* symfile.c (find_separate_debug_file): Remove double free of
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
5
6 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
7 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
8 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
9 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
10 for tracepoint actions.
11
12 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
13 in hex as well as in symbolic form."
14
15 * Process record and replay
16
17 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
18 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
19 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
20 execute commands.
21
22 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
23 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
24 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
25 reverse execution.
26
27 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
28 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
29 2.6.28 or later.
30
31 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
32 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
33 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
34 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
35 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
36 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
37 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
38 the installation instructions for more information.
39
40 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
41 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
42 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
43 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
44
45 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
46 now complete on file names.
47
48 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
49 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
50 For instance, consider:
51
52 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
53 # struct example variable;
54 (gdb) p variable.
55
56 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
57 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
58
59 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
60 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
61
62 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
63 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
64 macros.
65
66 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
67 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
68 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
69
70 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
71 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
72 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
73 and simulator targets may also provide them.
74
75 * New remote packets
76
77 qSearch:memory:
78 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
79
80 QStartNoAckMode
81 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
82 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
83 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
84
85 vKill
86 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
87 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
88
89 qXfer:osdata:read
90 Obtains additional operating system information
91
92 qXfer:siginfo:read
93 qXfer:siginfo:write
94 Read or write additional signal information.
95
96 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
97
98 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
99 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
100 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
101
102 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
103 source+assembly.
104
105 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
106 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
107
108 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
109 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
110 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
111
112 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
113 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
114
115 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
116
117 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
118
119 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
120 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
121
122 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
123 list of section offsets.
124
125 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
126 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
127 have also been fixed.
128
129 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
130 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
131 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
132
133 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
134 example, given:
135
136 template<typename T> class C { };
137 C<char const *> c;
138
139 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
140
141 ptype C<char const *>
142 ptype C<char const*>
143 ptype C<const char *>
144 ptype C<const char*>
145
146 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
147
148 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
149 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
150
151 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
152 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
153 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
154
155 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
156 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
157
158 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
159 gdbserver.
160
161 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
162 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
163
164 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
165 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
166 as appropriate.
167
168 * Python scripting
169
170 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
171 available is determined at configure time.
172
173 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
174
175 * Ada tasking support
176
177 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
178 been introduced:
179
180 info tasks
181 Print the list of Ada tasks.
182 info task N
183 Print detailed information about task number N.
184 task
185 Print the task number of the current task.
186 task N
187 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
188
189 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
190 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
191
192 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
193
194 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
195 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
196 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
197 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
198 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
199 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
200 below.
201
202 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
203 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
204 information.
205
206 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
207 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
208 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
209 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
210 more information.
211
212 * Multi-architecture debugging.
213
214 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
215 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
216 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
217 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
218 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
219
220 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
221 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
222 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
223 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
224 --enable-targets configure option.
225
226 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
227
228 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
229 val1 [, val2, ...]
230 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
231
232 maint set python print-stack
233 maint show python print-stack
234 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
235
236 python [CODE]
237 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
238
239 macro define
240 macro list
241 macro undef
242 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
243 interactively.
244
245 info os processes
246 Show operating system information about processes.
247
248 info inferiors
249 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
250
251 inferior NUM
252 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
253
254 detach inferior NUM
255 Detach from inferior number NUM.
256
257 kill inferior NUM
258 Kill inferior number NUM.
259
260 * New options
261
262 set spu stop-on-load
263 show spu stop-on-load
264 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
265
266 set spu auto-flush-cache
267 show spu auto-flush-cache
268 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
269 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
270
271 set sh calling-convention
272 show sh calling-convention
273 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
274
275 set print symbol-loading
276 show print symbol-loading
277 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
278
279 set debug timestamp
280 show debug timestamp
281 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
282
283 set disassemble-next-line
284 show disassemble-next-line
285 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
286 the debuggee stops.
287
288 set remote noack-packet
289 show remote noack-packet
290 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
291 under "New remote packets."
292
293 set remote query-attached-packet
294 show remote query-attached-packet
295 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
296
297 set remote read-siginfo-object
298 show remote read-siginfo-object
299 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
300 packet.
301
302 set remote write-siginfo-object
303 show remote write-siginfo-object
304 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
305 packet.
306
307 set displaced-stepping
308 show displaced-stepping
309 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
310 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
311 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
312
313 set debug displaced
314 show debug displaced
315 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
316
317 maint set internal-error
318 maint show internal-error
319 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
320
321 maint set internal-warning
322 maint show internal-warning
323 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
324
325 set exec-wrapper
326 show exec-wrapper
327 unset exec-wrapper
328 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
329
330 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
331 show multiple-symbols
332 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
333 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
334 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
335
336 set breakpoint always-inserted
337 show breakpoint always-inserted
338 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
339 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
340 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
341
342 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
343 show arm fallback-mode
344 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
345 show arm force-mode
346 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
347 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
348 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
349 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
350
351 set disable-randomization
352 show disable-randomization
353 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
354 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
355 multiple debugging sessions.
356
357 set non-stop
358 show non-stop
359 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
360 a breakpoint.
361
362 set target-async
363 show target-async
364 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
365 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
366 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
367 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
368
369 set target-wide-charset
370 show target-wide-charset
371 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
372 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
373
374 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
375 show tcp auto-retry
376 set tcp connect-timeout
377 show tcp connect-timeout
378 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
379 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
380 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
381
382 set libthread-db-search-path
383 show libthread-db-search-path
384 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
385 libthread_db.
386
387 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
388 show schedule-multiple
389 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
390 the current process.
391
392 * Removed commands
393
394 info forks
395 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
396 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
397 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
398 command.
399
400 fork NUM
401 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
402 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
403 alias for the `fork' command.
