* NEWS: Update description of string changes. Mention print/s.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
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1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
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4*** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
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6* Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
7bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
8Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
9
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10* When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
11symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
12-Bsymbolic linker option.
13
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14* When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
15recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
16is not supported.
17
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18* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
19frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
20
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21* GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2232-bit or 64-bit register values.
23
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24* Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
25
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26* GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
27target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
28a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
29
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30* Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
31automatically displayed as character or string data.
32
33* The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
34arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
35as strings.
e1f48ead 36
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37* Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
38for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
f8b73d13 39only ARM and MIPS).
123dc839 40
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41* GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
42iWMMXt coprocessor.
fb1e4ffc 43
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44* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
45ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
46has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
47
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48* GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
49
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50* GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
51
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52* The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
53layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
54segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
55
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56* The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
57immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
58
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59* The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
60"library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
61packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
62where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
63Windows and SymbianOS).
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64
65* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
66(DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
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67
68* GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
69according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
cfa9d6d9 70
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71* New commands
72
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73set remoteflow
74show remoteflow
75 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
76 when debugging using remote targets.
77
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78set mem inaccessible-by-default
79show mem inaccessible-by-default
80 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
81 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
82 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
83 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
84 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
85
86set breakpoint auto-hw
87show breakpoint auto-hw
88 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
89 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
90 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
91 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
92 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
93 including "next" and "finish".
94
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95catch exception
96catch exception unhandled
97 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
98
99catch assert
100 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
101
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102set sysroot
103show sysroot
104 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
105 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
106 an alias to "set sysroot".
107
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108info spu
109 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
110 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
111 architecture.
112
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113* New native configurations
114
115OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
116
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117set tdesc filename
118unset tdesc filename
119show tdesc filename
120 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
121 not query the target for its built-in description.
122
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123* New targets
124
54fe9172 125OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
c9bb8148 126MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
c077150c 127Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
c9bb8148 128
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129* New remote packets
130
131QPassSignals:
132 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
133 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
134
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135qXfer:features:read:
136 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
137 features.
6dd09645 138
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139qXfer:spu:read:
140qXfer:spu:write:
141 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
142 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
143
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144qXfer:libraries:read:
145 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
146 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
147 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
148 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
149
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150* Removed targets
151
152Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
153
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154alpha*-*-osf1*
155alpha*-*-osf2*
7ce59000 156d10v-*-*
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157hppa*-*-hiux*
158i[34567]86-ncr-*
159i[34567]86-*-dgux*
160i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
161i[34567]86-*-netware*
162i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
163i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
164i[34567]86-*-sco*
165i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
166i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
167i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
168i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
169i[34567]86-*-unixware*
170i[34567]86-*-sysv*
171i[34567]86-*-isc*
172m68*-cisco*-*
173m68*-tandem-*
ad527d2e 174mips*-*-pe
483367ee 175rs6000-*-lynxos*
ad527d2e 176sh*-*-pe
483367ee 177
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178* Other removed features
179
180target abug
181target cpu32bug
182target est
183target rom68k
184
185 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
186
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187target hms
188target e7000
189target sh3
190target sh3e
191
192 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
193 H8/300.
194
195target ocd
196
197 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
198 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
199 interfaces.
200
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201DWARF 1 support
202
203 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
204 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
205
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206Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
207
208 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
209 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
210 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
211 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
212
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213MIPS ".pdr" sections
214
215 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
216 in debugging information.
217
218Scheme support
219
220 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
221 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
222
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223set mips stack-arg-size
224set mips saved-gpreg-size
225
226 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
227
6dd09645 228*** Changes in GDB 6.6
e374b601 229
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230* New targets
231
232Xtensa xtensa-elf
9c309e77 233Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
ca3bf3bd 234
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235* GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
236(mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
237running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
238
239* The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
240Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
241supported.
242
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243* The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
244broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
245
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246* The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
247stub provides the required support.
248
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249* Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
250longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
251
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252* New commands
253
254set substitute-path
255unset substitute-path
256show substitute-path
257 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
258 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
259 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
260 between compilation and debugging.
261
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262set trace-commands
263show trace-commands
264 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
265 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
266 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
267
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268* REMOVED features
269
270The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
271
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272Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
273an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
274
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275The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
276
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277* New remote packets
278
279qSupported:
280 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
281 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
282 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
283 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
284 target.
285
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286qXfer:auxv:read:
287 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
288 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
289
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290qXfer:memory-map:read:
291 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
292 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
293
294vFlashErase:
295vFlashWrite:
296vFlashDone:
297 Erase and program a flash memory device.
298
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299* Removed remote packets
300
301qPart:auxv:read:
302 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
303 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
304
e374b601 305*** Changes in GDB 6.5
53e5f3cf 306
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307* New targets
308
309Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
310
311Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
312
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313* New commands
314
315init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
316 only if it doesn't already have a value.
317
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318The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
319
320checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
321
322restart <n> Return the program state to a
323 previously saved state.
324
325info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
326
327delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
328
329set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
330 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
331
332info forks List forks of the user program that
333 are available to be debugged.
334
335fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
336 forks of the user program that are
337 available to be debugged.
338
339delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
340 that are available to be debugged (and
341 kill the forked process).
342
343detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
344 that are available to be debugged (and
345 allow the process to continue).
346
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347* New architecture
348
349Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
350
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351* Improved Windows host support
352
353GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
354native console support, and remote communications using either
355network sockets or serial ports.
