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
257enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
258also works.
259
260DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
261GDB.
262
263It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
264directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
265times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
266breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
267
ed9a39eb
JM
268* New native configurations
269
270ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 271PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 272
7a292a7a
SS
273* New targets
274
96baa820 275Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
276x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
277PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
278TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
279
085dd6e6
JM
280* OBSOLETE configurations
281
282Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
283Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 284Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 285ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 286Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 287
9debab2f
AC
288Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
289but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
290these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
291be permanently REMOVED.
292
5330533d
SS
293* Gould support removed
294
295Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
296
bc9e5bbf
AC
297* New features for SVR4
298
299On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
300without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
301load symbols from the running process's executable file.
302
303* Many C++ enhancements
304
305C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
306in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
307
adf40b2e
JM
308* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
309
310A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
311sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
312with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
313``|<program> <args>'' vis:
314
315 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
316 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
317
43e526b9
JM
318* MIPS 64 remote protocol
319
320A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
321expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
322instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
323
324The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
325added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
326
96baa820
JM
327* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
328
329The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
330``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
331include ``set remote P-packet''.
332
11cf8741
JM
333* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
334
335The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
336accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
337``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
338
7876dd43
DB
339* ``apropos'' command added.
340
341The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
342documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
343try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
344
bc9e5bbf
AC
345* New MI interface
346
347A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
348interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
349process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
350"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
351enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
352
353 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
354
c906108c
SS
355*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
356
357* New native configurations
358
359HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
360HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
361M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
362
363* New targets
364
365Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
366Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
367Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
368
369* OBSOLETE configurations
370
371Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
372
373Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
374but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
375these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
376be permanently REMOVED.
377
378* ANSI/ISO C
379
380As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
381buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
382containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
383use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
384available. If this is not true, please report the affected
385configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
386information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
387already.
388
389* Readline 2.2
390
391GDB now uses readline 2.2.
392
393* set extension-language
394
395You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
396languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
397you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
398 set extension-language .c c++
399The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
400and their associated languages.
401
402* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
403
404When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
405you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
406PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
407
408 set processor NAME
409
410sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
411following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
412
413 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
414 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
415 403 IBM PowerPC 403
416 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
417 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
418 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
419 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
420 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
421 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
422 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
423 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
424
425At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
426special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
427registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
428only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
429
430* HP-UX support
431
432Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
433more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
434library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
435support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
436for xdb and dbx commands.
437
438* Catchpoints
439
440HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
441generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
442to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
443
444This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
445argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
446output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
447
448* Debugging across forks
449
450On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
451in the inferior.
452
453* TUI
454
455HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
456it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
457configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
458
459* GDB remote protocol additions
460
461A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
462Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
463fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
464allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
465
466For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
467full 64-bit address. The command
468
469 set remoteaddresssize 32
470
471can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
472the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
473will be discarded.
474
475In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
476command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
477
478 maint packet heythere
479
480sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
481disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
482time.
483
484The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
485target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
486downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
487
488* Tracing can collect general expressions
489
490You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
491further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
492doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
493
494* mask-address variable for Mips
495
496For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
497a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
498of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
499
500* Higher serial baud rates
501
502GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
503230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
504to achieve all of these rates.)
505
506* i960 simulator
507
508The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
509builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
510
511
512*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
513
514* New native configurations
515
516Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
517Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
518Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
519PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
520PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
521Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
522Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
523
524* New targets
525
526Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
527Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
528Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
529Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
530MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
531MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
532MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
533Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
534Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
535Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
536NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
537
538* New debugging protocols
539
540ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
541M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
542DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
543PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
544PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
545Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
546
547* DWARF 2
548
549All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
550format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
551information.
552
553* Java frontend
554
555GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
556only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
557
558* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
559
560For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
561loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
562locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
563
564* Live range splitting
565
566GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
567range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
568more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
569
570* Hurd support
571
572GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
573updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
574
575* ARM Thumb support
576
577GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
578instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
579instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
580accordingly.
581
582* MIPS16 support
583
584GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
585instruction set.