404
405 process PID
406 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
407 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
408 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
409
410 delete fork NUM
411 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
412 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
413 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
414 fork' command.
415
416 detach fork NUM
417 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
418 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
419 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
420 fork' command.
421
422 * New native configurations
423
424 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
425
426 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
427
428 * New targets
429
430 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
431 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
432 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
433 S+core 3 score-*-*
434
435 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
436 (mingw32ce) debugging.
437
438 * Removed commands
439
440 catch load
441 catch unload
442 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
443
444 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
445
446 * New native configurations
447
448 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
449 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
450
451 * New targets
452
453 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
454 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
455
456 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
457
458 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
459 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
460 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
461 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
462
463 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
464 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
465
466 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
467 is resolved.
468
469 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
470 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
471 and in inlined functions.
472
473 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
474 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
475 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
476
477 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
478
479 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
480 registers on PowerPC targets.
481
482 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
483 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
484
485 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
486 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
487
488 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
489 extended-remote mode.
490
491 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
492 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
493 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
494 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
495
496 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
497 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
498 target architectures.
499
500 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
501 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
502 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
503 stored in two consecutive float registers.
504
505 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
506 breakpoints now.
507
508 * Improved support for debugging Ada
509 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
510 include:
511 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
512 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
513 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
514 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
515 of an assignment
516 - Improved command completion in Ada
517 - Several bug fixes
518
519 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
520 process.
521
522 * New commands
523
524 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
525 show print frame-arguments
526 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
527 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
528
529 remote put
530 remote get
531 remote delete
532 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
533
534 * New MI commands
535
536 -target-file-put
537 -target-file-get
538 -target-file-delete
539 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
540
541 * New remote packets
542
543 vFile:open:
544 vFile:close:
545 vFile:pread:
546 vFile:pwrite:
547 vFile:unlink:
548 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
549
550 vAttach
551 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
552 mode.
553
554 vRun
555 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
556
557 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
558
559 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
560 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
561 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
562
563 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
564 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
565 -Bsymbolic linker option.
566
567 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
568 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
569 is not supported.
570
571 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
572 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
573
574 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
575 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
576
577 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
578
579 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
580 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
581 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
582
583 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
584 automatically displayed as character or string data.
585
586 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
587 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
588 as strings.
589
590 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
591 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
592 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
593
594 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
595 iWMMXt coprocessor.
596
597 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
598 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
599 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
600
601 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
602
603 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
604
605 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
606 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
607 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
608
609 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
610 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
611
612 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
613 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
614 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
615 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
616 Windows and SymbianOS).
617
618 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
619 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
620
621 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
622 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
623
624 * New commands
625
626 set remoteflow
627 show remoteflow
628 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
629 when debugging using remote targets.
630
631 set mem inaccessible-by-default
632 show mem inaccessible-by-default
633 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
634 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
635 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
636 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
637 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
638
639 set breakpoint auto-hw
640 show breakpoint auto-hw
641 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
642 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
643 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
644 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
645 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
646 including "next" and "finish".
647
648 catch exception
649 catch exception unhandled
650 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
651
652 catch assert
653 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
654
655 set sysroot
656 show sysroot
657 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
658 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
659 an alias to "set sysroot".
660
661 info spu
662 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
663 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
664 architecture.
665
666 * New native configurations
667
668 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
669
670 set tdesc filename
671 unset tdesc filename
672 show tdesc filename
673 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
674 not query the target for its built-in description.
675
676 * New targets
677
678 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
679 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
680 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
681
682 * New remote packets
683
684 QPassSignals:
685 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
686 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
687
688 qXfer:features:read:
689 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
690 features.
691
692 qXfer:spu:read:
693 qXfer:spu:write:
694 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
695 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
696
697 qXfer:libraries:read:
698 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
699 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
700 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
701 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
702
703 * Removed targets
704
705 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
706
707 alpha*-*-osf1*
708 alpha*-*-osf2*
709 d10v-*-*
710 hppa*-*-hiux*
711 i[34567]86-ncr-*
712 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
713 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
714 i[34567]86-*-netware*
715 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
716 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
717 i[34567]86-*-sco*
718 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
719 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
720 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
721 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
722 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
723 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
724 i[34567]86-*-isc*
725 m68*-cisco*-*
726 m68*-tandem-*
727 mips*-*-pe
728 rs6000-*-lynxos*
729 sh*-*-pe
730
731 * Other removed features
732
733 target abug
734 target cpu32bug
735 target est
736 target rom68k
737
738 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
739
740 target hms
741 target e7000
742 target sh3
743 target sh3e
744
745 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
746 H8/300.
747
748 target ocd
749
750 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
751 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
752 interfaces.
753
754 DWARF 1 support
755
756 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
757 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
758
759 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
760
761 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
762 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
763 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
764 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
765
766 MIPS ".pdr" sections
767
768 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
769 in debugging information.
770
771 Scheme support
772
773 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
774 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
775
776 set mips stack-arg-size
777 set mips saved-gpreg-size
778
779 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
780
781 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
782
783 * New targets
784
785 Xtensa xtensa-elf
786 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
787
788 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
789 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
790 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
791
792 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
793 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
794 supported.
795
796 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
797 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
798
799 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
800 stub provides the required support.
801
802 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
803 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
804
805 * New commands
806
807 set substitute-path
808 unset substitute-path
809 show substitute-path
810 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
811 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
812 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
813 between compilation and debugging.
814
815 set trace-commands
816 show trace-commands
817 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
818 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
819 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
820
821 * REMOVED features
822
823 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
824
825 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
826 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
827
828 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
829
830 * New remote packets
831
832 qSupported:
833 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
834 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
835 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
836 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
837 target.