356
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357* Improved Modula-2 language support
358
359GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
360basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
361pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
362printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
363written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
364GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
365
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366* REMOVED features
367
368The ARM rdi-share module.
369
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370The Netware NLM debug server.
371
53e5f3cf 372*** Changes in GDB 6.4
156a53ca 373
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374* New native configurations
375
02a677ac 376OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
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377OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
378
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379* New targets
380
381Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
382
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383* New command line options
384
385--batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
386--return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
387 the child (debugged) program exited with.
388--eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
389 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
390 specified multiple times and in conjunction
391 with the --command (-x) option.
392
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393* Deprecated commands removed
394
395The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
396removed:
397
398 Command Replacement
399 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
400 othernames set arm disassembler
401 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
402 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
403 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
404 regs info registers
405
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406* New BSD user-level threads support
407
408It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
409library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
410configurations are:
411
412FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
413FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
414OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
415
416Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
417are not yet supported.
418
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419* New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
420(Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
421
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422* REMOVED configurations and files
423
424VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
9445aa30 425Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
9445aa30 426National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
156a53ca 427
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428* New "set print array-indexes" command
429
430After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
431when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
432behavior.
433
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434* VAX floating point support
435
436GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
437
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438* User-defined command support
439
440In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
441to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
442section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
443
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444*** Changes in GDB 6.3:
445
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446* New command line option
447
448GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
449debugging.
450
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451* GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
452
453GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
454information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
455by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
456proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
457to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
860660cb 458
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459* Internationalization
460
461When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
462internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
463continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
464
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465* Ada
466
467Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
468implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
469into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
470
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471* New native configurations
472
473GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
474
475* Remote 'p' packet
476
477GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
478packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
479
480* END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
481
482GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
483The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
484features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
485i386 application).
486
487GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
488compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
489continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
490configurations:
491
492hppa-*-hpux
493ia64-*-aix
494mips-*-irix*
495*-*-lynx
496mips-*-linux-gnu
497sds protocol
498xdr protocol
499powerpc bdm protocol
500
501Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
502made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
503
504* OBSOLETE configurations and files
505
506Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
507been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
508configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
509permanently REMOVED.
510
511h8300-*-*
512mcore-*-*
513mn10300-*-*
514ns32k-*-*
515sh64-*-*
516v850-*-*
517
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518*** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
519
520* MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
521
522When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
523heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
524been fixed.
525
526* MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
527
528When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
529fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
530IRIX long double values).
531
532* VAX and "next"
533
534A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
535command. This problem has been fixed.
536
860660cb 537*** Changes in GDB 6.2:
faae5abe 538
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539* Fix for ``many threads''
540
541On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
542rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
543error message:
544
545 ptrace: No such process.
546 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
547
548This problem has been fixed.
549
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550* "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
551
552Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
553GDB to dump core).
554
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555* New ``start'' command.
556
557This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
558
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559* New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
560
561Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
562live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
563platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
564
565FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
566FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
567NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
568NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
569NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
570OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
571OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
572OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
573OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
574
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575* Signal trampoline code overhauled
576
577Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
578These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
579of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
580call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
581signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
582
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583Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
584features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
585include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3c0b7db2 586
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587* Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
588
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589* New native configurations
590
97dc871c 591GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
0e56aeaf 592OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
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593OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
594OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
d195bc9f 595OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 596NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
9f076e7a 597OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
6f606e1c 598
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599* END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
600
601GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
602The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
603including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
604migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
605compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
606work, was also included.
607
608GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
609module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
610
611h8300-*-*
612mcore-*-*
613mn10300-*-*
614ns32k-*-*
615sh64-*-*
616v850-*-*
617xstormy16-*-*
618
619Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
620made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
621
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622* REMOVED configurations and files
623
624Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
625Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
626Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
627Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
628Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
629AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
630Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
631decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
632riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
633sonymips mips-sony-*
634sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
635
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636*** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
637
638* TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
639
640The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
641GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
642command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
643program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
644with GDB".
645
646* Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
647
648Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
649libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
650cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
651GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
652shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
653the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
654are created.
655
656Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
657
658* Fixed ISO-C build problems
659
660The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
661non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
662compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
663
664* Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
665
666Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
667wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
668
669* Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
670
671The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
672permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
673systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
674
675* Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
676
677Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
678has been updated to use constant array sizes.
679
680* Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
681
682GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
683its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
684panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
685
686* Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
687
688When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
689by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
690not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
691
faae5abe 692*** Changes in GDB 6.1:
f2c06f52 693
9175c9a3
MC
694* Removed --with-mmalloc
695
696Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
697conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
698
3cc87ec0
MK
699* Changes in AMD64 configurations
700
701The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
702the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
703and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
704you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
705
f0424ef6
MK
706* Revised SPARC target
707
708The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
709FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
03cebad2
MK
710support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
711from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
712(Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
f0424ef6 713
59659be2
ILT
714* New C++ demangler
715
716GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
717names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
718with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
719programs.
720
9e08b29b
DJ
721* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
722
723GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
724arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
725encountered these.
726
8dfe8985
DC
727* C++ nested types and namespaces
728
729GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
730improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
731is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
732Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
733namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
734"Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
735frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
736if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
737GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
738
cced5e27
MK
739* New native configurations
740
741NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
27d1e716 742OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2031c21a 743OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
f2cab569
MK
744OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
745OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
cced5e27 746
b4b4b794
KI
747* New debugging protocols
748
749M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
750
7989c619
AC
751* "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
752
753The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
754and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
755tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
756
5994185b
AC
757* OBSOLETE configurations and files
758
759Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
760been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
761configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
762permanently REMOVED.