586
587* Overlay support
588
589GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
590linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
591will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
592control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
593additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
594in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
595
596* info symbol
597
598The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
599the symbol at the specified address.
600
601* Trace support
602
603The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
604asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
605extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
606includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
607file tracepoint.c for more details.
608
609* MIPS simulator
610
611Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
612by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
613of most MIPS variants.
614
615* Sparc simulator
616
617Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
618by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
619Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
620
621* set architecture
622
623For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
624basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
625architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
626the possible architectures.
627
628*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
629
630* New native configurations
631
632Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
633M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
634PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
635PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
636PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
637RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
638
639* New targets
640
641ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
642I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
643MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
644MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
645PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
646Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
647Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
648
649* PowerPC simulator
650
651The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
652contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
653PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
654basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
655performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
656
657* Solaris 2.5
658
659GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
660
661* Windows 95/NT native
662
663GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
664To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
665which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
666Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
667ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
668
669* dont-repeat command
670
671If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
672command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
673useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
674extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
675
676* Send break instead of ^C
677
678The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
679rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
680GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
681
682* Remote protocol timeout
683
684The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
685that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
686to read from the target. The default value is 2.
687
688* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
689
690By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
691loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
692stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
693when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
694in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
695
696Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
697/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
698automatically on hpux10.
699
700* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
701
702Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
703
704* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
705
706When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
707may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
708the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
709every character. The default value is 1050.
710
711* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
712
713If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
714a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
715replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
716details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
717remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
718to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
719
720* Speedups for remote debugging
721
722GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
723the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
724and more efficient S-record downloading.
725
726* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
727
728GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
729Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
730
731*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
732
733* Psymtabs for XCOFF
734
735The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
736can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
737
738* Remote targets use caching
739
740Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
741remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
742it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
743debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
744off' turns the the data cache off.
745
746* Remote targets may have threads
747
748The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
749in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
750gdb/remote.c for details.
751
752* NetROM support
753
754If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
755support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
756acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
757write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
758support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
759another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
760sequence is something like
761
762 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
763 load <prog>
764 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
765
766* Macintosh host
767
768GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
769may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
770it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
771available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
772device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
773directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
774scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
775mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
776
777* Autoconf
778
779GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
780but does simplify configuration and building.
781
782* hpux10
783
784GDB now supports hpux10.
785
786*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
787
788* New native configurations
789
790x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
791x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
792NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
793Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
794
795* New targets
796
797A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
798HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
799CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
800PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
801WDC 65816 w65-*-*
802
803* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
804
805GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
806possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
807filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
808the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
809if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
810
811* Arguments to user-defined commands
812
813User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
814Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
815trivial example:
816define adder
817 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
818
819To execute the command use:
820adder 1 2 3
821
822Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
823Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
824use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
825
826* New `if' and `while' commands
827
828This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
829commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
830expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
831execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
832terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
833`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
834if the expression is zero.
835
836* Fortran source language mode
837
838GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
839Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
840variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
841with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
842Fortran compilers.
843
844* Better HPUX support
845
846Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
847running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
848processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
849for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
850that behavior do the following before running the program:
851
852 adb -w a.out
853 __dld_flags?W 0x5
854 control-d
855
856This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
857To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
858
859 adb -w a.out
860 __dld_flags?W 0x4
861 control-d
862
863You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
864the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
865external linkage.
866
867GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
868HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
869
870* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
871
872You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
873commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
874current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
875"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
876associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
877configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
878
879* New DOS host serial code
880
881This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
882no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
883a PC's serial port.
884
885*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
886
887* New "complete" command
888
889This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
890were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
891
892* Trailing space optional in prompt
893
894"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
895allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
896
897* Breakpoint hit counts
898
899"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
900has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
901can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
902to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
903less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
904that breakpoint.
905
906* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
907
908"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
909an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
910arrays actually contain only short strings.