838
839 qXfer:auxv:read:
840 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
841 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
842
843 qXfer:memory-map:read:
844 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
845 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
846
847 vFlashErase:
848 vFlashWrite:
849 vFlashDone:
850 Erase and program a flash memory device.
851
852 * Removed remote packets
853
854 qPart:auxv:read:
855 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
856 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
857
858 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
859
860 * New targets
861
862 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
863
864 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
865
866 * New commands
867
868 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
869 only if it doesn't already have a value.
870
871 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
872
873 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
874
875 restart <n> Return the program state to a
876 previously saved state.
877
878 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
879
880 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
881
882 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
883 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
884
885 info forks List forks of the user program that
886 are available to be debugged.
887
888 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
889 forks of the user program that are
890 available to be debugged.
891
892 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
893 that are available to be debugged (and
894 kill the forked process).
895
896 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
897 that are available to be debugged (and
898 allow the process to continue).
899
900 * New architecture
901
902 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
903
904 * Improved Windows host support
905
906 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
907 native console support, and remote communications using either
908 network sockets or serial ports.
909
910 * Improved Modula-2 language support
911
912 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
913 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
914 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
915 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
916 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
917 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
918
919 * REMOVED features
920
921 The ARM rdi-share module.
922
923 The Netware NLM debug server.
924
925 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
926
927 * New native configurations
928
929 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
930 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
931
932 * New targets
933
934 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
935
936 * New command line options
937
938 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
939 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
940 the child (debugged) program exited with.
941 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
942 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
943 specified multiple times and in conjunction
944 with the --command (-x) option.
945
946 * Deprecated commands removed
947
948 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
949 removed:
950
951 Command Replacement
952 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
953 othernames set arm disassembler
954 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
955 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
956 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
957 regs info registers
958
959 * New BSD user-level threads support
960
961 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
962 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
963 configurations are:
964
965 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
966 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
967 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
968
969 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
970 are not yet supported.
971
972 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
973 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
974
975 * REMOVED configurations and files
976
977 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
978 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
979 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
980
981 * New "set print array-indexes" command
982
983 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
984 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
985 behavior.
986
987 * VAX floating point support
988
989 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
990
991 * User-defined command support
992
993 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
994 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
995 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
996
997 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
998
999 * New command line option
1000
1001 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1002 debugging.
1003
1004 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1005
1006 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1007 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1008 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1009 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1010 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1011
1012 * Internationalization
1013
1014 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1015 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1016 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1017
1018 * Ada
1019
1020 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1021 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1022 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1023
1024 * New native configurations
1025
1026 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1027
1028 * Remote 'p' packet
1029
1030 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1031 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1032
1033 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1034
1035 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1036 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1037 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1038 i386 application).
1039
1040 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1041 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1042 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1043 configurations:
1044
1045 hppa-*-hpux
1046 ia64-*-aix
1047 mips-*-irix*
1048 *-*-lynx
1049 mips-*-linux-gnu
1050 sds protocol
1051 xdr protocol
1052 powerpc bdm protocol
1053
1054 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1055 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1056
1057 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1058
1059 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1060 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1061 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1062 permanently REMOVED.
1063
1064 h8300-*-*
1065 mcore-*-*
1066 mn10300-*-*
1067 ns32k-*-*
1068 sh64-*-*
1069 v850-*-*
1070
1071 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1072
1073 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1074
1075 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1076 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1077 been fixed.
1078
1079 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1080
1081 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1082 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1083 IRIX long double values).
1084
1085 * VAX and "next"
1086
1087 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1088 command. This problem has been fixed.
1089
1090 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1091
1092 * Fix for ``many threads''
1093
1094 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1095 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1096 error message:
1097
1098 ptrace: No such process.
1099 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1100
1101 This problem has been fixed.
1102
1103 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1104
1105 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1106 GDB to dump core).
1107
1108 * New ``start'' command.
1109
1110 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1111
1112 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1113
1114 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1115 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1116 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1117
1118 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1119 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1120 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1121 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1122 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1123 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1124 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1125 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1126 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1127
1128 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1129
1130 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1131 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1132 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1133 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1134 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1135
1136 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1137 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1138 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1139
1140 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1141
1142 * New native configurations
1143
1144 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1145 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1146 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1147 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1148 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1149 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1150 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1151
1152 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1153
1154 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1155 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1156 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1157 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1158 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1159 work, was also included.
1160
1161 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1162 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1163
1164 h8300-*-*
1165 mcore-*-*
1166 mn10300-*-*
1167 ns32k-*-*
1168 sh64-*-*
1169 v850-*-*
1170 xstormy16-*-*
1171
1172 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1173 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1174
1175 * REMOVED configurations and files
1176
1177 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1178 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1179 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1180 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1181 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1182 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1183 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1184 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1185 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1186 sonymips mips-sony-*
1187 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1188
1189 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1190
1191 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1192
1193 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1194 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1195 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1196 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1197 with GDB".
1198
1199 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1200
1201 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1202 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1203 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1204 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1205 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1206 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1207 are created.
1208
1209 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1210
1211 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1212
1213 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1214 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1215 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1216
1217 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1218
1219 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1220 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1221
1222 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1223
1224 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1225 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1226 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1227
1228 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1229
1230 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1231 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1232
1233 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1234
1235 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1236 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1237 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1238
1239 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1240
1241 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1242 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1243 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1244
1245 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1246
1247 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1248
1249 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1250 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1251
1252 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1253
1254 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1255 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1256 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1257 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1258
1259 * Revised SPARC target
1260
1261 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1262 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1263 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1264 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1265 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1266
1267 * New C++ demangler
1268
1269 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1270 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1271 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1272 programs.
1273
1274 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1275
1276 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1277 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1278 encountered these.