763
764Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
765Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
766Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
767Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
768Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
769AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
770Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
0748d941
AC
771decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
772riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
773sonymips mips-sony-*
774sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5994185b 775
0ddabb4c
AC
776* REMOVED configurations and files
777
778SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
779SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4a8269c0
AC
780Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
781Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
782H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
783HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
784HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
785HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
786PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
cf7c5c23 787386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
4a8269c0
AC
788Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
789 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
790 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f0424ef6
MK
791SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
792SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
4a8269c0
AC
793Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
794Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
0ddabb4c 795
c7f1390e
DJ
796*** Changes in GDB 6.0:
797
1fe43d45
AC
798* Objective-C
799
800Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
801integrated into GDB.
802
e6beb428
AC
803* New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
804
805DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
806information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
807By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
808backtraces.
809
810The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
811have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
812DWARF 2 CFI support.
813
814* Hosted file I/O.
815
816GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
817file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
818remote protocol documentation for details.
819
820* All targets using the new architecture framework.
821
822All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
823architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
824to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
825ppc32 on ppc64).
826
827* GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
828
829GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
830per-thread variables.
831
832* GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
833
834GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
835GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
836
837* Separate debug info.
838
839GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
840automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
841of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
842system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
843and optional debug files.
844
845* DWARF 2 Location Expressions
846
847DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
848describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
849debugger.
850
851GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
852for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
853
854* Java
855
856A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
857Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
858considered "useable".
859
85f8f974
DJ
860* GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
861
862The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
863commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
864kernel.
865
0fac0b41
DJ
866* GDB supports logging output to a file
867
868There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
869used to capture GDB's output to a file.
f2c06f52 870
6ad8ae5c
DJ
871* The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
872
873The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
874disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
875command.
876
e286caf2 877* d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5f601589
AC
878
879The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
880registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
881
d28f9cdf
DJ
882* Profiling support
883
884A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
885be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
886session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
887"--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
888data, for more informative profiling results.
889
da0f9dcd
AC
890* Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
891
892The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
893option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
b68767c1 894"mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
da0f9dcd
AC
895
896Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
897removed.
898
fb9b6b35
JJ
899Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
900Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
901Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
902 in a subsequent -var-update.
903
954a4db8
MK
904* New native configurations.
905
906FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
907
6760f9e6
JB
908* Multi-arched targets.
909
b4263afa 910HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
85a453d5 911Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6760f9e6 912
1b831c93
AC
913* OBSOLETE configurations and files
914
915Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
916been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
917configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
918permanently REMOVED.
919
8b0e5691 920Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
67f16606 921Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
fd2299bd 922H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
56056df7
AC
923HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
924HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
925HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
78c43945 926PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2fbce691
AC
927Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
928 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
929 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
f81824a9
AC
930Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
931Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
fd2299bd 932
5835abe7
NC
933* REMOVED configurations and files
934
935V850EA ISA
1b831c93
AC
936Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
937IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
938i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
939i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
940i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
941HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
942 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
943 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
944Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
945Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
946Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
947OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
948I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5835abe7 949
a094c6fb
AC
950* MIPS $fp behavior changed
951
952The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
953the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
954context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
955address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
956The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
957
299ffc64 958*** Changes in GDB 5.3:
37057839 959
46248966
AC
960* GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
961
962When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
963`/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
964in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
965library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
966shared libs like mad''.
967
b9d14705 968* ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
6da02953 969
b9d14705
DJ
970Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
971the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
972arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
973powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
6da02953 974
e0e9281e
JB
975* GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
976
977GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
978and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
979they expand.
980
dd73b9bb
AC
981The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
982invocations in expression, and shows the result.
983
984The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
985macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
986
e0e9281e
JB
987Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
988information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
989your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
990information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
991
2250ee0c
CV
992* Multi-arched targets.
993
6e3ba3b8
JT
994DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
995DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2250ee0c 996NEC V850 v850-*-*
6e3ba3b8 997National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
a1789893
GS
998Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
999Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2250ee0c 1000
cd9bfe15 1001* New targets.
e33ce519 1002
456f8b9d
DB
1003Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1004
e33ce519 1005
da8ca43d
JT
1006* New native configurations
1007
1008Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
029923d4 1009SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
45888261 1010MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
9ce5c36a 1011UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
da8ca43d 1012
cd9bfe15
AC
1013* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1014
1015Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1016been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1017configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1018permanently REMOVED.
1019
92eb23c5 1020Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
a99a9e1b 1021OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1c7cc583 1022IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
7a3085c1 1023Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
7fb623f7 1024Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
eb4c54a2 1025Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
d8ee244c
MK
1026i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1027i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1028i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
822e978b
AC
1029HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1030 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1031 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
4d210288 1032I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
92eb23c5 1033
db034ac5
AC
1034* OBSOLETE languages
1035
1036CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1037
cd9bfe15
AC
1038* REMOVED configurations and files
1039
1040AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1041A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1042AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1043AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1044AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1045
1046testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1047
20f01a46
DH
1048* New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1049
1050This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1051commands. The default is 1024.
1052
a5941fbf
MK
1053* Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1054
1055Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1056
89743e04
MS
1057* New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1058
1059These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1060to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1061from a file into memory (restore).
37057839 1062
9fb14e79
JB
1063* Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1064
1065The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1066including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1067of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1068
2037aebb
AC
1069*** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1070
1071* New targets.
