2011-10-20 Phil Muldoon <pmuldoon@redhat.com>
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
5
6 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
7 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
8 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
9 target hardware watchpoint.
10
11 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
12 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
13 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
14 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
15
16 * Python scripting
17
18 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
19 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
20 existing one.
21
22 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
23 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
24 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
25 "off".
26
27 ** A prompt subsitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
28 Python API.
29
30 ** A new command set/show extended-prompt has been added.
31
32 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
33 modules library. This module provides functionality for
34 escape sequentions in prompts (used by set/show
35 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
36 corresponding value.
37
38 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
39 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
40 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
41 on GDB start-up.
42
43 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
44 static_block will return the global and static blocks
45 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
46 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
47
48 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
49
50 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
51 "gdb.breakpoints".
52
53 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
54 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
55 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
56 "some_type.items()".
57
58 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
59 new object file.
60
61 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
62 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
63 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
64 lives.
65
66 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
67 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
68 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
69 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
70 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
71
72 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
73 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
74
75 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
76 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
77 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
78 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
79 use this option to specify where to find it.
80
81 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
82 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
83 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
84 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
85 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
86 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
87 section in the user manual for more details.
88
89 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
90 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
91 become available after that.
92
93 * New commands "info macros", "info definitions",
94 and "alias" have been added.
95
96 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
97 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
98 gcc version 4.7.
99
100 * Changed commands
101
102 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
103 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
104 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
105
106 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
107 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
108 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
109
110 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
111 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
112 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
113 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
114 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
115 is running.
116
117 * New options
118
119 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
120 show print entry-values
121 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
122 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
123 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
124
125 set debug entry-values
126 show debug entry-values
127 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
128 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
129
130 * New remote packets
131
132 QTEnable
133
134 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
135
136 QTDisable
137
138 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
139
140 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
141 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
142
143 * New targets
144
145 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
146
147 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
148
149 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
150
151 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
152
153 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
154 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
155 matches the given regular expression.
156
157 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
158
159 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
160 dumping the instruction opcodes.
161
162 * New command line options
163
164 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
165 This is mostly for testing purposes.
166
167 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
168 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
169
170 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
171 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
172 source path list instead of augmenting it.
173
174 * GDB now understands thread names.
175
176 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
177 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
178
179 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
180 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
181
182 * OpenCL C
183 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
184 has been integrated into GDB.
185
186 * Python scripting
187
188 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
189 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
190 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
191
192 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
193 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
194 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
195 and allows for more dynamic content.
196
197 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
198 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
199 have an is_valid method.
200
201 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
202 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
203 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
204
205 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
206
207 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
208 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
209 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
210 that function like so:
211
212 result = some_value (10,20)
213
214 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
215 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
216 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
217
218 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
219 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
220 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
221 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
222 New function: register_pretty_printer.
223
224 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
225 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
226
227 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
228
229 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
230 selected thread.
231
232 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
233 holds the thread's name.
234
235 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
236 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
237 occurring in the process being debugged.
238 The following events are currently supported:
239 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
240 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
241 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
242
243 * C++ Improvements:
244
245 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
246 instantiation. For example, if you have:
247
248 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
249
250 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
251 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
252 was added to GCC 4.5.
253
254 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
255 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
256 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
257 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
258 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
259 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
260
261 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
262 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
263 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
264 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
265 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
266
267 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
268 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
269 execution to a label.
270
271 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
272 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
273 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
274 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
275
276 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
277 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
278 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
279 of scope.
280
281 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
282
283 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
284 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
285 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
286 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
287 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
288 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
289
290 (gdb) info threads
291 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
292
293 While now you see this:
294
295 (gdb) info threads
296 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
297
298 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
299 dumps.
300
301 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
302 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
303 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
304 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
305
306 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
307 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
308 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
309 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
310 section in the user manual for more details.
311
312 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
313
314 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
315 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
316
317 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
318
319 * New native configurations
320
321 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
322
323 * New targets:
324
325 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
326
327 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
328 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
329 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
330 in the GDB user manual.
331
332 * Guile support was removed.
333
334 * New features in the GNU simulator
335
336 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
337
338 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
339
340 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
341
342 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
343
344 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
345 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
346 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
347 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
348 was always disabled for such configurations.
349
350 * C++ Improvements:
351
352 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
353
354 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
355 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
356 For example:
357 namespace A
358 {
359 class B { };
360 void foo (B) { }
361 }
362 ...
363 A::B b
364 foo(b)
365 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
366 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
367 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
368
369 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
370
371 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
372 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
373 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
374 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
375 entry.
376 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
377 mentioned flavors of operators.
378
379 ** static const class members
380
381 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
382 class definition has been fixed.
383
384 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
385
386 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
387 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
388 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
389 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
390 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
391 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
392
393 * Static tracepoints
394
395 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
396 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
397 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
398 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
399 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
400 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
401 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
402 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
403 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
404 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
405 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
406 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
407 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
408 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
409 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
410 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
411 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
412 the "New remote packets" section below.
413
414 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
415
416 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
417 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
418 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
419 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
420
421 * Observer mode
422
423 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
424 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
425 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
426 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
427 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
428 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
429 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
430
431 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
432 current thread.
433
434 * New remote packets
435
436 qGetTIBAddr
437
438 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
439
440 qRelocInsn
441
442 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
443 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
444 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
445 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
446 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
447 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
448
449 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
450
451 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
452
453 qTSTMat
454
455 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
456 program.
457
458 qXfer:statictrace:read
459
460 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
461 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
462 to gdb's qSupported query.
463
464 QAllow
465
466 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
467
468 QTDPsrc
469
470 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
471 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
472
473 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
474 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
475 a directory.
476
477 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
478
479 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
480 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
481 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
482 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
483
484 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
485 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
486 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
487 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
488 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
489 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
490 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
491
492 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
493 for static tracepoints support.
494
495 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
496
497 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
498 it understands register description.
499
500 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
501
502 * X86 general purpose registers
503
504 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
505 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
506 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
507 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
508 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
509
510 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
511 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
512 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
513 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
514 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
515 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
516
517 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
518 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
519 in the specified file.
520
521 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
522 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
523 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
524 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
525 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
526 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
527 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
528 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
529 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
530 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
531
532 * New commands
533
534 eval template, expressions...
535 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
536 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
537
538 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
539 show target-file-system-kind
540 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
541 names.
542
543 save breakpoints <filename>
544 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
545 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
546 definitions, use the `source' command.
547
548 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
549 is now deprecated.
550
551 info static-tracepoint-markers
552 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
553
554 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
555 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
556 function, line, address, or marker ID.
557
558 set observer on|off
559 show observer
560 Enable and disable observer mode.
561
562 set may-write-registers on|off
563 set may-write-memory on|off
564 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
565 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
566 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
567 set may-interrupt on|off
568 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
569 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
570 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
571 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
572 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
573 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
574 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
575
576 set record memory-query on|off
577 show record memory-query
578 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
579 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
580
581 * Changed commands
582
583 disassemble
584 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
585
586 * Python scripting
587
588 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
589 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
590 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
591 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
592 GDB using Python' in the manual.
593
594 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
595 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
596 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
597 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
598
599 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
600 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
601
602 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
603
604 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
605
606 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
607
608 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
609 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
610 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
611
612 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
613 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
614 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
615 regular breakpoints.