1279
1280 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1281
1282 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1283 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1284 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1285 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1286 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1287 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1288 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1289 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1290 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1291
1292 * New native configurations
1293
1294 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1295 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1296 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1297 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1298 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1299
1300 * New debugging protocols
1301
1302 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1303
1304 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1305
1306 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1307 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1308 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1309
1310 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1311
1312 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1313 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1314 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1315 permanently REMOVED.
1316
1317 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1318 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1319 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1320 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1321 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1322 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1323 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1324 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1325 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1326 sonymips mips-sony-*
1327 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1328
1329 * REMOVED configurations and files
1330
1331 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1332 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1333 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1334 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1335 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1336 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1337 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1338 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1339 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1340 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1341 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1342 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1343 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1344 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1345 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1346 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1347 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1348
1349 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1350
1351 * Objective-C
1352
1353 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1354 integrated into GDB.
1355
1356 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1357
1358 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1359 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1360 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1361 backtraces.
1362
1363 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1364 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1365 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1366
1367 * Hosted file I/O.
1368
1369 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1370 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1371 remote protocol documentation for details.
1372
1373 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1374
1375 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1376 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1377 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1378 ppc32 on ppc64).
1379
1380 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1381
1382 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1383 per-thread variables.
1384
1385 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1386
1387 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1388 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1389
1390 * Separate debug info.
1391
1392 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1393 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1394 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1395 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1396 and optional debug files.
1397
1398 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1399
1400 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1401 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1402 debugger.
1403
1404 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1405 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1406
1407 * Java
1408
1409 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1410 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1411 considered "useable".
1412
1413 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1414
1415 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1416 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1417 kernel.
1418
1419 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1420
1421 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1422 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1423
1424 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1425
1426 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1427 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1428 command.
1429
1430 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1431
1432 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1433 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1434
1435 * Profiling support
1436
1437 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1438 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1439 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1440 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1441 data, for more informative profiling results.
1442
1443 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1444
1445 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1446 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1447 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1448
1449 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1450 removed.
1451
1452 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1453 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1454 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1455 in a subsequent -var-update.
1456
1457 * New native configurations.
1458
1459 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1460
1461 * Multi-arched targets.
1462
1463 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1464 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1465
1466 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1467
1468 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1469 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1470 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1471 permanently REMOVED.
1472
1473 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1474 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1475 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1476 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1477 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1478 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1479 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1480 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1481 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1482 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1483 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1484 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1485
1486 * REMOVED configurations and files
1487
1488 V850EA ISA
1489 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1490 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1491 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1492 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1493 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1494 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1495 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1496 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1497 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1498 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1499 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1500 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1501 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1502
1503 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1504
1505 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1506 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1507 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1508 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1509 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1510
1511 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1512
1513 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1514
1515 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1516 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1517 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1518 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1519 shared libs like mad''.
1520
1521 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1522
1523 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1524 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1525 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1526 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1527
1528 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1529
1530 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1531 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1532 they expand.
1533
1534 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1535 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1536
1537 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1538 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1539
1540 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1541 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1542 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1543 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1544
1545 * Multi-arched targets.
1546
1547 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1548 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1549 NEC V850 v850-*-*
1550 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1551 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1552 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1553
1554 * New targets.
1555
1556 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1557
1558
1559 * New native configurations
1560
1561 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1562 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1563 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1564 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1565
1566 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1567
1568 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1569 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1570 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1571 permanently REMOVED.
1572
1573 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1574 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1575 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1576 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1577 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1578 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1579 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1580 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1581 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1582 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1583 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
1584 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1585 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1586
1587 * OBSOLETE languages
1588
1589 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1590
1591 * REMOVED configurations and files
1592
1593 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1594 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1595 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1596 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1597 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1598
1599 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1600
1601 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1602
1603 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1604 commands. The default is 1024.
1605
1606 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1607
1608 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1609
1610 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1611
1612 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1613 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1614 from a file into memory (restore).
1615
1616 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1617
1618 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1619 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1620 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1621
1622 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1623
1624 * New targets.
1625
1626 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
1627
1628 * Bug fixes
1629
1630 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1631 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1632 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1633
1634 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1635 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1636 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1637
1638 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1639 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1640 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1641
1642 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1643 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1644 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1645
1646 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1647
1648 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1649
1650 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1651 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1652 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1653 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1654 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1655 (notably embedded) targets.
1656
1657 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1658
1659 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1660 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1661 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1662 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1663
1664 * New command line option
1665
1666 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1667
1668 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1669
1670 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1671 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1672 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1673 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1674 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1675 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1676 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1677 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1678 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1679 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1680
1681 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1682
1683 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1684 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1685
1686 * New native configurations
1687
1688 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1689 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1690 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1691 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1692
1693 * New targets
1694
1695 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1696
1697 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1698
1699 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1700 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1701 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1702 permanently REMOVED.
1703
1704 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1705 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1706 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1707 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1708 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1709
1710 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1711
1712 * REMOVED configurations and files
1713
1714 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1715 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1716 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1717 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1718 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1719 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1720 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1721 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1722 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1723 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1724 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1725 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1726 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1727
1728 * Changes to command line processing
1729
1730 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1731 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1732
1733 * Changes to key bindings
1734
1735 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1736
1737 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1738
1739 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1740
1741 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1742 corrupted.
1743
1744 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1745
1746 Numerous documentation fixes.
1747
1748 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1749
1750 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1751
1752 * New native configurations
1753
1754 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1755 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1756 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1757 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1758 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1759 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1760
1761 * New targets
1762
1763 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1764 CRIS cris-axis
1765 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1766
1767 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1768
1769 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1770 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1771 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1772 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1773 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1774 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1775 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1776 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1777 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1778 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1779 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1780 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1781 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1782 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1783
1784 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1785 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1786
1787 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1788 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1789 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1790 permanently REMOVED.