1072
1073Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1074
1075* Bug fixes
1076
1077gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1078mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1079Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1080
1081gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1082dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1083Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1084
1085Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1086Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1087By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1088
1089i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1090avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1091By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1092
37057839 1093*** Changes in GDB 5.2:
eb7cedd9 1094
1a703748
MS
1095* New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1096
1097This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1098really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1099In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1100target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1101This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1102(notably embedded) targets.
1103
cefd4ef5
MS
1104* New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1105
55241689
AC
1106This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1107process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1108GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1109hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
cefd4ef5 1110
352ed7b4
MS
1111* New command line option
1112
1113GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1114
1115* Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1116
1117There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1118command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1119a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1120be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1121open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1122issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1123a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1124it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1125GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1126is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1127
fe419ffc
RE
1128* Changes in ARM configurations.
1129
1130Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1131configuration is fully multi-arch.
1132
eb7cedd9
MK
1133* New native configurations
1134
fe419ffc 1135ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
eb7cedd9 1136x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
55241689 1137AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
768f0842 1138Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
eb7cedd9 1139
c9f63e6b
CV
1140* New targets
1141
1142Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1143
9b4ff276
AC
1144* OBSOLETE configurations and files
1145
1146Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1147been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1148configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1149permanently REMOVED.
1150
1151AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1152A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1153AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1154AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1155AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1156
b4ceaee6 1157testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
9b4ff276 1158
e2caac18
AC
1159* REMOVED configurations and files
1160
1161TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
7bc65f05 1162WDC 65816 w65-*-*
7768dd6c
AC
1163PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1164PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1165PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5e734e1f 1166Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1406caf7
AC
1167Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1168 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
7e24f0b1 1169SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
9b567150 1170Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3680c638
AC
1171Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1172ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
a752853e 1173Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
e2caac18 1174
c2a727fa
TT
1175* Changes to command line processing
1176
1177The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1178for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1179
467d8519
TT
1180* Changes to key bindings
1181
1182There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1183
7072a954
AC
1184*** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1185
1186Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1187
1188Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1189corrupted.
1190
1191Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1192
1193Numerous documentation fixes.
1194
1195Numerous testsuite fixes.
1196
34f47bc4 1197*** Changes in GDB 5.1:
139760b7
MK
1198
1199* New native configurations
1200
1201Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1202x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
55241689 1203MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
e23194cb
EZ
1204MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1205ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
55241689 1206s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
139760b7 1207
bf64bfd6
AC
1208* New targets
1209
def90278 1210Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
24be5c34 1211CRIS cris-axis
55241689 1212UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
def90278 1213
17e78a56 1214* OBSOLETE configurations and files
bf64bfd6
AC
1215
1216x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
9b9c068d 1217Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
bb19ff3b
AC
1218Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1219 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
76f4ea53
AC
1220TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1221WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4a1968f4 1222Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1b2b2c16
AC
1223PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1224PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1225PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
24f89b68 1226SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
514e603d
AC
1227Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1228ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
d036b4d9 1229Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
bf64bfd6 1230
17e78a56
AC
1231stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1232kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1233
7fcca85b
AC
1234Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1235been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1236configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1237permanently REMOVED.
1238
a196c81c 1239* REMOVED configurations and files
7fcca85b
AC
1240
1241Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1242Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1243Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1244ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1245Tahoe tahoe-*-*
a196c81c 1246ser-ocd.c *-*-*
bf64bfd6 1247
6d6b80e5 1248* GDB has been converted to ISO C.
e23194cb 1249
6d6b80e5 1250GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
e23194cb
EZ
1251sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1252present.
1253
bf64bfd6
AC
1254* Other news:
1255
e23194cb
EZ
1256* "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1257
1258* The MI enabled by default.
1259
1260The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1261revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1262engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1263using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1264which is now deprecated.
1265
1266* Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1267
1268GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1269main features are supported:
1270
1271 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1272
1273 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1274 extension;
1275
1276 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1277
1278 - a Pascal expression parser.
1279
1280However, some important features are not yet supported.
1281
1282 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1283
1284 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1285
1286 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1287 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1288
1289 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1290
1291 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1292
1293* Changes in completion.
1294
1295Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1296to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1297users expect at the shell prompt.
1298
1299Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1300`breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1301program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1302files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1303be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1304considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1305name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1306
1307`set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1308
1309* New platform-independent commands:
1310
1311It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1312hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1313documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1314
1315* Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1316
d7275149
MK
1317Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1318revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1319many threads as your system allows you to have.
1320
e23194cb
EZ
1321Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1322
d7275149
MK
1323Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1324multi-threaded programs though.
e23194cb
EZ
1325
1326* Changes in MIPS configurations.
bf64bfd6
AC
1327
1328Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1329
e23194cb
EZ
1330GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1331debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1332supported.)
1333
1334* Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1335
1336Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1337breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1338implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1339put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1340and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1341registers.
1342
1343The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1344debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1345watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1346
1347* Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1348
1349New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1350the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1351
1352New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1353display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1354IDT.
1355
1356New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1357from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1358New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1359a given linear address.
1360
1361GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1362program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1363which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1364
1365DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1366
6c56c069
EZ
1367It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1368
e23194cb
EZ
1369* Changes in documentation.
1370
1371All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1372Documentation License.
1373
1374Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1375manual.
1376
1377TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1378
1379Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1380manual.
1381
1382The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1383documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1384hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1385
5d6640b1
AC
1386* GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1387
1388The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1389``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1390contents of this file.
