* gnu-v3-abi.c (struct value_and_voffset): New.
[deliverable/binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.4
5
6 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
7
8 * Python scripting
9
10 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
11 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
12
13 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
14
15 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
16 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
17
18 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
19
20 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
21 the source at which the symbol was defined.
22
23 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
24 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
25 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
26 symbol's value.
27
28 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
29 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
30
31 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
32 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
33
34 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
35 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
36 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
37 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
38 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
39 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
40
41 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
42 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
43 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
44 build/libcpp/expr.c.
45
46 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
47 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
48
49 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
50 since December 2007.
51
52 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
53 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
54 command does. For instance:
55
56 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
57
58 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
59 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
60 created, using the "condition" command.
61
62 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
63 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
64
65 * New commands
66
67 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
68 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
69
70 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
71 several hits.
72
73 ** "info vtable" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
74 C++ and Java objects.
75
76 * New targets
77
78 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
79 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
80
81 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
82 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
83 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
84 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
85 evaluates to true.
86
87 * New options
88
89 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
90 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
91 Controls whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("gdb") or by
92 GDBserver ("target").
93 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
94 target.
95
96 * New remote packets
97
98 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
99
100 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
101 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
102 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
103 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
104
105 QProgramSignals:
106
107 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
108 program without GDB involvement.
109
110 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
111
112 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
113 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
114 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
115 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
116 inferior changes.
117
118 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
119 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
120
121 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
122 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
123 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
124 target hardware watchpoint.
125
126 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
127 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
128 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
129 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
130
131 * Python scripting
132
133 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
134 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
135 existing one.
136
137 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
138 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
139 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
140 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
141 now "message", which just prints the error message without
142 the stack trace.
143
144 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
145 Python API.
146
147 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
148 modules library. This module provides functionality for
149 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
150 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
151 corresponding value.
152
153 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
154 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
155 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
156 on GDB start-up.
157
158 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
159 static_block will return the global and static blocks
160 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
161 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
162
163 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
164
165 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
166 "gdb.breakpoints".
167
168 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
169 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
170 available in the CLI.
171
172 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
173 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
174 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
175 "some_type.items()".
176
177 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
178 new object file.
179
180 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
181 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
182 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
183 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
184 any anonymous fields.
185
186 * MI changes
187
188 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
189 "solib-event".
190
191 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
192 "=breakpoint-modified".
193
194 ** New command -ada-task-info.
195
196 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
197 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
198 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
199 lives.
200
201 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
202 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
203 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
204 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
205 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
206
207 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
208 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
209
210 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
211 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
212 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
213 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
214 use this option to specify where to find it.
215
216 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
217 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
218 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
219 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
220 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
221 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
222 section in the user manual for more details.
223
224 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
225 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
226 become available after that.
227
228 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
229
230 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
231 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
232 gcc version 4.7.
233
234 * New commands
235
236 !SHELL COMMAND
237 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
238 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
239
240 * Changed commands
241
242 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
243 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
244 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
245
246 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
247 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
248 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
249
250 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
251 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
252 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
253 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
254 name starts with a hyphen.
255
256 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
257 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
258 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
259 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
260 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
261 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
262 number of bytes that will be collected.
263
264 tstart [NOTES]
265 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
266 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
267 setting the variable trace-notes.
268
269 tstop [NOTES]
270 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
271 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
272 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
273 trace-stop-notes.
274
275 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
276 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
277 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
278 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
279 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
280 is running.
281
282 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
283 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
284 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
285
286 * New options
287
288 set extended-prompt
289 show extended-prompt
290 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
291 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
292 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
293 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
294 prompt is displayed.
295
296 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
297 show print entry-values
298 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
299 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
300 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
301
302 set debug entry-values
303 show debug entry-values
304 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
305 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
306
307 set basenames-may-differ
308 show basenames-may-differ
309 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
310 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
311 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
312 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
313 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
314 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
315 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
316 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
317
318 set trace-user
319 show trace-user
320 set trace-notes
321 show trace-notes
322 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
323 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
324 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
325 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
326
327 set trace-stop-notes
328 show trace-stop-notes
329 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
330 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
331 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
332 started by someone else.
333
334 * New remote packets
335
336 QTEnable
337
338 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
339
340 QTDisable
341
342 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
343
344 QTNotes
345
346 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
347
348 qTP
349
350 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
351
352 qTMinFTPILen
353
354 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
355 be placed.
356
357 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
358 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
359
360 * New targets
361
362 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
363
364 * New Simulators
365
366 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
367
368 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
369
370 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
371
372 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
373
374 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
375 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
376 matches the given regular expression.
377
378 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
379
380 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
381 dumping the instruction opcodes.
382
383 * New command line options
384
385 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
386 This is mostly for testing purposes.
387
388 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
389 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
390
391 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
392 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
393 source path list instead of augmenting it.