1791
1792 * REMOVED configurations and files
1793
1794 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1795 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1796 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1797 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1798 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
1799 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
1800
1801 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1802
1803 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1804 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1805 present.
1806
1807 * Other news:
1808
1809 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1810
1811 * The MI enabled by default.
1812
1813 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1814 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1815 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1816 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1817 which is now deprecated.
1818
1819 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1820
1821 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1822 main features are supported:
1823
1824 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1825
1826 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1827 extension;
1828
1829 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1830
1831 - a Pascal expression parser.
1832
1833 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1834
1835 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1836
1837 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1838
1839 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1840 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1841
1842 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1843
1844 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1845
1846 * Changes in completion.
1847
1848 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1849 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1850 users expect at the shell prompt.
1851
1852 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1853 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1854 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1855 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1856 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1857 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1858 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1859
1860 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1861
1862 * New platform-independent commands:
1863
1864 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1865 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1866 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1867
1868 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1869
1870 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1871 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1872 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1873
1874 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1875
1876 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1877 multi-threaded programs though.
1878
1879 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1880
1881 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1882
1883 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1884 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1885 supported.)
1886
1887 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1888
1889 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1890 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1891 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1892 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1893 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1894 registers.
1895
1896 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1897 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1898 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1899
1900 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1901
1902 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1903 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1904
1905 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1906 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1907 IDT.
1908
1909 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1910 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1911 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1912 a given linear address.
1913
1914 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1915 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1916 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1917
1918 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1919
1920 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1921
1922 * Changes in documentation.
1923
1924 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1925 Documentation License.
1926
1927 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1928 manual.
1929
1930 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1931
1932 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1933 manual.
1934
1935 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1936 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1937 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1938
1939 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1940
1941 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1942 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1943 contents of this file.
1944
1945 * gdba.el deleted
1946
1947 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1948
1949 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1950
1951 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1952
1953 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1954 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1955 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1956 greater level of detail.
1957
1958 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1959
1960 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1961 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1962 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1963 written.
1964
1965 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1966
1967 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1968 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1969 machines ``out of the box''.
1970
1971 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1972 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1973 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1974 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1975 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1976
1977 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1978 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1979 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1980 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1981 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1982
1983 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1984 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1985 also works.
1986
1987 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1988 GDB.
1989
1990 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1991 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1992 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1993 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1994
1995 * New native configurations
1996
1997 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1998 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1999
2000 * New targets
2001
2002 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2003 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2004 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2005 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2006
2007 * OBSOLETE configurations
2008
2009 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2010 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2011 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2012 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2013 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
2014
2015 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2016 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2017 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2018 be permanently REMOVED.
2019
2020 * Gould support removed
2021
2022 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2023
2024 * New features for SVR4
2025
2026 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2027 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2028 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2029
2030 * Many C++ enhancements
2031
2032 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2033 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2034
2035 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2036
2037 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2038 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2039 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2040 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2041
2042 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2043 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2044
2045 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2046
2047 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2048 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2049 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2050
2051 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2052 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2053
2054 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2055
2056 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2057 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2058 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2059
2060 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2061
2062 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2063 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2064 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2065
2066 * ``apropos'' command added.
2067
2068 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2069 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2070 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2071
2072 * New MI interface
2073
2074 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2075 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2076 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2077 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2078 enabled by configuring with:
2079
2080 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2081
2082 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2083
2084 * New native configurations
2085
2086 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2087 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2088 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2089
2090 * New targets
2091
2092 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2093 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2094 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2095
2096 * OBSOLETE configurations
2097
2098 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2099
2100 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2101 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2102 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2103 be permanently REMOVED.
2104
2105 * ANSI/ISO C
2106
2107 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2108 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2109 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2110 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2111 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2112 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2113 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2114 already.
2115
2116 * Readline 2.2
2117
2118 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2119
2120 * set extension-language
2121
2122 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2123 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2124 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2125 set extension-language .c c++
2126 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2127 and their associated languages.
2128
2129 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2130
2131 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2132 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2133 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2134
2135 set processor NAME
2136
2137 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2138 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2139
2140 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2141 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2142 403 IBM PowerPC 403
2143 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2144 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2145 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2146 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2147 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2148 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2149 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2150 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2151
2152 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2153 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2154 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2155 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2156
2157 * HP-UX support
2158
2159 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2160 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2161 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2162 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2163 for xdb and dbx commands.
2164
2165 * Catchpoints
2166
2167 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2168 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2169 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2170
2171 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2172 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2173 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2174
2175 * Debugging across forks
2176
2177 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2178 in the inferior.
2179
2180 * TUI
2181
2182 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2183 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2184 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2185
2186 * GDB remote protocol additions
2187
2188 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2189 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2190 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2191 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2192
2193 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2194 full 64-bit address. The command
2195
2196 set remoteaddresssize 32
2197
2198 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2199 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2200 will be discarded.
2201
2202 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2203 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2204
2205 maint packet heythere
2206
2207 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2208 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2209 time.
2210
2211 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2212 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2213 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2214
2215 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2216
2217 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2218 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2219 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2220
2221 * mask-address variable for Mips
2222
2223 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2224 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2225 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2226
2227 * Higher serial baud rates
2228
2229 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2230 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2231 to achieve all of these rates.)
2232
2233 * i960 simulator
2234
2235 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2236 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2237
2238
2239 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2240
2241 * New native configurations
2242
2243 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2244 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2245 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2246 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2247 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2248 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2249 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2250
2251 * New targets
2252
2253 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2254 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2255 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2256 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2257 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2258 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2259 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2260 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2261 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2262 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2263 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2264
2265 * New debugging protocols
2266
2267 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2268 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2269 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2270 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2271 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2272 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2273
2274 * DWARF 2
2275
2276 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2277 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2278 information.