1391
1a1d8446
AC
1392* gdba.el deleted
1393
1394GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
139760b7 1395
9debab2f 1396*** Changes in GDB 5.0:
7a292a7a 1397
c63ce875
EZ
1398* Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1399
1400Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1401programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1402displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1403greater level of detail.
1404
1405* Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1406
1407It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1408bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1409on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1410written.
1411
1412* Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1413
1414The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1415necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1416machines ``out of the box''.
1417
1418The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1419possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1420signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1421would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1422interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1423
1424It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1425standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1426even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1427and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1428terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1429
1430The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1431enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1432also works.
1433
1434DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1435GDB.
1436
1437It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1438directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1439times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1440breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1441
ed9a39eb
JM
1442* New native configurations
1443
1444ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
afc05dd4 1445PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
ed9a39eb 1446
7a292a7a
SS
1447* New targets
1448
96baa820 1449Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
adf40b2e
JM
1450x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1451PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
7a292a7a
SS
1452TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1453
085dd6e6
JM
1454* OBSOLETE configurations
1455
1456Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1457Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
9846de1b 1458Pyramid pyramid-*-*
ed9a39eb 1459ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
104c1213 1460Tahoe tahoe-*-*
7a292a7a 1461
9debab2f
AC
1462Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1463but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1464these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1465be permanently REMOVED.
1466
5330533d
SS
1467* Gould support removed
1468
1469Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1470
bc9e5bbf
AC
1471* New features for SVR4
1472
1473On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1474without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1475load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1476
1477* Many C++ enhancements
1478
1479C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1480in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1481
adf40b2e
JM
1482* Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1483
1484A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1485sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1486with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1487``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1488
1489 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1490 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1491
43e526b9
JM
1492* MIPS 64 remote protocol
1493
1494A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1495expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1496instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1497
1498The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1499added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1500
96baa820
JM
1501* ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1502
1503The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1504``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1505include ``set remote P-packet''.
1506
11cf8741
JM
1507* Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1508
1509The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1510accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1511``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1512
7876dd43
DB
1513* ``apropos'' command added.
1514
1515The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1516documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1517try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1518
bc9e5bbf
AC
1519* New MI interface
1520
1521A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1522interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
7162c0ca
EZ
1523process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1524"GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1525enabled by configuring with:
bc9e5bbf
AC
1526
1527 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1528
c906108c
SS
1529*** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1530
1531* New native configurations
1532
1533HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1534HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
55241689 1535M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
c906108c
SS
1536
1537* New targets
1538
1539Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1540Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1541Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1542
1543* OBSOLETE configurations
1544
1545Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1546
1547Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1548but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1549these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1550be permanently REMOVED.
1551
1552* ANSI/ISO C
1553
1554As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1555buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1556containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1557use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1558available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1559configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1560information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1561already.
1562
1563* Readline 2.2
1564
1565GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1566
1567* set extension-language
1568
1569You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1570languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1571you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1572 set extension-language .c c++
1573The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1574and their associated languages.
1575
1576* Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1577
1578When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1579you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1580PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1581
1582 set processor NAME
1583
1584sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1585following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1586
1587 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1588 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1589 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1590 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1591 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1592 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1593 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1594 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1595 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1596 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1597 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1598
1599At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1600special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1601registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1602only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1603
1604* HP-UX support
1605
1606Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1607more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1608library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1609support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1610for xdb and dbx commands.
1611
1612* Catchpoints
1613
1614HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1615generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1616to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1617
1618This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1619argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1620output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1621
1622* Debugging across forks
1623
1624On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1625in the inferior.
1626
1627* TUI
1628
1629HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1630it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1631configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1632
1633* GDB remote protocol additions
1634
1635A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1636Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1637fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1638allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1639
1640For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1641full 64-bit address. The command
1642
1643 set remoteaddresssize 32
1644
1645can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1646the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1647will be discarded.
1648
1649In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1650command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1651
1652 maint packet heythere
1653
1654sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1655disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1656time.
1657
1658The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1659target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1660downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1661
1662* Tracing can collect general expressions
1663
1664You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1665further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1666doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1667
1668* mask-address variable for Mips
1669
1670For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1671a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1672of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1673
1674* Higher serial baud rates
1675
1676GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1677230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1678to achieve all of these rates.)
1679
1680* i960 simulator
1681
1682The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1683builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1684
1685
1686*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1687
1688* New native configurations
1689
1690Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1691Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1692Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1693PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1694PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1695Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1696Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1697
1698* New targets
1699
1700Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1701Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1702Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1703Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1704MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1705MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1706MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1707Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1708Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1709Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1710NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1711
1712* New debugging protocols
1713
1714ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1715M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1716DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1717PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1718PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1719Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1720
1721* DWARF 2
1722
1723All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1724format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1725information.
1726
1727* Java frontend
1728
1729GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1730only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1731
1732* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1733
1734For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1735loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1736locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1737
1738* Live range splitting
1739
1740GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1741range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1742more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1743
1744* Hurd support
1745
1746GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1747updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1748
1749* ARM Thumb support
1750
1751GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1752instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1753instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1754accordingly.
1755
1756* MIPS16 support
1757
1758GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1759instruction set.
1760
1761* Overlay support
1762
1763GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1764linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1765will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1766control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1767additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1768in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1769
1770* info symbol
1771
1772The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1773the symbol at the specified address.
1774
1775* Trace support
1776
1777The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1778asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1779extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1780includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1781file tracepoint.c for more details.
1782
1783* MIPS simulator
1784
1785Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1786by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1787of most MIPS variants.