911
912* Shared library breakpoints
913
914In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
915breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
916
917* Hardware watchpoints
918
919There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
920targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
921
922Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
923
924* Annotations
925
926Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
927and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
928
929* Improved Irix 5 support
930
931GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
932
933* Improved HPPA support
934
935GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
936
937* New native configurations
938
939Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
940HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
941Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
942RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
943
944* New targets
945
946OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
947MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
948Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
949
950* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
951
952There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
953This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
954
955* Fixes
956
957As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
958and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
959
960*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
961
962* Irix 5 is now supported
963
964* HPPA support
965
966GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
967to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
968GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
969of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
970can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
971
972
973*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
974
975* User visible changes:
976
977* Remote Debugging
978
979The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
980target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
981debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
982integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
983debugging info for the mips target).
984
985* DEC Alpha native support
986
987GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
988debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
989work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
990Alpha-specific notes.
991
992* Preliminary thread implementation
993
994GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
995
996* LynxOS native and target support for 386
997
998This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
999to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1000for details).
1001
1002* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1003
1004This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1005mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1006call methods, ...etc.
1007
1008*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1009
1010 * User visible changes:
1011
1012Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1013supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1014other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1015somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1016
1017Filename completion now works.
1018
1019When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1020arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1021addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1022
1023All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1024vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1025should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1026your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1027to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1028
1029 * DEC alpha support
1030
1031This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1032cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1033
1034
1035*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1036
1037 * Testsuite
1038
1039This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1040The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1041via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1042
1043 * C++ demangling
1044
1045'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1046emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1047Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1048disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1049use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1050
1051 * Simulators
1052
1053GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1054So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1055Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1056
1057 * New targets supported
1058
1059H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1060H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1061SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1062Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1063IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1064
1065Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1066version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1067GO32 memory extender.
1068
1069 * New remote protocols
1070
1071MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1072
1073 * New source languages supported
1074
1075This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1076used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1077into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1078
1079
1080*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1081
1082 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1083
1084GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1085version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1086University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1087compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1088format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1089(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1090
1091Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1092
1093 * Faster and better demangling
1094
1095We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1096demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1097character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1098only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1099This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1100increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1101symbol lookups.
1102
1103`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1104from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1105compiler does not actually implement.
1106
1107 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1108
1109In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1110inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1111recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1112very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1113The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1114circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1115fix.
1116
1117The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1118release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1119
1120 * Improved configure script
1121
1122The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1123you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1124host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1125done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1126
1127We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1128version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1129`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1130The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1131only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1132We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1133
1134 * Documentation improvements
1135
1136There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1137produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1138before submitting changes.
1139
1140The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1141M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1142`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1143you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1144a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1145
1146*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1147We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1148been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1149or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1150`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1151around this problem.
1152
1153 * New features
1154
1155GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1156the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1157`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1158the target program.
1159
1160The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1161how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1162
1163 * New native hosts supported
1164
1165HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1166386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1167
1168 * New targets supported
1169
1170AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1171
1172 * New file formats supported
1173
1174BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1175HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1176
1177 * Major bug fixes
1178
1179Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1180
1181We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1182printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1183
1184We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1185for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1186release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1187
1188You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1189will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1190
1191We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1192for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1193especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1194libraries.
1195
1196The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1197information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1198command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1199any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1200when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1201
1202 * Internal improvements
1203
1204GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1205debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1206
1207GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1208Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1209symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1210contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1211shared code that handles any of them.
1212
1213 * New command line options
1214
1215We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1216
1217 * Mmalloc licensing
1218
1219The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1220General Public License.
1221
1222*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1223
1224 * Host/native/target split
1225
1226GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1227hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1228target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1229local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1230ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1231
1232The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1233GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1234is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1235code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1236any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1237built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1238handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1239
1240GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1241It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1242plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1243
1244 * New hosts supported
1245
1246HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1247386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1248386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1249
1250 * New targets supported
1251
1252Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
125368030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1254
1255 * New native hosts supported
1256
1257386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1258 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1259386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1260
1261 * New file formats supported
1262
1263BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1264supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1265format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1266
1267 * New commands
1268
1269`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1270`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1271These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1272
1273`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1274
1275You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1276scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1277prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1278executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1279
1280 * C++ improvements
1281
1282We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1283info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1284symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1285
1286Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1287
1288 * Major bug fixes
1289
1290The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1291fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1292by the compiler.