394
395 * GDB now understands thread names.
396
397 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
398 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
399
400 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
401 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
402
403 * OpenCL C
404 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
405 has been integrated into GDB.
406
407 * Python scripting
408
409 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
410 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
411 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
412
413 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
414 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
415 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
416 and allows for more dynamic content.
417
418 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
419 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
420 have an is_valid method.
421
422 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
423 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
424 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
425
426 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
427
428 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
429 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
430 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
431 that function like so:
432
433 result = some_value (10,20)
434
435 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
436 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
437 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
438
439 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
440 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
441 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
442 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
443 New function: register_pretty_printer.
444
445 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
446 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
447
448 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
449
450 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
451 selected thread.
452
453 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
454 holds the thread's name.
455
456 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
457 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
458 occurring in the process being debugged.
459 The following events are currently supported:
460 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
461 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
462 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
463
464 * C++ Improvements:
465
466 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
467 instantiation. For example, if you have:
468
469 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
470
471 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
472 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
473 was added to GCC 4.5.
474
475 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
476 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
477 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
478 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
479 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
480 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
481
482 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
483 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
484 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
485 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
486 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
487
488 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
489 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
490 execution to a label.
491
492 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
493 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
494 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
495 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
496
497 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
498 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
499 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
500 of scope.
501
502 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
503
504 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
505 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
506 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
507 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
508 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
509 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
510
511 (gdb) info threads
512 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
513
514 While now you see this:
515
516 (gdb) info threads
517 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
518
519 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
520 dumps.
521
522 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
523 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
524 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
525 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
526
527 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
528 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
529 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
530 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
531 section in the user manual for more details.
532
533 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
534
535 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
536 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
537
538 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
539
540 * New native configurations
541
542 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
543
544 * New targets:
545
546 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
547
548 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
549 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
550 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
551 in the GDB user manual.
552
553 * Guile support was removed.
554
555 * New features in the GNU simulator
556
557 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
558
559 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
560
561 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
562
563 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
564
565 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
566 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
567 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
568 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
569 was always disabled for such configurations.
570
571 * C++ Improvements:
572
573 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
574
575 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
576 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
577 For example:
578 namespace A
579 {
580 class B { };
581 void foo (B) { }
582 }
583 ...
584 A::B b
585 foo(b)
586 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
587 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
588 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
589
590 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
591
592 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
593 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
594 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
595 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
596 entry.
597 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
598 mentioned flavors of operators.
599
600 ** static const class members
601
602 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
603 class definition has been fixed.
604
605 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
606
607 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
608 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
609 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
610 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
611 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
612 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
613
614 * Static tracepoints
615
616 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
617 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
618 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
619 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
620 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
621 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
622 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
623 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
624 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
625 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
626 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
627 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
628 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
629 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
630 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
631 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
632 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
633 the "New remote packets" section below.
634
635 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
636
637 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
638 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
639 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
640 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
641
642 * Observer mode
643
644 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
645 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
646 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
647 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
648 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
649 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
650 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
651
652 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
653 current thread.
654
655 * New remote packets
656
657 qGetTIBAddr
658
659 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
660
661 qRelocInsn
662
663 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
664 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
665 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
666 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
667 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
668 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
669
670 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
671
672 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
673
674 qTSTMat
675
676 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
677 program.
678
679 qXfer:statictrace:read
680
681 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
682 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
683 to gdb's qSupported query.
684
685 QAllow
686
687 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
688
689 QTDPsrc
690
691 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
692 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
693
694 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
695 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
696 a directory.
697
698 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
699
700 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
701 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
702 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
703 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
704
705 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
706 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
707 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
708 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
709 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
710 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
711 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
712
713 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
714 for static tracepoints support.
715
716 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
717
718 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
719 it understands register description.
720
721 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
722
723 * X86 general purpose registers
724
725 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
726 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
727 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
728 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
729 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
730
731 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
732 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
733 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
734 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
735 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
736 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
737
738 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
739 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
740 in the specified file.
741
742 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
743 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
744 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
745 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
746 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
747 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
748 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
749 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
750 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
751 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
752
753 * New commands
754
755 eval template, expressions...
756 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
757 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
758
759 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
760 show target-file-system-kind
761 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
762 names.
763
764 save breakpoints <filename>
765 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
766 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
767 definitions, use the `source' command.
768
769 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
770 is now deprecated.
771
772 info static-tracepoint-markers
773 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
774
775 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
776 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
777 function, line, address, or marker ID.