1788
1789* Sparc simulator
1790
1791Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1792by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1793Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1794
1795* set architecture
1796
1797For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1798basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1799architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1800the possible architectures.
1801
1802*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1803
1804* New native configurations
1805
1806Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1807M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1808PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1809PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1810PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1811RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1812
1813* New targets
1814
1815ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1816I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1817MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1818MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1819PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1820Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1821Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1822
1823* PowerPC simulator
1824
1825The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1826contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1827PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1828basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1829performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1830
1831* Solaris 2.5
1832
1833GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1834
1835* Windows 95/NT native
1836
1837GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1838To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1839which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1840Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1841ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1842
1843* dont-repeat command
1844
1845If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1846command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1847useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1848extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1849
1850* Send break instead of ^C
1851
1852The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1853rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1854GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1855
1856* Remote protocol timeout
1857
1858The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1859that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1860to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1861
1862* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1863
1864By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1865loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1866stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1867when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1868in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1869
1870Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1871/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1872automatically on hpux10.
1873
1874* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1875
1876Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1877
1878* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1879
1880When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1881may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1882the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1883every character. The default value is 1050.
1884
1885* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1886
1887If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1888a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1889replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1890details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1891remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1892to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1893
1894* Speedups for remote debugging
1895
1896GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1897the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1898and more efficient S-record downloading.
1899
1900* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1901
1902GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1903Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1904
1905*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1906
1907* Psymtabs for XCOFF
1908
1909The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1910can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1911
1912* Remote targets use caching
1913
1914Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1915remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1916it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1917debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1918off' turns the the data cache off.
1919
1920* Remote targets may have threads
1921
1922The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1923in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1924gdb/remote.c for details.
1925
1926* NetROM support
1927
1928If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1929support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1930acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1931write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1932support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1933another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1934sequence is something like
1935
1936 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1937 load <prog>
1938 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1939
1940* Macintosh host
1941
1942GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1943may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1944it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1945available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1946device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1947directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1948scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1949mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1950
1951* Autoconf
1952
1953GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1954but does simplify configuration and building.
1955
1956* hpux10
1957
1958GDB now supports hpux10.
1959
1960*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1961
1962* New native configurations
1963
1964x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1965x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1966NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1967Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1968
1969* New targets
1970
1971A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1972HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1973CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1974PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1975WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1976
1977* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1978
1979GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1980possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1981filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1982the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1983if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1984
1985* Arguments to user-defined commands
1986
1987User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1988Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1989trivial example:
1990define adder
1991 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1992
1993To execute the command use:
1994adder 1 2 3
1995
1996Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1997Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1998use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1999
2000* New `if' and `while' commands
2001
2002This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2003commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2004expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2005execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2006terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2007`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2008if the expression is zero.
2009
2010* Fortran source language mode
2011
2012GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2013Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2014variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2015with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2016Fortran compilers.
2017
2018* Better HPUX support
2019
2020Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2021running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2022processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2023for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2024that behavior do the following before running the program:
2025
2026 adb -w a.out
2027 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2028 control-d
2029
2030This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2031To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2032
2033 adb -w a.out
2034 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2035 control-d
2036
2037You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2038the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2039external linkage.
2040
2041GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2042HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2043
2044* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2045
2046You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2047commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2048current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2049"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2050associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2051configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2052
2053* New DOS host serial code
2054
2055This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2056no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2057a PC's serial port.
2058
2059*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2060
2061* New "complete" command
2062
2063This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2064were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2065
2066* Trailing space optional in prompt
2067
2068"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2069allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2070
2071* Breakpoint hit counts
2072
2073"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2074has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2075can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2076to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2077less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2078that breakpoint.
2079
2080* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2081
2082"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2083an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2084arrays actually contain only short strings.
2085
2086* Shared library breakpoints
2087
2088In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2089breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2090
2091* Hardware watchpoints
2092
2093There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2094targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2095
55241689 2096Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
c906108c
SS
2097
2098* Annotations
2099
2100Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2101and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2102
2103* Improved Irix 5 support
2104
2105GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2106
2107* Improved HPPA support
2108
2109GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2110
2111* New native configurations
2112
2113Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2114HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2115Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2116RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2117
2118* New targets
2119
2120OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2121MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2122Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2123
2124* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2125
2126There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2127This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2128
2129* Fixes
2130
2131As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2132and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2133
2134*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2135
2136* Irix 5 is now supported
2137
2138* HPPA support
2139
2140GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2141to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2142GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2143of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2144can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2145
2146
2147*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2148
2149* User visible changes:
2150
2151* Remote Debugging
2152
2153The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2154target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2155debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2156integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2157debugging info for the mips target).
2158
2159* DEC Alpha native support
2160
2161GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2162debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2163work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2164Alpha-specific notes.
2165
2166* Preliminary thread implementation
2167
2168GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2169
2170* LynxOS native and target support for 386
2171
2172This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2173to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2174for details).
2175
2176* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2177
2178This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2179mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2180call methods, ...etc.
2181
2182*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2183
2184 * User visible changes:
2185
2186Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2187supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2188other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2189somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2190
2191Filename completion now works.
2192
2193When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2194arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2195addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2196
2197All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2198vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2199should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2200your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2201to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2202
2203 * DEC alpha support
2204
2205This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2206cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2207
2208
2209*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2210
2211 * Testsuite
2212
2213This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2214The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2215via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2216
2217 * C++ demangling
2218
2219'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2220emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2221Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2222disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2223use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2224
2225 * Simulators
2226
2227GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2228So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2229Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2230
2231 * New targets supported
2232
2233H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2234H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2235SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2236Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2237IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2238
2239Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2240version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2241GO32 memory extender.