1293
1294We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1295support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1296
1297John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1298slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1299that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1300purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1301the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1302mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1303
1304Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1305about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1306completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1307we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1308
1309 * AMD 29k support
1310
1311A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1312specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1313calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1314usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1315in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1316
1317We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1318Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1319of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1320resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1321
1322 * Remote interfaces
1323
1324We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1325with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1326message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1327This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1328needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1329breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1330each instruction being stepped through.
1331
1332The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1333registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1334
1335There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1336find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1337Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1338processor with a serial port.
1339
1340 * Configuration
1341
1342Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1343`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1344supported, and what files each one uses.
1345
1346 * Library changes
1347
1348There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1349disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1350Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1351disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1352
1353The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1354Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1355can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1356grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1357
1358 * Documentation
1359
1360The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1361reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1362as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1363encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1364system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1365bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1366
1367And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1368
1369
1370*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1371
1372 * Better support for C++ function names
1373
1374GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1375names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1376(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1377single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1378Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1379
1380GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1381the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1382You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1383lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1384for the list of formats.
1385
1386 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1387
1388Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1389C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1390directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1391can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1392usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1393about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1394this problem.)
1395
1396 * New 'maintenance' command
1397
1398All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1399the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1400can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1401
1402 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1403 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1404 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1405 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1406 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1407 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1408
1409The following commands are new:
1410
1411 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1412 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1413 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1414
1415 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1416
1417We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1418(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1419be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1420read after argv processing.
1421
1422 * New hosts supported
1423
1424Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1425
1426Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1427
1428We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1429is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1430for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1431masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1432fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1433It costs extra.
1434
1435 * New targets supported
1436
1437Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1438
1439 * More smarts about finding #include files
1440
1441GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1442all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1443greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1444especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1445the one that contains your sources.
1446
1447We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1448breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1449try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1450
1451 * Interesting infernals change
1452
1453GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1454section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1455target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1456stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1457
1458 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1459
1460There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1461 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1462 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1463
1464See the ChangeLog for details.
1465
1466*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1467
1468 * New machines supported (host and target)
1469
1470IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1471
1472SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1473
1474 * New malloc package
1475
1476GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1477Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1478capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1479This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1480pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1481more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1482
1483 * info proc
1484
1485The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1486'help info proc' for details.
1487
1488 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1489
1490The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1491Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1492possible.
1493
1494 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1495
1496Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1497support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1498conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1499environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1500that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1501in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1502
1503 * Cross byte order fixes
1504
1505Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1506targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1507
1508 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1509
1510If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1511system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1512`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1513program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1514called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1515Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1516and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1517the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1518option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1519starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1520
1521You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1522the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1523information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1524slower, but makes future operations faster.
1525
1526The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1527build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1528A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1529use is:
1530
1531 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1532
1533The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1534It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1535shared across multiple host platforms.
1536
1537 * longjmp() handling
1538
1539GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1540siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1541all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1542platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1543
1544 * Solaris 2.0
1545
1546Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1547this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1548reading symbols.
1549
1550 * Bug fixes
1551
1552As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1553People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1554crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1555
1556*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1557
1558 * New machines supported (host and target)
1559
1560SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1561 (except core files)
1562BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1563Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1564
1565 * New machines supported (target)
1566
1567AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1568
1569 * C++ support
1570
1571GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1572The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1573per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1574
1575GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1576`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1577extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1578good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1579will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1580released.
1581
1582 * New features for SVR4
1583
1584GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1585shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1586only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1587
1588The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1589on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1590it prints the address mappings of the process.
1591
1592If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1593bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1594
1595 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1596
1597Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1598now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1599skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1600make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1601same code linked statically.
1602
1603 * New Getopt
1604
1605GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1606version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1607continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1608Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1609added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1610future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1611
1612 * Bugs fixed
1613
1614The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1615Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1616See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1617
1618
1619*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1620
1621 * New machines supported (host and target)
1622
1623Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1624NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1625Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1626
1627 * Almost SCO Unix support
1628
1629We had hoped to support:
1630SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1631(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1632that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1633about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1634
1635 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1636
1637GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1638debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1639is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1640send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1641reqired (if any).