778
779 set observer on|off
780 show observer
781 Enable and disable observer mode.
782
783 set may-write-registers on|off
784 set may-write-memory on|off
785 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
786 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
787 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
788 set may-interrupt on|off
789 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
790 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
791 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
792 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
793 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
794 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
795 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
796
797 set record memory-query on|off
798 show record memory-query
799 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
800 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
801
802 * Changed commands
803
804 disassemble
805 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
806
807 * Python scripting
808
809 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
810 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
811 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
812 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
813 GDB using Python' in the manual.
814
815 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
816 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
817 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
818 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
819
820 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
821 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
822
823 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
824
825 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
826
827 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
828
829 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
830 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
831 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
832
833 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
834 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
835 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
836 regular breakpoints.
837
838 * New targets
839
840 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
841
842 * D language support.
843 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
844 language.
845
846 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
847 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
848 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
849 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
850 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
851
852 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
853 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
854 conditions of the form:
855
856 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
857
858 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
859 interface mentioned above.
860
861 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
862
863 * C++ Improvements
864
865 ** Namespace Support
866
867 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
868 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
869 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
870 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
871 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
872
873 ** Bug Fixes
874
875 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
876 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
877 qualified name.
878
879 ** Cast Operators
880
881 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
882 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
883
884 * New targets
885
886 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
887 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
888
889 * New Simulators
890
891 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
892 Renesas RX rx
893
894 * Multi-program debugging.
895
896 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
897 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
898 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
899 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
900 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
901 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
902 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
903 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
904
905 * New tracing features
906
907 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
908
909 ** Trace state variables
910
911 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
912 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
913 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
914 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
915 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
916 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
917 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
918 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
919 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
920 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
921
922 ** Fast tracepoints
923
924 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
925 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
926 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
927 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
928 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
929 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
930 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
931 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
932 the regular trace command.
933
934 ** Disconnected tracing
935
936 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
937 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
938 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
939 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
940 connection is lost unexpectedly.
941
942 ** Trace files
943
944 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
945 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
946 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
947 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
948 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
949 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
950 <name>".
951
952 ** Circular trace buffer
953
954 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
955 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
956 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
957 not be available for all target agents.
958
959 * Changed commands
960
961 disassemble
962 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
963 the arguments to be comma-separated.
964
965 info variables
966 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
967 which only declare a variable are not shown.
968
969 source
970 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
971 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
972 support.
973
974 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
975 "set script-extension" (see below).
976
977 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
978
979 record save [<FILENAME>]
980 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
981 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
982
983 record restore <FILENAME>
984 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
985 earlier time, for replay debugging.
986
987 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
988 Add a new inferior.
989
990 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
991 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
992 inferior has loaded.
993
994 remove-inferior ID
995 Remove an inferior.
996
997 maint info program-spaces
998 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
999
1000 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1001 show remote interrupt-sequence
1002 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1003 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1004 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1005 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1006 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1007
1008 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1009 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1010 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1011 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1012 Linux kernel.
1013
1014 set remotebreak [on | off]
1015 show remotebreak
1016 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1017
1018 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1019 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1020
1021 info tvariables
1022 List trace state variables and their values.
1023
1024 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1025 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1026
1027 teval EXPR, ...
1028 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1029 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1030
1031 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1032 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1033
1034 * New expression syntax
1035
1036 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1037 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1038
1039 * New options
1040
1041 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1042 show follow-exec-mode
1043 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1044 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1045 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1046
1047 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1048 show default-collect
1049 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1050 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1051 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1052
1053 set disconnected-tracing
1054 show disconnected-tracing
1055 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1056 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1057 upon disconnection.
1058
1059 set circular-trace-buffer
1060 show circular-trace-buffer
1061 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1062 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1063 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1064 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1065
1066 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1067 show script-extension
1068 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1069 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1070 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1071 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1072 evaluation failed.
1073 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1074
1075 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1076 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1077 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1078 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1079 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1080 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1081 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1082 is on.
1083
1084 * Python API Improvements
1085
1086 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1087 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1088 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1089
1090 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1091 `is_base_class' attribute.
1092
1093 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1094
1095 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1096 evaluate an expression.
1097
1098 * New remote packets
1099
1100 QTDV
1101 Define a trace state variable.
1102
1103 qTV
1104 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1105
1106 QTDisconnected
1107 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1108
1109 QTBuffer:circular
1110 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1111
1112 qTfP, qTsP
1113 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1114
1115 * Bug fixes
1116
1117 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1118
1119 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1120 much more reliable. In particular:
1121 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1122 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1123 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1124 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1125 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1126 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1127 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1128 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1129 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1130 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1131 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1132 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1133 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1134 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1135 non-threaded programs.
1136
1137 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1138 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1139 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1140 executable program.
1141
1142 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1143
1144 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1145 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1146 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1147 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1148 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1149
1150 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1151 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1152 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1153 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1154 for tracepoint actions.
1155
1156 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1157 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1158 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1159
1160 * Process record and replay
1161
1162 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1163 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1164 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1165 execute commands.
1166
1167 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1168 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1169 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1170 reverse execution.
1171
1172 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1173 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1174 2.6.28 or later.