2242
2243 * New remote protocols
2244
2245MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2246
2247 * New source languages supported
2248
2249This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2250used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2251into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2252
2253
2254*** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2255
2256 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2257
2258GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2259version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2260University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2261compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2262format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2263(as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2264
2265Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2266
2267 * Faster and better demangling
2268
2269We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2270demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2271character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2272only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2273This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2274increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2275symbol lookups.
2276
2277`Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2278from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2279compiler does not actually implement.
2280
2281 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2282
2283In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2284inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2285recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2286very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2287The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2288circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2289fix.
2290
2291The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2292release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2293
2294 * Improved configure script
2295
2296The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2297you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2298host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2299done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2300
2301We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2302version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2303`--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2304The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2305only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2306We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2307
2308 * Documentation improvements
2309
2310There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2311produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2312before submitting changes.
2313
2314The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2315M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2316`info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2317you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2318a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2319
2320*NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2321We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2322been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2323or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2324`texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2325around this problem.
2326
2327 * New features
2328
2329GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2330the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2331`print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2332the target program.
2333
2334The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2335how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2336
2337 * New native hosts supported
2338
2339HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2340386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2341
2342 * New targets supported
2343
2344AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2345
2346 * New file formats supported
2347
2348BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2349HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2350
2351 * Major bug fixes
2352
2353Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2354
2355We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2356printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2357
2358We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2359for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2360release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2361
2362You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2363will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2364
2365We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2366for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2367especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2368libraries.
2369
2370The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2371information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2372command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2373any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2374when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2375
2376 * Internal improvements
2377
2378GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2379debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2380
2381GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2382Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2383symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2384contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2385shared code that handles any of them.
2386
2387 * New command line options
2388
2389We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2390
2391 * Mmalloc licensing
2392
2393The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2394General Public License.
2395
2396*** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2397
2398 * Host/native/target split
2399
2400GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2401hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2402target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2403local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2404ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2405
2406The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2407GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2408is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2409code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2410any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2411built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2412handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2413
2414GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2415It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2416plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2417
2418 * New hosts supported
2419
2420HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2421386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2422386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2423
2424 * New targets supported
2425
2426Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
242768030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2428
2429 * New native hosts supported
2430
2431386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2432 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2433386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2434
2435 * New file formats supported
2436
2437BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2438supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2439format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2440
2441 * New commands
2442
2443`show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2444`show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2445These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2446
2447`info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2448
2449You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2450scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2451prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2452executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2453
2454 * C++ improvements
2455
2456We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2457info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2458symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2459
2460Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2461
2462 * Major bug fixes
2463
2464The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2465fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2466by the compiler.
2467
2468We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2469support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2470
2471John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2472slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2473that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2474purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2475the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2476mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2477
2478Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2479about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2480completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2481we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2482
2483 * AMD 29k support
2484
2485A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2486specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2487calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2488usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2489in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2490
2491We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2492Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2493of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2494resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2495
2496 * Remote interfaces
2497
2498We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2499with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2500message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2501This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2502needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2503breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2504each instruction being stepped through.
2505
2506The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2507registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2508
2509There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2510find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2511Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2512processor with a serial port.
2513
2514 * Configuration
2515
2516Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2517`table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2518supported, and what files each one uses.
2519
2520 * Library changes
2521
2522There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2523disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2524Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2525disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2526
2527The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2528Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2529can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2530grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2531
2532 * Documentation
2533
2534The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2535reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2536as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2537encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2538system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2539bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2540
2541And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2542
2543
2544*** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2545
2546 * Better support for C++ function names
2547
2548GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2549names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2550(using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2551single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2552Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2553
2554GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2555the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2556You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2557lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2558for the list of formats.
2559
2560 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2561
2562Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2563C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2564directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2565can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2566usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2567about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2568this problem.)
2569
2570 * New 'maintenance' command
2571
2572All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2573the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2574can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2575
2576 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2577 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2578 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2579 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2580 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2581 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2582
2583The following commands are new:
2584
2585 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2586 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2587 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2588
2589 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2590
2591We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2592(e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2593be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2594read after argv processing.
2595
2596 * New hosts supported
2597
2598Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2599
55241689 2600GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
c906108c
SS
2601
2602We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2603is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2604for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2605masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2606fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2607It costs extra.
2608
2609 * New targets supported
2610
2611Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2612
2613 * More smarts about finding #include files
2614
2615GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2616all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2617greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2618especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2619the one that contains your sources.
2620
2621We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2622breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2623try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2624
2625 * Interesting infernals change
2626
2627GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2628section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2629target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2630stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2631
2632 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2633
2634There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2635 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2636 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2637
2638See the ChangeLog for details.
2639
2640*** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2641
2642 * New machines supported (host and target)
2643
2644IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2645
2646SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2647
2648 * New malloc package
2649
2650GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2651Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2652capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2653This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2654pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2655more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2656
2657 * info proc
2658
2659The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2660'help info proc' for details.
2661
2662 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2663
2664The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2665Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2666possible.
2667
2668 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2669
2670Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2671support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2672conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2673environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2674that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2675in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2676
2677 * Cross byte order fixes
2678
2679Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2680targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2681
2682 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2683
2684If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2685system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2686`symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2687program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2688called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2689Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2690and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2691the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2692option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2693starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2694
2695You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2696the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2697information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2698slower, but makes future operations faster.