616
617 * New targets
618
619 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
620
621 * D language support.
622 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
623 language.
624
625 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
626 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
627 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
628 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
629 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
630
631 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
632 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
633 conditions of the form:
634
635 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
636
637 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
638 interface mentioned above.
639
640 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
641
642 * C++ Improvements
643
644 ** Namespace Support
645
646 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
647 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
648 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
649 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
650 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
651
652 ** Bug Fixes
653
654 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
655 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
656 qualified name.
657
658 ** Cast Operators
659
660 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
661 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
662
663 * New targets
664
665 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
666 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
667
668 * New Simulators
669
670 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
671 Renesas RX rx
672
673 * Multi-program debugging.
674
675 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
676 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
677 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
678 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
679 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
680 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
681 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
682 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
683
684 * New tracing features
685
686 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
687
688 ** Trace state variables
689
690 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
691 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
692 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
693 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
694 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
695 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
696 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
697 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
698 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
699 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
700
701 ** Fast tracepoints
702
703 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
704 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
705 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
706 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
707 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
708 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
709 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
710 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
711 the regular trace command.
712
713 ** Disconnected tracing
714
715 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
716 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
717 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
718 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
719 connection is lost unexpectedly.
720
721 ** Trace files
722
723 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
724 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
725 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
726 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
727 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
728 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
729 <name>".
730
731 ** Circular trace buffer
732
733 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
734 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
735 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
736 not be available for all target agents.
737
738 * Changed commands
739
740 disassemble
741 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
742 the arguments to be comma-separated.
743
744 info variables
745 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
746 which only declare a variable are not shown.
747
748 source
749 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
750 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
751 support.
752
753 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
754 "set script-extension" (see below).
755
756 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
757
758 record save [<FILENAME>]
759 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
760 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
761
762 record restore <FILENAME>
763 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
764 earlier time, for replay debugging.
765
766 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
767 Add a new inferior.
768
769 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
770 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
771 inferior has loaded.
772
773 remove-inferior ID
774 Remove an inferior.
775
776 maint info program-spaces
777 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
778
779 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
780 show remote interrupt-sequence
781 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
782 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
783 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
784 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
785 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
786
787 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
788 show remote interrupt-on-connect
789 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
790 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
791 Linux kernel.
792
793 set remotebreak [on | off]
794 show remotebreak
795 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
796
797 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
798 Create or modify a trace state variable.
799
800 info tvariables
801 List trace state variables and their values.
802
803 delete tvariable $NAME ...
804 Delete one or more trace state variables.
805
806 teval EXPR, ...
807 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
808 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
809
810 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
811 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
812
813 * New expression syntax
814
815 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
816 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
817
818 * New options
819
820 set follow-exec-mode new|same
821 show follow-exec-mode
822 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
823 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
824 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
825
826 set default-collect EXPR, ...
827 show default-collect
828 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
829 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
830 such as registers or a critical global variable.
831
832 set disconnected-tracing
833 show disconnected-tracing
834 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
835 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
836 upon disconnection.
837
838 set circular-trace-buffer
839 show circular-trace-buffer
840 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
841 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
842 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
843 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
844
845 set script-extension off|soft|strict
846 show script-extension
847 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
848 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
849 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
850 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
851 evaluation failed.
852 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
853
854 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
855 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
856 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
857 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
858 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
859 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
860 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
861 is on.
862
863 * Python API Improvements
864
865 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
866 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
867 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
868
869 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
870 `is_base_class' attribute.
871
872 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
873
874 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
875 evaluate an expression.
876
877 * New remote packets
878
879 QTDV
880 Define a trace state variable.
881
882 qTV
883 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
884
885 QTDisconnected
886 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
887
888 QTBuffer:circular
889 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
890
891 qTfP, qTsP
892 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
893
894 * Bug fixes
895
896 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
897
898 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
899 much more reliable. In particular:
900 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
901 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
902 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
903 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
904 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
905 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
906 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
907 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
908 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
909 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
910 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
911 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
912 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
913 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
914 non-threaded programs.
915
916 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
917 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
918 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
919 executable program.
920
921 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
922
923 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
924 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
925 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
926 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
927 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
928
929 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
930 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
931 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
932 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
933 for tracepoint actions.
934
935 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
936 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
937 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
938
939 * Process record and replay
940
941 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
942 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
943 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
944 execute commands.
945
946 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
947 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
948 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
949 reverse execution.
950
951 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
952 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
953 2.6.28 or later.
954
955 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
956 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
957 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
958 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
959 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
960 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
961 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
962 the installation instructions for more information.
963
964 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
965 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
966 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
967 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
968
969 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
970 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
971
972 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
973 now complete on file names.
974
975 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
976 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
977 For instance, consider:
978
979 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
980 # struct example variable;
981 (gdb) p variable.
982
983 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
984 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
985
986 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
987 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
988
989 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
990 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
991 macros.
992
993 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
994 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
995 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
996
997 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
998 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
999 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1000 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1001
1002 * New remote packets
1003
1004 qSearch:memory:
1005 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1006
1007 QStartNoAckMode
1008 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1009 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1010 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1011
1012 vKill
1013 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1014 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1015
1016 qXfer:osdata:read
1017 Obtains additional operating system information
1018
1019 qXfer:siginfo:read
1020 qXfer:siginfo:write
1021 Read or write additional signal information.
1022
1023 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1024
1025 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1026 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1027 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1028
1029 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1030 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1031
1032 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1033 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1034 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1035
1036 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1037 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1038
1039 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1040
1041 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1042
1043 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1044 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1045
1046 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1047 list of section offsets.
1048
1049 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1050 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1051 have also been fixed.
1052
1053 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1054 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1055 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1056
1057 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1058 example, given:
1059
1060 template<typename T> class C { };
1061 C<char const *> c;
1062
1063 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1064
1065 ptype C<char const *>
1066 ptype C<char const*>
1067 ptype C<const char *>
1068 ptype C<const char*>
1069
1070 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1071
1072 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1073 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1074
1075 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1076 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1077 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1078
1079 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1080 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1081
1082 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1083 gdbserver.
1084
1085 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1086 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1087
1088 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1089 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1090 as appropriate.
1091
1092 * Python scripting
1093
1094 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1095 available is determined at configure time.
1096
1097 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1098
1099 * Ada tasking support
1100
1101 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1102 been introduced:
1103
1104 info tasks
1105 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1106 info task N
1107 Print detailed information about task number N.
1108 task
1109 Print the task number of the current task.
1110 task N
1111 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1112
1113 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1114 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1115
1116 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1117
1118 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1119 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1120 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1121 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1122 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1123 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1124 below.
1125
1126 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1127 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1128 information.
1129
1130 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1131 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1132 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1133 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1134 more information.
1135
1136 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1137
1138 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1139 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1140 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1141 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1142 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1143
1144 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1145 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1146 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1147 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1148 --enable-targets configure option.
1149
1150 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1151
1152 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1153 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1154 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1155 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1156 section in the user manual for more information.
1157
1158 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1159 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1160 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1161 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1162 extensions on linux targets.
1163
1164 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1165
1166 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1167 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1168 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1169 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1170 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1171 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1172 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1173 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1174 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1175
1176 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1177 val1 [, val2, ...]