2279
2280 * Java frontend
2281
2282 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2283 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2284
2285 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2286
2287 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2288 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2289 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2290
2291 * Live range splitting
2292
2293 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2294 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2295 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2296
2297 * Hurd support
2298
2299 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2300 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2301
2302 * ARM Thumb support
2303
2304 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2305 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2306 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2307 accordingly.
2308
2309 * MIPS16 support
2310
2311 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2312 instruction set.
2313
2314 * Overlay support
2315
2316 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2317 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2318 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2319 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2320 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2321 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2322
2323 * info symbol
2324
2325 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2326 the symbol at the specified address.
2327
2328 * Trace support
2329
2330 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2331 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2332 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2333 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2334 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2335
2336 * MIPS simulator
2337
2338 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2339 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2340 of most MIPS variants.
2341
2342 * Sparc simulator
2343
2344 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2345 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2346 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2347
2348 * set architecture
2349
2350 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2351 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2352 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2353 the possible architectures.
2354
2355 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2356
2357 * New native configurations
2358
2359 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2360 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2361 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2362 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2363 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2364 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2365
2366 * New targets
2367
2368 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2369 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2370 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2371 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2372 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2373 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
2374 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2375
2376 * PowerPC simulator
2377
2378 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2379 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2380 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2381 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2382 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2383
2384 * Solaris 2.5
2385
2386 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2387
2388 * Windows 95/NT native
2389
2390 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2391 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2392 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2393 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2394 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2395
2396 * dont-repeat command
2397
2398 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2399 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2400 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2401 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2402
2403 * Send break instead of ^C
2404
2405 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2406 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2407 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2408
2409 * Remote protocol timeout
2410
2411 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2412 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2413 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2414
2415 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2416
2417 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2418 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2419 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2420 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2421 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2422
2423 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2424 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2425 automatically on hpux10.
2426
2427 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2428
2429 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2430
2431 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2432
2433 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2434 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2435 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2436 every character. The default value is 1050.
2437
2438 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2439
2440 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2441 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2442 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2443 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2444 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2445 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2446
2447 * Speedups for remote debugging
2448
2449 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2450 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2451 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2452
2453 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2454
2455 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2456 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2457
2458 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2459
2460 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2461
2462 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2463 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2464
2465 * Remote targets use caching
2466
2467 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2468 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2469 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2470 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2471 off' turns the the data cache off.
2472
2473 * Remote targets may have threads
2474
2475 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2476 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2477 gdb/remote.c for details.
2478
2479 * NetROM support
2480
2481 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2482 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2483 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2484 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2485 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2486 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2487 sequence is something like
2488
2489 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2490 load <prog>
2491 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2492
2493 * Macintosh host
2494
2495 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2496 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2497 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2498 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2499 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2500 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2501 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2502 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2503
2504 * Autoconf
2505
2506 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2507 but does simplify configuration and building.
2508
2509 * hpux10
2510
2511 GDB now supports hpux10.
2512
2513 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2514
2515 * New native configurations
2516
2517 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2518 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2519 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2520 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2521
2522 * New targets
2523
2524 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2525 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2526 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2527 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2528 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2529
2530 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2531
2532 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2533 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2534 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2535 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2536 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2537
2538 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2539
2540 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2541 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2542 trivial example:
2543 define adder
2544 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2545
2546 To execute the command use:
2547 adder 1 2 3
2548
2549 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2550 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2551 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2552
2553 * New `if' and `while' commands
2554
2555 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2556 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2557 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2558 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2559 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2560 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2561 if the expression is zero.
2562
2563 * Fortran source language mode
2564
2565 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2566 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2567 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2568 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2569 Fortran compilers.
2570
2571 * Better HPUX support
2572
2573 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2574 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2575 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2576 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2577 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2578
2579 adb -w a.out
2580 __dld_flags?W 0x5
2581 control-d
2582
2583 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2584 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2585
2586 adb -w a.out
2587 __dld_flags?W 0x4
2588 control-d
2589
2590 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2591 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2592 external linkage.
2593
2594 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2595 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2596
2597 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2598
2599 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2600 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2601 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2602 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2603 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2604 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2605
2606 * New DOS host serial code
2607
2608 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2609 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2610 a PC's serial port.
2611
2612 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2613
2614 * New "complete" command
2615
2616 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2617 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2618
2619 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2620
2621 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2622 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2623
2624 * Breakpoint hit counts
2625
2626 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2627 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2628 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2629 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2630 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2631 that breakpoint.
2632
2633 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2634
2635 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2636 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2637 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2638
2639 * Shared library breakpoints
2640
2641 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2642 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2643
2644 * Hardware watchpoints
2645
2646 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2647 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2648
2649 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2650
2651 * Annotations
2652
2653 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2654 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2655
2656 * Improved Irix 5 support
2657
2658 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2659
2660 * Improved HPPA support
2661
2662 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2663
2664 * New native configurations
2665
2666 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2667 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2668 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2669 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2670
2671 * New targets
2672
2673 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2674 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2675 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2676
2677 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2678
2679 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2680 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2681
2682 * Fixes
2683
2684 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2685 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2686
2687 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2688
2689 * Irix 5 is now supported
2690
2691 * HPPA support
2692
2693 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2694 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2695 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2696 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2697 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2698
2699
2700 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2701
2702 * User visible changes:
2703
2704 * Remote Debugging
2705
2706 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2707 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2708 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2709 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2710 debugging info for the mips target).
2711
2712 * DEC Alpha native support
2713
2714 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2715 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2716 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2717 Alpha-specific notes.
2718
2719 * Preliminary thread implementation
2720
2721 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2722
2723 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2724
2725 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2726 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2727 for details).