2699
2700The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2701build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2702A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2703use is:
2704
2705 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2706
2707The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2708It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2709shared across multiple host platforms.
2710
2711 * longjmp() handling
2712
2713GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2714siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2715all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2716platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2717
2718 * Solaris 2.0
2719
2720Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2721this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2722reading symbols.
2723
2724 * Bug fixes
2725
2726As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2727People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2728crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2729
2730*** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2731
2732 * New machines supported (host and target)
2733
2734SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2735 (except core files)
2736BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2737Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2738
2739 * New machines supported (target)
2740
2741AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2742
2743 * C++ support
2744
2745GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2746The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2747per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2748
2749GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2750`ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2751extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2752good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2753will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2754released.
2755
2756 * New features for SVR4
2757
2758GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2759shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2760only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2761
2762The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2763on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2764it prints the address mappings of the process.
2765
2766If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2767bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2768
2769 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2770
2771Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2772now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2773skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2774make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2775same code linked statically.
2776
2777 * New Getopt
2778
2779GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2780version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2781continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2782Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2783added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2784future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2785
2786 * Bugs fixed
2787
2788The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2789Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2790See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2791
2792
2793*** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2794
2795 * New machines supported (host and target)
2796
2797Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2798NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2799Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2800
2801 * Almost SCO Unix support
2802
2803We had hoped to support:
2804SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2805(except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2806that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2807about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2808
2809 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2810
2811GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2812debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2813is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2814send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2815reqired (if any).
2816
2817 * New Readline
2818
2819GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2820is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2821required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2822
2823 * Bugs fixed
2824
2825The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2826Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2827See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2828
2829 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2830
2831GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2832supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2833symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2834
2835Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2836mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2837debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2838mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2839version 2.
2840
2841Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2842really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2843line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2844variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2845situation somewhat.
2846
2847When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2848However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2849methods.
2850
2851We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2852DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2853encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2854
2855
2856*** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2857
2858 * Improved configuration
2859
2860Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2861Porting BFD is simpler.
2862
2863 * Stepping improved
2864
2865The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2866of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2867in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2868function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2869
2870 * Bug fixing
2871
2872Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2873
2874 * New host supported (not target)
2875
2876Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2877
2878
2879*** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2880
2881 * Multiple source language support
2882
2883GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2884It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2885and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2886language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2887You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2888`set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2889
2890 * GDB and Modula-2
2891
2892GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2893currently under development at the State University of New York at
2894Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2895continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2896
2897Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2898debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2899symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2900
2901There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2902in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2903
2904 * set write on/off
2905
2906GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2907a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2908the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2909by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2910effect immediately.
2911
2912 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2913
2914When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2915shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2916The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2917examining core files.
2918
2919 * set listsize
2920
2921You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2922The default is 10.
2923
2924 * New machines supported (host and target)
2925
2926SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2927Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2928Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2929
2930 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2931
2932IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2933
2934 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2935
2936AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2937AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2938Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2939
2940 * New remote interfaces
2941
2942AMD 29000 Adapt
2943AMD 29000 Minimon
2944
2945
2946*** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2947
2948 * New Facilities
2949
2950Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2951
2952Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2953target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2954is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2955remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2956remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2957also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2958using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2959stub on the target system.
2960
2961New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2962
2963GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2964library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2965object file types such as a.out and coff.
2966
2967There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2968refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2969
2970
2971 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2972
2973All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2974by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2975
2976For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2977``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2978Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2979
2980What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2981print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2982will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2983all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2984
2985confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2986 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2987 it is already running. Default is ON.
2988
2989editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2990 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2991 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2992 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2993 Default is ON.
2994
2995history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2996 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2997 or the value of the environment variable
2998 GDBHISTFILE.
2999
3000history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3001 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3002 HISTSIZE.
3003
3004history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3005 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3006 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3007
3008history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3009 history expansion will be performed on
3010 command line input. The default is OFF.
3011
3012radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3013 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3014 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3015
3016height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3017 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3018 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3019 variable TERM.
3020
3021width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3022 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3023 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3024 variable TERM.
3025
3026Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3027``set width'' instead.
3028
3029print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3030 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3031 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3032 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3033
3034print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3035 is OFF.
3036
3037print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3038 "raw" form if off.
3039
3040print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3041 like instructions.
3042
3043print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3044
3045
3046 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3047
3048The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3049new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3050are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3051window.
3052
3053
3054 * Support for Shared Libraries
3055
3056GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3057Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3058before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3059happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3060At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3061from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3062shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3063It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3064
3065sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3066 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3067 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3068
3069info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3070
3071
3072 * Watchpoints
3073
3074A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3075expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3076tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3077quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3078problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3079more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3080
3081watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3082
3083info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3084
3085delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3086disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3087enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3088
3089
3090 * C++ multiple inheritance
3091
3092When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3093for C++ programs.
3094
3095 * C++ exception handling
3096
3097Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3098ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3099the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3100handler's context).
3101
3102catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3103 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3104 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3105
3106info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3107 current stack frame.
3108
3109
3110 * Minor command changes
3111
3112The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3113command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3114is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3115
3116The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3117at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3118frames without printing.
3119
3120 * New directory command
3121
3122'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3123The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3124about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3125with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3126find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3127
3128 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3129
3130For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3131for more details.
3132
3133GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3134two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3135Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3136where the program that you are debugging will run.
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