1178 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1179
1180 maint set python print-stack
1181 maint show python print-stack
1182 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1183
1184 python [CODE]
1185 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1186
1187 macro define
1188 macro list
1189 macro undef
1190 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1191 interactively.
1192
1193 info os processes
1194 Show operating system information about processes.
1195
1196 info inferiors
1197 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1198
1199 inferior NUM
1200 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1201
1202 detach inferior NUM
1203 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1204
1205 kill inferior NUM
1206 Kill inferior number NUM.
1207
1208 * New options
1209
1210 set spu stop-on-load
1211 show spu stop-on-load
1212 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1213
1214 set spu auto-flush-cache
1215 show spu auto-flush-cache
1216 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1217 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1218
1219 set sh calling-convention
1220 show sh calling-convention
1221 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1222
1223 set debug timestamp
1224 show debug timestamp
1225 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1226
1227 set disassemble-next-line
1228 show disassemble-next-line
1229 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1230 the debuggee stops.
1231
1232 set remote noack-packet
1233 show remote noack-packet
1234 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1235 under "New remote packets."
1236
1237 set remote query-attached-packet
1238 show remote query-attached-packet
1239 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1240
1241 set remote read-siginfo-object
1242 show remote read-siginfo-object
1243 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1244 packet.
1245
1246 set remote write-siginfo-object
1247 show remote write-siginfo-object
1248 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1249 packet.
1250
1251 set remote reverse-continue
1252 show remote reverse-continue
1253 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1254
1255 set remote reverse-step
1256 show remote reverse-step
1257 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1258
1259 set displaced-stepping
1260 show displaced-stepping
1261 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1262 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1263 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1264
1265 set debug displaced
1266 show debug displaced
1267 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1268
1269 maint set internal-error
1270 maint show internal-error
1271 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1272
1273 maint set internal-warning
1274 maint show internal-warning
1275 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1276
1277 set exec-wrapper
1278 show exec-wrapper
1279 unset exec-wrapper
1280 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1281
1282 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1283 show multiple-symbols
1284 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1285 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1286 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1287
1288 set breakpoint always-inserted
1289 show breakpoint always-inserted
1290 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1291 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1292 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1293
1294 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1295 show arm fallback-mode
1296 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1297 show arm force-mode
1298 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1299 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1300 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1301 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1302
1303 set disable-randomization
1304 show disable-randomization
1305 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1306 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1307 multiple debugging sessions.
1308
1309 set non-stop
1310 show non-stop
1311 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1312 a breakpoint.
1313
1314 set target-async
1315 show target-async
1316 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1317 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1318 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1319 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1320
1321 set target-wide-charset
1322 show target-wide-charset
1323 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1324 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1325
1326 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1327 show tcp auto-retry
1328 set tcp connect-timeout
1329 show tcp connect-timeout
1330 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1331 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1332 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1333
1334 set libthread-db-search-path
1335 show libthread-db-search-path
1336 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1337 libthread_db.
1338
1339 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1340 show schedule-multiple
1341 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1342 the current process.
1343
1344 set stack-cache
1345 show stack-cache
1346 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1347 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1348 affecting correctness.
1349
1350 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1351 show interactive-mode
1352 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1353 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1354 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1355 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1356 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1357
1358 * Removed commands
1359
1360 info forks
1361 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1362 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1363 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1364 command.
1365
1366 fork NUM
1367 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1368 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1369 alias for the `fork' command.
1370
1371 process PID
1372 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1373 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1374 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1375
1376 delete fork NUM
1377 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1378 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1379 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1380 fork' command.
1381
1382 detach fork NUM
1383 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1384 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1385 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1386 fork' command.
1387
1388 * New native configurations
1389
1390 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1391
1392 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1393
1394 * New targets
1395
1396 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1397 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1398 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1399 S+core 3 score-*-*
1400
1401 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1402 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1403
1404 * Removed commands
1405
1406 catch load
1407 catch unload
1408 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1409
1410 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1411
1412 * New native configurations
1413
1414 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1415 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1416
1417 * New targets
1418
1419 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1420 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1421
1422 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1423
1424 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1425 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1426 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1427 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1428
1429 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1430 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1431
1432 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1433 is resolved.
1434
1435 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1436 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1437 and in inlined functions.
1438
1439 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1440 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1441 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1442
1443 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1444
1445 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1446 registers on PowerPC targets.
1447
1448 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1449 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1450
1451 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1452 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1453
1454 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1455 extended-remote mode.
1456
1457 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1458 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1459 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1460 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1461
1462 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1463 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1464 target architectures.
1465
1466 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1467 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1468 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1469 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1470
1471 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1472 breakpoints now.
1473
1474 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1475 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1476 include:
1477 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1478 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1479 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1480 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1481 of an assignment
1482 - Improved command completion in Ada
1483 - Several bug fixes
1484
1485 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1486 process.
1487
1488 * New commands
1489
1490 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1491 show print frame-arguments
1492 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1493 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1494
1495 remote put
1496 remote get
1497 remote delete
1498 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1499
1500 * New MI commands
1501
1502 -target-file-put
1503 -target-file-get
1504 -target-file-delete
1505 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1506
1507 * New remote packets
1508
1509 vFile:open:
1510 vFile:close:
1511 vFile:pread:
1512 vFile:pwrite:
1513 vFile:unlink:
1514 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1515
1516 vAttach
1517 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1518 mode.
1519
1520 vRun
1521 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1522
1523 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1524
1525 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1526 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1527 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1528
1529 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1530 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1531 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1532
1533 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1534 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1535 is not supported.
1536
1537 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1538 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1539
1540 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1541 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1542
1543 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1544
1545 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1546 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1547 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1548
1549 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1550 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1551
1552 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1553 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1554 as strings.
1555
1556 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1557 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1558 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1559
1560 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1561 iWMMXt coprocessor.
1562
1563 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1564 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1565 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1566
1567 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1568
1569 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1570
1571 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1572 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1573 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1574
1575 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1576 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1577
1578 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1579 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1580 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1581 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1582 Windows and SymbianOS).
1583
1584 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1585 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1586
1587 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1588 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1589
1590 * New commands
1591
1592 set remoteflow
1593 show remoteflow
1594 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1595 when debugging using remote targets.
1596
1597 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1598 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1599 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1600 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1601 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1602 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1603 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1604
1605 set breakpoint auto-hw
1606 show breakpoint auto-hw
1607 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1608 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1609 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1610 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1611 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1612 including "next" and "finish".
1613
1614 catch exception
1615 catch exception unhandled
1616 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1617
1618 catch assert
1619 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1620
1621 set sysroot
1622 show sysroot
1623 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1624 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1625 an alias to "set sysroot".
1626
1627 info spu
1628 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1629 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1630 architecture.
1631
1632 * New native configurations
1633
1634 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1635
1636 set tdesc filename
1637 unset tdesc filename
1638 show tdesc filename
1639 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1640 not query the target for its built-in description.
1641
1642 * New targets
1643
1644 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1645 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1646 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1647
1648 * New remote packets
1649
1650 QPassSignals:
1651 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1652 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1653
1654 qXfer:features:read:
1655 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1656 features.