2728
2729 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2730
2731 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2732 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2733 call methods, ...etc.
2734
2735 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2736
2737 * User visible changes:
2738
2739 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2740 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2741 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2742 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2743
2744 Filename completion now works.
2745
2746 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2747 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2748 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2749
2750 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2751 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2752 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2753 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2754 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2755
2756 * DEC alpha support
2757
2758 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2759 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2760
2761
2762 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2763
2764 * Testsuite
2765
2766 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2767 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2768 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2769
2770 * C++ demangling
2771
2772 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2773 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2774 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2775 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2776 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2777
2778 * Simulators
2779
2780 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2781 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2782 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2783
2784 * New targets supported
2785
2786 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2787 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2788 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2789 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2790 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2791
2792 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2793 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2794 GO32 memory extender.
2795
2796 * New remote protocols
2797
2798 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2799
2800 * New source languages supported
2801
2802 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2803 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2804 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2805
2806
2807 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2808
2809 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2810
2811 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2812 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2813 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2814 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2815 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2816 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2817
2818 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2819
2820 * Faster and better demangling
2821
2822 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2823 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2824 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2825 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2826 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2827 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2828 symbol lookups.
2829
2830 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2831 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2832 compiler does not actually implement.
2833
2834 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2835
2836 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2837 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2838 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2839 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2840 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2841 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2842 fix.
2843
2844 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2845 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2846
2847 * Improved configure script
2848
2849 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2850 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2851 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2852 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2853
2854 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2855 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2856 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2857 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2858 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2859 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2860
2861 * Documentation improvements
2862
2863 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2864 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2865 before submitting changes.
2866
2867 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2868 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2869 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2870 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2871 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2872
2873 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2874 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2875 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2876 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2877 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2878 around this problem.
2879
2880 * New features
2881
2882 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2883 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2884 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2885 the target program.
2886
2887 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2888 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2889
2890 * New native hosts supported
2891
2892 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2893 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2894
2895 * New targets supported
2896
2897 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2898
2899 * New file formats supported
2900
2901 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2902 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2903
2904 * Major bug fixes
2905
2906 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2907
2908 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2909 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2910
2911 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2912 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2913 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2914
2915 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2916 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2917
2918 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2919 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2920 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2921 libraries.
2922
2923 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2924 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2925 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2926 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2927 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2928
2929 * Internal improvements
2930
2931 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2932 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2933
2934 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2935 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2936 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2937 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2938 shared code that handles any of them.
2939
2940 * New command line options
2941
2942 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2943
2944 * Mmalloc licensing
2945
2946 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2947 General Public License.
2948
2949 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2950
2951 * Host/native/target split
2952
2953 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2954 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2955 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2956 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2957 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2958
2959 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2960 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2961 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2962 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2963 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2964 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2965 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2966
2967 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2968 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2969 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2970
2971 * New hosts supported
2972
2973 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2974 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2975 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2976
2977 * New targets supported
2978
2979 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2980 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2981
2982 * New native hosts supported
2983
2984 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2985 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2986 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2987
2988 * New file formats supported
2989
2990 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2991 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2992 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2993
2994 * New commands
2995
2996 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2997 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2998 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2999
3000 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3001
3002 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3003 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3004 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3005 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3006
3007 * C++ improvements
3008
3009 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3010 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3011 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3012
3013 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3014
3015 * Major bug fixes
3016
3017 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3018 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3019 by the compiler.
3020
3021 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3022 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3023
3024 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3025 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3026 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3027 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3028 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3029 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3030
3031 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3032 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3033 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3034 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3035
3036 * AMD 29k support
3037
3038 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3039 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3040 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3041 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3042 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3043
3044 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3045 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3046 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3047 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3048
3049 * Remote interfaces
3050
3051 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3052 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3053 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3054 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3055 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3056 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3057 each instruction being stepped through.
3058
3059 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3060 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3061
3062 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3063 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3064 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3065 processor with a serial port.
3066
3067 * Configuration
3068
3069 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3070 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3071 supported, and what files each one uses.
3072
3073 * Library changes
3074
3075 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3076 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3077 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3078 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3079
3080 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3081 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3082 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3083 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3084
3085 * Documentation
3086
3087 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3088 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3089 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3090 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3091 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3092 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3093
3094 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3095
3096
3097 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3098
3099 * Better support for C++ function names
3100
3101 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3102 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3103 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3104 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3105 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3106
3107 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3108 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3109 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3110 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3111 for the list of formats.
3112
3113 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3114
3115 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3116 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3117 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3118 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3119 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3120 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3121 this problem.)
3122
3123 * New 'maintenance' command
3124
3125 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3126 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3127 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3128
3129 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3130 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3131 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3132 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3133 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3134 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3135
3136 The following commands are new:
3137
3138 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3139 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3140 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3141
3142 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3143
3144 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3145 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3146 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3147 read after argv processing.
3148
3149 * New hosts supported
3150
3151 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3152
3153 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3154
3155 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3156 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3157 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3158 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3159 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3160 It costs extra.
3161
3162 * New targets supported
3163
3164 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3165
3166 * More smarts about finding #include files
3167
3168 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3169 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3170 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3171 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3172 the one that contains your sources.
3173
3174 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3175 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3176 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3177
3178 * Interesting infernals change
3179
3180 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3181 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3182 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3183 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3184
3185 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3186
3187 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3188 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3189 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3190
3191 See the ChangeLog for details.
3192
3193 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3194
3195 * New machines supported (host and target)
3196
3197 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3198
3199 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3200
3201 * New malloc package
3202
3203 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3204 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3205 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3206 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3207 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3208 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3209
3210 * info proc
3211
3212 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3213 'help info proc' for details.