1642
1643 * New Readline
1644
1645GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1646is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1647required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1648
1649 * Bugs fixed
1650
1651The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1652Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1653See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1654
1655 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1656
1657GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1658supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1659symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1660
1661Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1662mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1663debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1664mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1665version 2.
1666
1667Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1668really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1669line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1670variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1671situation somewhat.
1672
1673When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1674However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1675methods.
1676
1677We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1678DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1679encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1680
1681
1682*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1683
1684 * Improved configuration
1685
1686Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1687Porting BFD is simpler.
1688
1689 * Stepping improved
1690
1691The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1692of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1693in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1694function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1695
1696 * Bug fixing
1697
1698Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1699
1700 * New host supported (not target)
1701
1702Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1703
1704
1705*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1706
1707 * Multiple source language support
1708
1709GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1710It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1711and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1712language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1713You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1714`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1715
1716 * GDB and Modula-2
1717
1718GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1719currently under development at the State University of New York at
1720Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1721continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1722
1723Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1724debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1725symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1726
1727There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1728in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1729
1730 * set write on/off
1731
1732GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1733a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1734the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1735by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1736effect immediately.
1737
1738 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1739
1740When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1741shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1742The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1743examining core files.
1744
1745 * set listsize
1746
1747You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1748The default is 10.
1749
1750 * New machines supported (host and target)
1751
1752SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1753Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1754Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1755
1756 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1757
1758IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1759
1760 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1761
1762AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1763AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1764Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1765
1766 * New remote interfaces
1767
1768AMD 29000 Adapt
1769AMD 29000 Minimon
1770
1771
1772*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1773
1774 * New Facilities
1775
1776Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1777
1778Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1779target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1780is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1781remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1782remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1783also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1784using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1785stub on the target system.
1786
1787New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1788
1789GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1790library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1791object file types such as a.out and coff.
1792
1793There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1794refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1795
1796
1797 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1798
1799All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1800by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1801
1802For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1803``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1804Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1805
1806What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1807print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1808will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1809all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1810
1811confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1812 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1813 it is already running. Default is ON.
1814
1815editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1816 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1817 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1818 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1819 Default is ON.
1820
1821history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1822 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1823 or the value of the environment variable
1824 GDBHISTFILE.
1825
1826history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1827 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1828 HISTSIZE.
1829
1830history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1831 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1832 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1833
1834history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1835 history expansion will be performed on
1836 command line input. The default is OFF.
1837
1838radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1839 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1840 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1841
1842height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1843 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1844 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1845 variable TERM.
1846
1847width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1848 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1849 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1850 variable TERM.
1851
1852Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1853``set width'' instead.
1854
1855print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1856 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1857 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1858 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1859
1860print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1861 is OFF.
1862
1863print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1864 "raw" form if off.
1865
1866print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1867 like instructions.
1868
1869print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1870
1871
1872 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1873
1874The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1875new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1876are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1877window.
1878
1879
1880 * Support for Shared Libraries
1881
1882GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1883Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1884before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1885happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1886At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1887from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1888shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1889It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1890
1891sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1892 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1893 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1894
1895info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1896
1897
1898 * Watchpoints
1899
1900A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1901expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1902tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1903quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1904problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1905more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1906
1907watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1908
1909info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1910
1911delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1912disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1913enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1914
1915
1916 * C++ multiple inheritance
1917
1918When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1919for C++ programs.
1920
1921 * C++ exception handling
1922
1923Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1924ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1925the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1926handler's context).
1927
1928catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1929 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1930 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1931
1932info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1933 current stack frame.
1934
1935
1936 * Minor command changes
1937
1938The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1939command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1940is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1941
1942The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1943at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1944frames without printing.
1945
1946 * New directory command
1947
1948'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1949The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1950about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1951with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1952find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1953
1954 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1955
1956For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1957for more details.
1958
1959GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1960two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1961Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1962where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.19811 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.