1657
1658 qXfer:spu:read:
1659 qXfer:spu:write:
1660 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1661 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1662
1663 qXfer:libraries:read:
1664 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1665 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1666 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1667 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1668
1669 * Removed targets
1670
1671 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1672
1673 alpha*-*-osf1*
1674 alpha*-*-osf2*
1675 d10v-*-*
1676 hppa*-*-hiux*
1677 i[34567]86-ncr-*
1678 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1679 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1680 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1681 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1682 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1683 i[34567]86-*-sco*
1684 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1685 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1686 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1687 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1688 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1689 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1690 i[34567]86-*-isc*
1691 m68*-cisco*-*
1692 m68*-tandem-*
1693 mips*-*-pe
1694 rs6000-*-lynxos*
1695 sh*-*-pe
1696
1697 * Other removed features
1698
1699 target abug
1700 target cpu32bug
1701 target est
1702 target rom68k
1703
1704 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1705
1706 target hms
1707 target e7000
1708 target sh3
1709 target sh3e
1710
1711 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1712 H8/300.
1713
1714 target ocd
1715
1716 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1717 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1718 interfaces.
1719
1720 DWARF 1 support
1721
1722 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1723 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1724
1725 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1726
1727 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1728 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1729 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1730 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1731
1732 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1733
1734 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1735 in debugging information.
1736
1737 Scheme support
1738
1739 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1740 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1741
1742 set mips stack-arg-size
1743 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1744
1745 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1746
1747 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1748
1749 * New targets
1750
1751 Xtensa xtensa-elf
1752 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1753
1754 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1755 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1756 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1757
1758 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1759 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1760 supported.
1761
1762 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1763 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1764
1765 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1766 stub provides the required support.
1767
1768 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1769 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1770
1771 * New commands
1772
1773 set substitute-path
1774 unset substitute-path
1775 show substitute-path
1776 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1777 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1778 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1779 between compilation and debugging.
1780
1781 set trace-commands
1782 show trace-commands
1783 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1784 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1785 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1786
1787 * REMOVED features
1788
1789 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1790
1791 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1792 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1793
1794 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1795
1796 * New remote packets
1797
1798 qSupported:
1799 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1800 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1801 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1802 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1803 target.
1804
1805 qXfer:auxv:read:
1806 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1807 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1808
1809 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1810 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1811 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1812
1813 vFlashErase:
1814 vFlashWrite:
1815 vFlashDone:
1816 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1817
1818 * Removed remote packets
1819
1820 qPart:auxv:read:
1821 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1822 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1823
1824 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1825
1826 * New targets
1827
1828 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1829
1830 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1831
1832 * New commands
1833
1834 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1835 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1836
1837 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1838
1839 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1840
1841 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1842 previously saved state.
1843
1844 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1845
1846 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1847
1848 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1849 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1850
1851 info forks List forks of the user program that
1852 are available to be debugged.
1853
1854 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1855 forks of the user program that are
1856 available to be debugged.
1857
1858 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1859 that are available to be debugged (and
1860 kill the forked process).
1861
1862 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1863 that are available to be debugged (and
1864 allow the process to continue).
1865
1866 * New architecture
1867
1868 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1869
1870 * Improved Windows host support
1871
1872 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1873 native console support, and remote communications using either
1874 network sockets or serial ports.
1875
1876 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1877
1878 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1879 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1880 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1881 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1882 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1883 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1884
1885 * REMOVED features
1886
1887 The ARM rdi-share module.
1888
1889 The Netware NLM debug server.
1890
1891 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1892
1893 * New native configurations
1894
1895 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1896 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1897
1898 * New targets
1899
1900 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1901
1902 * New command line options
1903
1904 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1905 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1906 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1907 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1908 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1909 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1910 with the --command (-x) option.
1911
1912 * Deprecated commands removed
1913
1914 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1915 removed:
1916
1917 Command Replacement
1918 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1919 othernames set arm disassembler
1920 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1921 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1922 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1923 regs info registers
1924
1925 * New BSD user-level threads support
1926
1927 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1928 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1929 configurations are:
1930
1931 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1932 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1933 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1934
1935 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1936 are not yet supported.
1937
1938 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1939 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1940
1941 * REMOVED configurations and files
1942
1943 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1944 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1945 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1946
1947 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1948
1949 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1950 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1951 behavior.
1952
1953 * VAX floating point support
1954
1955 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1956
1957 * User-defined command support
1958
1959 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1960 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1961 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1962
1963 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1964
1965 * New command line option
1966
1967 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1968 debugging.
1969
1970 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1971
1972 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1973 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1974 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1975 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1976 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1977
1978 * Internationalization
1979
1980 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1981 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1982 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1983
1984 * Ada
1985
1986 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1987 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1988 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1989
1990 * New native configurations
1991
1992 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1993
1994 * Remote 'p' packet
1995
1996 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1997 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1998
1999 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2000
2001 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2002 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2003 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2004 i386 application).
2005
2006 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2007 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2008 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2009 configurations:
2010
2011 hppa-*-hpux
2012 ia64-*-aix
2013 mips-*-irix*
2014 *-*-lynx
2015 mips-*-linux-gnu
2016 sds protocol
2017 xdr protocol
2018 powerpc bdm protocol
2019
2020 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2021 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2022
2023 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2024
2025 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2026 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2027 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2028 permanently REMOVED.
2029
2030 h8300-*-*
2031 mcore-*-*
2032 mn10300-*-*
2033 ns32k-*-*
2034 sh64-*-*
2035 v850-*-*
2036
2037 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2038
2039 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2040
2041 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2042 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2043 been fixed.
2044
2045 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2046
2047 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2048 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2049 IRIX long double values).
2050
2051 * VAX and "next"
2052
2053 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2054 command. This problem has been fixed.
2055
2056 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2057
2058 * Fix for ``many threads''
2059
2060 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2061 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2062 error message:
2063
2064 ptrace: No such process.
2065 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2066
2067 This problem has been fixed.
2068
2069 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2070
2071 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2072 GDB to dump core).
2073
2074 * New ``start'' command.
2075
2076 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2077
2078 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2079
2080 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2081 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2082 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2083
2084 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2085 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2086 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2087 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2088 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2089 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2090 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2091 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2092 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2093
2094 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2095
2096 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2097 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2098 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2099 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2100 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2101
2102 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2103 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2104 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2105
2106 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2107
2108 * New native configurations
2109
2110 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2111 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2112 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2113 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2114 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2115 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2116 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2117
2118 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2119
2120 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2121 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2122 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2123 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2124 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2125 work, was also included.
2126
2127 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2128 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2129
2130 h8300-*-*
2131 mcore-*-*
2132 mn10300-*-*
2133 ns32k-*-*
2134 sh64-*-*
2135 v850-*-*
2136 xstormy16-*-*
2137
2138 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2139 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2140
2141 * REMOVED configurations and files
2142
2143 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2144 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2145 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2146 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2147 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2148 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2149 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2150 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2151 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2152 sonymips mips-sony-*
2153 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2154
2155 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2156
2157 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2158
2159 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2160 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2161 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2162 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2163 with GDB".
2164
2165 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2166
2167 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2168 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2169 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2170 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2171 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2172 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2173 are created.