3214
3215 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3216
3217 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3218 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3219 possible.
3220
3221 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3222
3223 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3224 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3225 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3226 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3227 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3228 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3229
3230 * Cross byte order fixes
3231
3232 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3233 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3234
3235 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3236
3237 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3238 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3239 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3240 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3241 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3242 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3243 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3244 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3245 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3246 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3247
3248 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3249 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3250 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3251 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3252
3253 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3254 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3255 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3256 use is:
3257
3258 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3259
3260 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3261 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3262 shared across multiple host platforms.
3263
3264 * longjmp() handling
3265
3266 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3267 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3268 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3269 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3270
3271 * Solaris 2.0
3272
3273 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3274 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3275 reading symbols.
3276
3277 * Bug fixes
3278
3279 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3280 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3281 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3282
3283 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3284
3285 * New machines supported (host and target)
3286
3287 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3288 (except core files)
3289 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3290 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3291
3292 * New machines supported (target)
3293
3294 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3295
3296 * C++ support
3297
3298 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3299 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3300 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3301
3302 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3303 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3304 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3305 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3306 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3307 released.
3308
3309 * New features for SVR4
3310
3311 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3312 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3313 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3314
3315 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3316 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3317 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3318
3319 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3320 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3321
3322 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3323
3324 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3325 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3326 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3327 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3328 same code linked statically.
3329
3330 * New Getopt
3331
3332 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3333 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3334 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3335 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3336 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3337 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3338
3339 * Bugs fixed
3340
3341 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3342 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3343 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3344
3345
3346 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3347
3348 * New machines supported (host and target)
3349
3350 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3351 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3352 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3353
3354 * Almost SCO Unix support
3355
3356 We had hoped to support:
3357 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3358 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3359 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3360 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3361
3362 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3363
3364 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3365 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3366 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3367 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3368 reqired (if any).
3369
3370 * New Readline
3371
3372 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3373 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3374 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3375
3376 * Bugs fixed
3377
3378 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3379 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3380 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3381
3382 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3383
3384 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3385 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3386 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3387
3388 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3389 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3390 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3391 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3392 version 2.
3393
3394 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3395 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3396 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3397 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3398 situation somewhat.
3399
3400 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3401 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3402 methods.
3403
3404 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3405 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3406 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3407
3408
3409 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3410
3411 * Improved configuration
3412
3413 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3414 Porting BFD is simpler.
3415
3416 * Stepping improved
3417
3418 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3419 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3420 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3421 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3422
3423 * Bug fixing
3424
3425 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3426
3427 * New host supported (not target)
3428
3429 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3430
3431
3432 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3433
3434 * Multiple source language support
3435
3436 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3437 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3438 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3439 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3440 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3441 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3442
3443 * GDB and Modula-2
3444
3445 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3446 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3447 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3448 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3449
3450 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3451 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3452 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3453
3454 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3455 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3456
3457 * set write on/off
3458
3459 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3460 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3461 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3462 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3463 effect immediately.
3464
3465 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3466
3467 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3468 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3469 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3470 examining core files.
3471
3472 * set listsize
3473
3474 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3475 The default is 10.
3476
3477 * New machines supported (host and target)
3478
3479 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3480 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3481 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3482
3483 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3484
3485 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3486
3487 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3488
3489 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3490 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3491 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3492
3493 * New remote interfaces
3494
3495 AMD 29000 Adapt
3496 AMD 29000 Minimon
3497
3498
3499 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3500
3501 * New Facilities
3502
3503 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3504
3505 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3506 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3507 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3508 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3509 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3510 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3511 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3512 stub on the target system.
3513
3514 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3515
3516 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3517 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3518 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3519
3520 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3521 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3522
3523
3524 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3525
3526 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3527 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3528
3529 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3530 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3531 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3532
3533 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3534 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3535 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3536 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3537
3538 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3539 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3540 it is already running. Default is ON.
3541
3542 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3543 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3544 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3545 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3546 Default is ON.
3547
3548 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3549 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3550 or the value of the environment variable
3551 GDBHISTFILE.
3552
3553 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3554 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3555 HISTSIZE.
3556
3557 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3558 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3559 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3560
3561 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3562 history expansion will be performed on
3563 command line input. The default is OFF.
3564
3565 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3566 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3567 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3568
3569 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3570 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3571 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3572 variable TERM.
3573
3574 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3575 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3576 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3577 variable TERM.
3578
3579 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3580 ``set width'' instead.
3581
3582 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3583 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3584 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3585 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3586
3587 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3588 is OFF.
3589
3590 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3591 "raw" form if off.
3592
3593 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3594 like instructions.
3595
3596 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3597
3598
3599 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3600
3601 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3602 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3603 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3604 window.
3605
3606
3607 * Support for Shared Libraries
3608
3609 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3610 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3611 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3612 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3613 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3614 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3615 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3616 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3617
3618 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3619 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3620 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3621
3622 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3623
3624
3625 * Watchpoints
3626
3627 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3628 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3629 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3630 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3631 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3632 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3633
3634 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3635
3636 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3637
3638 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3639 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3640 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3641
3642
3643 * C++ multiple inheritance
3644
3645 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3646 for C++ programs.
3647
3648 * C++ exception handling
3649
3650 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3651 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3652 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3653 handler's context).
3654
3655 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3656 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3657 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3658
3659 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3660 current stack frame.
3661
3662
3663 * Minor command changes
3664
3665 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3666 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3667 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3668
3669 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3670 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3671 frames without printing.
3672
3673 * New directory command
3674
3675 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3676 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3677 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3678 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3679 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3680
3681 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3682
3683 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3684 for more details.
3685
3686 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3687 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3688 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3689 where the program that you are debugging will run.
This page took 0.117919 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.