2174
2175 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2176
2177 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2178
2179 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2180 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2181 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2182
2183 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2184
2185 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2186 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2187
2188 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2189
2190 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2191 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2192 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2193
2194 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2195
2196 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2197 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2198
2199 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2200
2201 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2202 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2203 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2204
2205 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2206
2207 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2208 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2209 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2210
2211 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2212
2213 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2214
2215 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2216 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2217
2218 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2219
2220 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2221 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2222 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2223 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2224
2225 * Revised SPARC target
2226
2227 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2228 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2229 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2230 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2231 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2232
2233 * New C++ demangler
2234
2235 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2236 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2237 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2238 programs.
2239
2240 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2241
2242 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2243 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2244 encountered these.
2245
2246 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2247
2248 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2249 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2250 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2251 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2252 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2253 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2254 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2255 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2256 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2257
2258 * New native configurations
2259
2260 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2261 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2262 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2263 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2264 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2265
2266 * New debugging protocols
2267
2268 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2269
2270 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2271
2272 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2273 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2274 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2275
2276 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2277
2278 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2279 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2280 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2281 permanently REMOVED.
2282
2283 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2284 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2285 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2286 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2287 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2288 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2289 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2290 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2291 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2292 sonymips mips-sony-*
2293 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2294
2295 * REMOVED configurations and files
2296
2297 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2298 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2299 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2300 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2301 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2302 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2303 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2304 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2305 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2306 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2307 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2308 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2309 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2310 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2311 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2312 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2313 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2314
2315 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2316
2317 * Objective-C
2318
2319 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2320 integrated into GDB.
2321
2322 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2323
2324 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2325 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2326 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2327 backtraces.
2328
2329 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2330 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2331 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2332
2333 * Hosted file I/O.
2334
2335 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2336 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2337 remote protocol documentation for details.
2338
2339 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2340
2341 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2342 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2343 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2344 ppc32 on ppc64).
2345
2346 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2347
2348 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2349 per-thread variables.
2350
2351 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2352
2353 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2354 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2355
2356 * Separate debug info.
2357
2358 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2359 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2360 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2361 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2362 and optional debug files.
2363
2364 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2365
2366 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2367 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2368 debugger.
2369
2370 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2371 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2372
2373 * Java
2374
2375 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2376 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2377 considered "useable".
2378
2379 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2380
2381 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2382 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2383 kernel.
2384
2385 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2386
2387 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2388 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2389
2390 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2391
2392 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2393 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2394 command.
2395
2396 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2397
2398 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2399 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2400
2401 * Profiling support
2402
2403 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2404 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2405 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2406 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2407 data, for more informative profiling results.
2408
2409 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2410
2411 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2412 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2413 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2414
2415 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2416 removed.
2417
2418 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2419 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2420 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2421 in a subsequent -var-update.
2422
2423 * New native configurations.
2424
2425 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2426
2427 * Multi-arched targets.
2428
2429 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2430 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2431
2432 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2433
2434 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2435 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2436 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2437 permanently REMOVED.
2438
2439 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2440 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2441 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2442 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2443 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2444 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2445 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2446 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2447 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2448 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2449 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2450 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2451
2452 * REMOVED configurations and files
2453
2454 V850EA ISA
2455 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2456 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2457 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2458 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2459 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2460 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2461 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2462 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2463 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2464 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2465 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2466 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2467 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2468
2469 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2470
2471 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2472 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2473 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2474 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2475 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2476
2477 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2478
2479 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2480
2481 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2482 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2483 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2484 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2485 shared libs like mad''.
2486
2487 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2488
2489 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2490 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2491 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2492 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2493
2494 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2495
2496 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2497 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2498 they expand.
2499
2500 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2501 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2502
2503 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2504 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2505
2506 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2507 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2508 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2509 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2510
2511 * Multi-arched targets.
2512
2513 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2514 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2515 NEC V850 v850-*-*
2516 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2517 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2518 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2519
2520 * New targets.
2521
2522 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2523
2524
2525 * New native configurations
2526
2527 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2528 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2529 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2530 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2531
2532 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2533
2534 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2535 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2536 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2537 permanently REMOVED.
2538
2539 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2540 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2541 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2542 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2543 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2544 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2545 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2546 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2547 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2548 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2549 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2550 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2551 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2552
2553 * OBSOLETE languages
2554
2555 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2556
2557 * REMOVED configurations and files
2558
2559 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2560 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2561 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2562 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2563 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2564
2565 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2566
2567 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2568
2569 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2570 commands. The default is 1024.
2571
2572 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2573
2574 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2575
2576 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2577
2578 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2579 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2580 from a file into memory (restore).
2581
2582 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2583
2584 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2585 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2586 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2587
2588 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2589
2590 * New targets.
2591
2592 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2593
2594 * Bug fixes
2595
2596 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2597 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2598 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2599
2600 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2601 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2602 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2603
2604 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2605 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2606 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2607
2608 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2609 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2610 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2611
2612 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2613
2614 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2615
2616 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2617 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2618 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2619 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2620 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2621 (notably embedded) targets.
2622
2623 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2624
2625 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2626 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2627 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2628 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2629
2630 * New command line option
2631
2632 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2633
2634 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2635
2636 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2637 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2638 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2639 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2640 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2641 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2642 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2643 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2644 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2645 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2646
2647 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2648
2649 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2650 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2651
2652 * New native configurations
2653
2654 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2655 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2656 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2657 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2658
2659 * New targets
2660
2661 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2662
2663 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2664
2665 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2666 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2667 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2668 permanently REMOVED.
2669
2670 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2671 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2672 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2673 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2674 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2675
2676 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2677
2678 * REMOVED configurations and files
2679
2680 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2681 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2682 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2683 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2684 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2685 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2686 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2687 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2688 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2689 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2690 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2691 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2692 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2693
2694 * Changes to command line processing
2695
2696 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2697 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2698
2699 * Changes to key bindings
2700
2701 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2702
2703 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2704
2705 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2706
2707 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2708 corrupted.
2709
2710 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2711
2712 Numerous documentation fixes.
2713
2714 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2715
2716 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2717
2718 * New native configurations
2719
2720 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2721 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2722 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2723 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2724 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2725 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2726
2727 * New targets
2728
2729 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2730 CRIS cris-axis
2731 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2732
2733 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2734
2735 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2736 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2737 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2738 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2739 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2740 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2741 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2742 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2743 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2744 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2745 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2746 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2747 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2748 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2749
2750 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2751 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2752
2753 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2754 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2755 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2756 permanently REMOVED.
2757
2758 * REMOVED configurations and files
2759
2760 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2761 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2762 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2763 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2764 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
2765 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
2766
2767 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2768
2769 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2770 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2771 present.
2772
2773 * Other news:
2774
2775 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2776
2777 * The MI enabled by default.
2778
2779 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2780 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2781 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2782 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2783 which is now deprecated.
2784
2785 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2786
2787 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2788 main features are supported:
2789
2790 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2791
2792 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2793 extension;
2794
2795 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2796
2797 - a Pascal expression parser.
2798
2799 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2800
2801 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2802
2803 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2804
2805 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2806 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2807
2808 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2809
2810 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2811
2812 * Changes in completion.
2813
2814 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2815 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2816 users expect at the shell prompt.
2817
2818 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2819 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2820 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2821 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2822 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2823 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2824 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2825
2826 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2827
2828 * New platform-independent commands:
2829
2830 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2831 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2832 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2833
2834 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2835
2836 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2837 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2838 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2839
2840 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2841
2842 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2843 multi-threaded programs though.
2844
2845 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2846
2847 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2848
2849 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2850 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2851 supported.)
2852
2853 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2854
2855 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2856 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2857 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2858 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2859 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2860 registers.
2861
2862 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2863 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2864 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2865
2866 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2867
2868 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2869 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2870
2871 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2872 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2873 IDT.
2874
2875 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2876 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2877 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2878 a given linear address.
2879
2880 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2881 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2882 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2883
2884 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2885
2886 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2887
2888 * Changes in documentation.
2889
2890 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2891 Documentation License.
2892
2893 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2894 manual.
2895
2896 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2897
2898 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2899 manual.
2900
2901 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2902 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2903 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2904
2905 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2906
2907 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2908 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2909 contents of this file.
2910
2911 * gdba.el deleted
2912
2913 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2914
2915 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2916
2917 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2918
2919 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2920 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2921 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2922 greater level of detail.
2923
2924 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2925
2926 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2927 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2928 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2929 written.
2930
2931 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2932
2933 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2934 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2935 machines ``out of the box''.
2936
2937 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2938 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2939 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2940 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2941 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2942
2943 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2944 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2945 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2946 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2947 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2948
2949 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2950 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2951 also works.
2952
2953 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2954 GDB.
2955
2956 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2957 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2958 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2959 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2960
2961 * New native configurations
2962
2963 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2964 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2965
2966 * New targets
2967
2968 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2969 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2970 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2971 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2972
2973 * OBSOLETE configurations
2974
2975 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2976 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2977 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2978 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2979 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
2980
2981 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2982 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2983 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2984 be permanently REMOVED.
2985
2986 * Gould support removed
2987
2988 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2989
2990 * New features for SVR4
2991
2992 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2993 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2994 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2995
2996 * Many C++ enhancements
2997
2998 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2999 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3000
3001 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3002
3003 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3004 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3005 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3006 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3007
3008 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3009 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3010
3011 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3012
3013 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3014 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3015 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3016
3017 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3018 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3019
3020 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3021
3022 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3023 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3024 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3025
3026 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3027
3028 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3029 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3030 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3031
3032 * ``apropos'' command added.
3033
3034 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3035 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3036 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3037
3038 * New MI interface
3039
3040 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3041 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3042 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3043 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3044 enabled by configuring with:
3045
3046 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3047
3048 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3049
3050 * New native configurations
3051
3052 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3053 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3054 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3055
3056 * New targets
3057
3058 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3059 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3060 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3061
3062 * OBSOLETE configurations
3063
3064 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3065
3066 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3067 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3068 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3069 be permanently REMOVED.
3070
3071 * ANSI/ISO C
3072
3073 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3074 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3075 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3076 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3077 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3078 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3079 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3080 already.
3081
3082 * Readline 2.2
3083
3084 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3085
3086 * set extension-language
3087
3088 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3089 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3090 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3091 set extension-language .c c++
3092 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3093 and their associated languages.
3094
3095 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3096
3097 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3098 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3099 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3100
3101 set processor NAME
3102
3103 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3104 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3105
3106 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3107 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3108 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3109 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3110 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3111 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3112 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3113 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3114 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3115 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3116 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3117
3118 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3119 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3120 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3121 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3122
3123 * HP-UX support
3124
3125 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3126 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3127 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3128 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3129 for xdb and dbx commands.
3130
3131 * Catchpoints
3132
3133 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3134 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3135 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3136
3137 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3138 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3139 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3140
3141 * Debugging across forks
3142
3143 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3144 in the inferior.
3145
3146 * TUI
3147
3148 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3149 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3150 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3151
3152 * GDB remote protocol additions
3153
3154 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3155 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3156 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3157 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3158
3159 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3160 full 64-bit address. The command
3161
3162 set remoteaddresssize 32
3163
3164 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3165 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3166 will be discarded.
3167
3168 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3169 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3170
3171 maint packet heythere
3172
3173 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3174 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3175 time.
3176
3177 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3178 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3179 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3180
3181 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3182
3183 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3184 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3185 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3186
3187 * mask-address variable for Mips
3188
3189 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3190 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3191 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3192
3193 * Higher serial baud rates
3194
3195 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3196 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3197 to achieve all of these rates.)
3198
3199 * i960 simulator
3200
3201 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3202 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3203
3204
3205 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3206
3207 * New native configurations
3208
3209 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3210 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3211 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3212 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3213 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3214 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3215 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3216
3217 * New targets
3218
3219 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3220 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3221 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3222 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3223 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3224 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3225 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3226 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3227 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3228 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3229 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3230
3231 * New debugging protocols
3232
3233 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3234 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3235 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3236 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3237 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3238 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3239
3240 * DWARF 2
3241
3242 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3243 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3244 information.
3245
3246 * Java frontend
3247
3248 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3249 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3250
3251 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3252
3253 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3254 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3255 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3256
3257 * Live range splitting
3258
3259 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3260 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3261 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3262
3263 * Hurd support
3264
3265 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3266 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3267
3268 * ARM Thumb support
3269
3270 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3271 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3272 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3273 accordingly.
3274
3275 * MIPS16 support
3276
3277 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3278 instruction set.
3279
3280 * Overlay support
3281
3282 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3283 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3284 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3285 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3286 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3287 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3288
3289 * info symbol
3290
3291 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3292 the symbol at the specified address.
3293
3294 * Trace support
3295
3296 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3297 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3298 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3299 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3300 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3301
3302 * MIPS simulator
3303
3304 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3305 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3306 of most MIPS variants.
3307
3308 * Sparc simulator
3309
3310 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3311 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3312 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3313
3314 * set architecture
3315
3316 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3317 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3318 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3319 the possible architectures.
3320
3321 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3322
3323 * New native configurations
3324
3325 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3326 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3327 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3328 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3329 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3330 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3331
3332 * New targets
3333
3334 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3335 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3336 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3337 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3338 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3339 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3340 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3341
3342 * PowerPC simulator
3343
3344 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3345 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3346 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3347 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3348 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3349
3350 * Solaris 2.5
3351
3352 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3353
3354 * Windows 95/NT native
3355
3356 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3357 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3358 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3359 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3360 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3361
3362 * dont-repeat command
3363
3364 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3365 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3366 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3367 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3368
3369 * Send break instead of ^C
3370
3371 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3372 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3373 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3374
3375 * Remote protocol timeout
3376
3377 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3378 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3379 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3380
3381 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3382
3383 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3384 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3385 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3386 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3387 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3388
3389 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3390 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3391 automatically on hpux10.
3392
3393 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3394
3395 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3396
3397 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3398
3399 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3400 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3401 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3402 every character. The default value is 1050.
3403
3404 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3405
3406 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3407 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3408 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3409 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3410 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3411 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3412
3413 * Speedups for remote debugging
3414
3415 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3416 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3417 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3418
3419 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3420
3421 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3422 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3423
3424 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3425
3426 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3427
3428 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3429 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3430
3431 * Remote targets use caching
3432
3433 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3434 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3435 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3436 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3437 off' turns the the data cache off.
3438
3439 * Remote targets may have threads
3440
3441 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3442 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3443 gdb/remote.c for details.
3444
3445 * NetROM support
3446
3447 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3448 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3449 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3450 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3451 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3452 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3453 sequence is something like
3454
3455 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3456 load <prog>
3457 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3458
3459 * Macintosh host
3460
3461 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3462 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3463 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3464 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3465 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3466 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3467 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3468 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3469
3470 * Autoconf
3471
3472 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3473 but does simplify configuration and building.
3474
3475 * hpux10
3476
3477 GDB now supports hpux10.
3478
3479 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3480
3481 * New native configurations
3482
3483 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3484 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3485 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3486 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3487
3488 * New targets
3489
3490 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3491 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3492 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3493 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3494 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3495
3496 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3497
3498 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3499 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3500 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3501 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3502 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3503
3504 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3505
3506 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3507 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3508 trivial example:
3509 define adder
3510 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3511
3512 To execute the command use:
3513 adder 1 2 3
3514
3515 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3516 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3517 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3518
3519 * New `if' and `while' commands
3520
3521 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3522 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3523 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3524 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3525 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3526 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3527 if the expression is zero.
3528
3529 * Fortran source language mode
3530
3531 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3532 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3533 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3534 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3535 Fortran compilers.
3536
3537 * Better HPUX support
3538
3539 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3540 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3541 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3542 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3543 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3544
3545 adb -w a.out
3546 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3547 control-d
3548
3549 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3550 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3551
3552 adb -w a.out
3553 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3554 control-d
3555
3556 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3557 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3558 external linkage.
3559
3560 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3561 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3562
3563 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3564
3565 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3566 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3567 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3568 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3569 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3570 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3571
3572 * New DOS host serial code
3573
3574 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3575 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3576 a PC's serial port.
3577
3578 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3579
3580 * New "complete" command
3581
3582 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3583 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3584
3585 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3586
3587 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3588 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3589
3590 * Breakpoint hit counts
3591
3592 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3593 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3594 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3595 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3596 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3597 that breakpoint.
3598
3599 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3600
3601 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3602 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3603 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3604
3605 * Shared library breakpoints
3606
3607 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3608 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3609
3610 * Hardware watchpoints
3611
3612 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3613 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3614
3615 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3616
3617 * Annotations
3618
3619 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3620 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3621
3622 * Improved Irix 5 support
3623
3624 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3625
3626 * Improved HPPA support
3627
3628 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3629
3630 * New native configurations
3631
3632 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3633 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3634 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3635 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3636
3637 * New targets
3638
3639 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3640 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3641 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3642
3643 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3644
3645 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3646 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3647
3648 * Fixes
3649
3650 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3651 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3652
3653 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3654
3655 * Irix 5 is now supported
3656
3657 * HPPA support
3658
3659 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3660 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3661 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3662 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3663 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3664
3665
3666 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3667
3668 * User visible changes:
3669
3670 * Remote Debugging
3671
3672 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3673 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3674 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3675 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3676 debugging info for the mips target).
3677
3678 * DEC Alpha native support
3679
3680 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3681 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3682 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3683 Alpha-specific notes.
3684
3685 * Preliminary thread implementation
3686
3687 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3688
3689 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3690
3691 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3692 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3693 for details).
3694
3695 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3696
3697 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3698 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3699 call methods, ...etc.
3700
3701 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3702
3703 * User visible changes:
3704
3705 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3706 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3707 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3708 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3709
3710 Filename completion now works.
3711
3712 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3713 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3714 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3715
3716 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3717 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3718 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3719 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3720 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3721
3722 * DEC alpha support
3723
3724 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3725 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3726
3727
3728 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3729
3730 * Testsuite
3731
3732 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3733 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3734 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3735
3736 * C++ demangling
3737
3738 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3739 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3740 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3741 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3742 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3743
3744 * Simulators
3745
3746 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3747 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3748 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3749
3750 * New targets supported
3751
3752 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3753 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3754 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3755 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3756 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3757
3758 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3759 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3760 GO32 memory extender.
3761
3762 * New remote protocols
3763
3764 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3765
3766 * New source languages supported
3767
3768 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3769 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3770 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3771
3772
3773 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3774
3775 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3776
3777 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3778 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3779 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3780 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3781 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3782 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3783
3784 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3785
3786 * Faster and better demangling
3787
3788 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3789 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3790 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3791 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3792 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3793 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3794 symbol lookups.
3795
3796 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3797 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3798 compiler does not actually implement.
3799
3800 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3801
3802 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3803 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3804 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3805 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3806 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3807 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3808 fix.
3809
3810 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3811 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3812
3813 * Improved configure script
3814
3815 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3816 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3817 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3818 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3819
3820 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3821 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3822 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3823 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3824 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3825 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3826
3827 * Documentation improvements
3828
3829 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3830 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3831 before submitting changes.
3832
3833 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3834 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3835 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3836 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3837 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3838
3839 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3840 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3841 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3842 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3843 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3844 around this problem.
3845
3846 * New features
3847
3848 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3849 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3850 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3851 the target program.
3852
3853 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3854 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3855
3856 * New native hosts supported
3857
3858 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3859 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3860
3861 * New targets supported
3862
3863 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3864
3865 * New file formats supported
3866
3867 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3868 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3869
3870 * Major bug fixes
3871
3872 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3873
3874 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3875 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3876
3877 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3878 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3879 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3880
3881 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3882 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3883
3884 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3885 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3886 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3887 libraries.
3888
3889 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3890 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3891 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3892 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3893 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3894
3895 * Internal improvements
3896
3897 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3898 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3899
3900 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3901 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3902 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3903 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3904 shared code that handles any of them.
3905
3906 * New command line options
3907
3908 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3909
3910 * Mmalloc licensing
3911
3912 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3913 General Public License.
3914
3915 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3916
3917 * Host/native/target split
3918
3919 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3920 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3921 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3922 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3923 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3924
3925 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3926 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3927 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3928 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3929 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3930 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3931 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3932
3933 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3934 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3935 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3936
3937 * New hosts supported
3938
3939 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3940 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3941 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3942
3943 * New targets supported
3944
3945 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3946 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3947
3948 * New native hosts supported
3949
3950 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3951 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3952 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3953
3954 * New file formats supported
3955
3956 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3957 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3958 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3959
3960 * New commands
3961
3962 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3963 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3964 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3965
3966 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3967
3968 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3969 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3970 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3971 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3972
3973 * C++ improvements
3974
3975 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3976 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3977 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3978
3979 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3980
3981 * Major bug fixes
3982
3983 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3984 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3985 by the compiler.
3986
3987 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3988 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3989
3990 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3991 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3992 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3993 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3994 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3995 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3996
3997 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3998 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3999 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4000 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4001
4002 * AMD 29k support
4003
4004 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4005 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4006 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4007 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4008 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4009
4010 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4011 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4012 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4013 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4014
4015 * Remote interfaces
4016
4017 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4018 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4019 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4020 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4021 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4022 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4023 each instruction being stepped through.
4024
4025 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4026 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4027
4028 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4029 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4030 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4031 processor with a serial port.
4032
4033 * Configuration
4034
4035 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4036 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4037 supported, and what files each one uses.
4038
4039 * Library changes
4040
4041 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4042 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4043 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4044 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4045
4046 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4047 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4048 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4049 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4050
4051 * Documentation
4052
4053 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4054 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4055 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4056 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4057 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4058 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4059
4060 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4061
4062
4063 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4064
4065 * Better support for C++ function names
4066
4067 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4068 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4069 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4070 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4071 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4072
4073 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4074 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4075 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4076 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4077 for the list of formats.
4078
4079 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4080
4081 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4082 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4083 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4084 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4085 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4086 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4087 this problem.)
4088
4089 * New 'maintenance' command
4090
4091 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4092 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4093 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4094
4095 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4096 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4097 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4098 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4099 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4100 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4101
4102 The following commands are new:
4103
4104 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4105 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4106 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4107
4108 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4109
4110 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4111 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4112 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4113 read after argv processing.
4114
4115 * New hosts supported
4116
4117 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4118
4119 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4120
4121 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4122 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4123 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4124 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4125 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4126 It costs extra.
4127
4128 * New targets supported
4129
4130 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4131
4132 * More smarts about finding #include files
4133
4134 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4135 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4136 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4137 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4138 the one that contains your sources.
4139
4140 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4141 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4142 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4143
4144 * Interesting infernals change
4145
4146 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4147 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4148 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4149 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4150
4151 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4152
4153 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4154 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4155 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4156
4157 See the ChangeLog for details.
4158
4159 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4160
4161 * New machines supported (host and target)
4162
4163 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4164
4165 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4166
4167 * New malloc package
4168
4169 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4170 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4171 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4172 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4173 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4174 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4175
4176 * info proc
4177
4178 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4179 'help info proc' for details.
4180
4181 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4182
4183 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4184 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4185 possible.
4186
4187 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4188
4189 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4190 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4191 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4192 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4193 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4194 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4195
4196 * Cross byte order fixes
4197
4198 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4199 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4200
4201 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4202
4203 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4204 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4205 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4206 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4207 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4208 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4209 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4210 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4211 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4212 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4213
4214 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4215 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4216 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4217 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4218
4219 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4220 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4221 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4222 use is:
4223
4224 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4225
4226 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4227 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4228 shared across multiple host platforms.
4229
4230 * longjmp() handling
4231
4232 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4233 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4234 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4235 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4236
4237 * Solaris 2.0
4238
4239 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4240 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4241 reading symbols.
4242
4243 * Bug fixes
4244
4245 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4246 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4247 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4248
4249 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4250
4251 * New machines supported (host and target)
4252
4253 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4254 (except core files)
4255 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4256 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4257
4258 * New machines supported (target)
4259
4260 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4261
4262 * C++ support
4263
4264 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4265 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4266 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4267
4268 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4269 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4270 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4271 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4272 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4273 released.
4274
4275 * New features for SVR4
4276
4277 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4278 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4279 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4280
4281 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4282 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4283 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4284
4285 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4286 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4287
4288 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4289
4290 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4291 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4292 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4293 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4294 same code linked statically.
4295
4296 * New Getopt
4297
4298 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4299 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4300 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4301 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4302 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4303 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4304
4305 * Bugs fixed
4306
4307 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4308 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4309 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4310
4311
4312 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4313
4314 * New machines supported (host and target)
4315
4316 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4317 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4318 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4319
4320 * Almost SCO Unix support
4321
4322 We had hoped to support:
4323 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4324 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4325 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4326 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4327
4328 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4329
4330 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4331 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4332 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4333 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4334 reqired (if any).
4335
4336 * New Readline
4337
4338 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4339 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4340 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4341
4342 * Bugs fixed
4343
4344 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4345 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4346 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4347
4348 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4349
4350 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4351 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4352 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4353
4354 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4355 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4356 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4357 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4358 version 2.
4359
4360 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4361 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4362 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4363 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4364 situation somewhat.
4365
4366 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4367 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4368 methods.
4369
4370 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4371 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4372 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4373
4374
4375 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4376
4377 * Improved configuration
4378
4379 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4380 Porting BFD is simpler.
4381
4382 * Stepping improved
4383
4384 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4385 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4386 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4387 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4388
4389 * Bug fixing
4390
4391 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4392
4393 * New host supported (not target)
4394
4395 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4396
4397
4398 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4399
4400 * Multiple source language support
4401
4402 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4403 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4404 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4405 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4406 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4407 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4408
4409 * GDB and Modula-2
4410
4411 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4412 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4413 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4414 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4415
4416 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4417 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4418 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4419
4420 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4421 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4422
4423 * set write on/off
4424
4425 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4426 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4427 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4428 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4429 effect immediately.
4430
4431 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4432
4433 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4434 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4435 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4436 examining core files.
4437
4438 * set listsize
4439
4440 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4441 The default is 10.
4442
4443 * New machines supported (host and target)
4444
4445 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4446 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4447 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4448
4449 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4450
4451 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4452
4453 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4454
4455 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4456 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4457 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4458
4459 * New remote interfaces
4460
4461 AMD 29000 Adapt
4462 AMD 29000 Minimon
4463
4464
4465 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4466
4467 * New Facilities
4468
4469 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4470
4471 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4472 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4473 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4474 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4475 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4476 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4477 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4478 stub on the target system.
4479
4480 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4481
4482 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4483 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4484 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4485
4486 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4487 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4488
4489
4490 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4491
4492 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4493 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4494
4495 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4496 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4497 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4498
4499 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4500 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4501 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4502 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4503
4504 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4505 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4506 it is already running. Default is ON.
4507
4508 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4509 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4510 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4511 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4512 Default is ON.
4513
4514 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4515 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4516 or the value of the environment variable
4517 GDBHISTFILE.
4518
4519 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4520 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4521 HISTSIZE.
4522
4523 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4524 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4525 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4526
4527 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4528 history expansion will be performed on
4529 command line input. The default is OFF.
4530
4531 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4532 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4533 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4534
4535 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4536 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4537 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4538 variable TERM.
4539
4540 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4541 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4542 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4543 variable TERM.
4544
4545 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4546 ``set width'' instead.
4547
4548 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4549 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4550 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4551 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4552
4553 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4554 is OFF.
4555
4556 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4557 "raw" form if off.
4558
4559 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4560 like instructions.
4561
4562 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4563
4564
4565 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4566
4567 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4568 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4569 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4570 window.
4571
4572
4573 * Support for Shared Libraries
4574
4575 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4576 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4577 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4578 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4579 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4580 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4581 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4582 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4583
4584 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4585 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4586 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4587
4588 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4589
4590
4591 * Watchpoints
4592
4593 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4594 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4595 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4596 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4597 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4598 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4599
4600 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4601
4602 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4603
4604 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4605 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4606 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4607
4608
4609 * C++ multiple inheritance
4610
4611 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4612 for C++ programs.
4613
4614 * C++ exception handling
4615
4616 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4617 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4618 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4619 handler's context).
4620
4621 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4622 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4623 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4624
4625 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4626 current stack frame.
4627
4628
4629 * Minor command changes
4630
4631 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4632 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4633 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4634
4635 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4636 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4637 frames without printing.
4638
4639 * New directory command
4640
4641 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4642 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4643 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4644 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4645 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4646
4647 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4648
4649 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4650 for more details.
4651
4652 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4653 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4654 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4655 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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