1175
1176 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1177 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1178 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1179 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1180 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1181 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1182 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1183 the installation instructions for more information.
1184
1185 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1186 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1187 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1188 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1189
1190 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1191 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1192
1193 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1194 now complete on file names.
1195
1196 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1197 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1198 For instance, consider:
1199
1200 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1201 # struct example variable;
1202 (gdb) p variable.
1203
1204 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1205 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1206
1207 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1208 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1209
1210 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1211 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1212 macros.
1213
1214 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1215 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1216 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1217
1218 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1219 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1220 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1221 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1222
1223 * New remote packets
1224
1225 qSearch:memory:
1226 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1227
1228 QStartNoAckMode
1229 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1230 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1231 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1232
1233 vKill
1234 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1235 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1236
1237 qXfer:osdata:read
1238 Obtains additional operating system information
1239
1240 qXfer:siginfo:read
1241 qXfer:siginfo:write
1242 Read or write additional signal information.
1243
1244 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1245
1246 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1247 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1248 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1249
1250 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1251 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1252
1253 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1254 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1255 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1256
1257 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1258 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1259
1260 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1261
1262 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1263
1264 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1265 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1266
1267 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1268 list of section offsets.
1269
1270 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1271 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1272 have also been fixed.
1273
1274 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1275 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1276 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1277
1278 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1279 example, given:
1280
1281 template<typename T> class C { };
1282 C<char const *> c;
1283
1284 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1285
1286 ptype C<char const *>
1287 ptype C<char const*>
1288 ptype C<const char *>
1289 ptype C<const char*>
1290
1291 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1292
1293 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1294 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1295
1296 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1297 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1298 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1299
1300 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1301 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1302
1303 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1304 gdbserver.
1305
1306 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1307 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1308
1309 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1310 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1311 as appropriate.
1312
1313 * Python scripting
1314
1315 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1316 available is determined at configure time.
1317
1318 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1319
1320 * Ada tasking support
1321
1322 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1323 been introduced:
1324
1325 info tasks
1326 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1327 info task N
1328 Print detailed information about task number N.
1329 task
1330 Print the task number of the current task.
1331 task N
1332 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1333
1334 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1335 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1336
1337 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1338
1339 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1340 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1341 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1342 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1343 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1344 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1345 below.
1346
1347 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1348 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1349 information.
1350
1351 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1352 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1353 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1354 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1355 more information.
1356
1357 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1358
1359 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1360 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1361 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1362 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1363 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1364
1365 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1366 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1367 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1368 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1369 --enable-targets configure option.
1370
1371 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1372
1373 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1374 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1375 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1376 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1377 section in the user manual for more information.
1378
1379 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1380 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1381 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1382 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1383 extensions on linux targets.
1384
1385 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1386
1387 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1388 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1389 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1390 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1391 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1392 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1393 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1394 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1395 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1396
1397 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1398 val1 [, val2, ...]
1399 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1400
1401 maint set python print-stack
1402 maint show python print-stack
1403 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1404
1405 python [CODE]
1406 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1407
1408 macro define
1409 macro list
1410 macro undef
1411 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1412 interactively.
1413
1414 info os processes
1415 Show operating system information about processes.
1416
1417 info inferiors
1418 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1419
1420 inferior NUM
1421 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1422
1423 detach inferior NUM
1424 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1425
1426 kill inferior NUM
1427 Kill inferior number NUM.
1428
1429 * New options
1430
1431 set spu stop-on-load
1432 show spu stop-on-load
1433 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1434
1435 set spu auto-flush-cache
1436 show spu auto-flush-cache
1437 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1438 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1439
1440 set sh calling-convention
1441 show sh calling-convention
1442 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1443
1444 set debug timestamp
1445 show debug timestamp
1446 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1447
1448 set disassemble-next-line
1449 show disassemble-next-line
1450 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1451 the debuggee stops.
1452
1453 set remote noack-packet
1454 show remote noack-packet
1455 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1456 under "New remote packets."
1457
1458 set remote query-attached-packet
1459 show remote query-attached-packet
1460 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1461
1462 set remote read-siginfo-object
1463 show remote read-siginfo-object
1464 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1465 packet.
1466
1467 set remote write-siginfo-object
1468 show remote write-siginfo-object
1469 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1470 packet.
1471
1472 set remote reverse-continue
1473 show remote reverse-continue
1474 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1475
1476 set remote reverse-step
1477 show remote reverse-step
1478 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1479
1480 set displaced-stepping
1481 show displaced-stepping
1482 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1483 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1484 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1485
1486 set debug displaced
1487 show debug displaced
1488 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1489
1490 maint set internal-error
1491 maint show internal-error
1492 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1493
1494 maint set internal-warning
1495 maint show internal-warning
1496 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1497
1498 set exec-wrapper
1499 show exec-wrapper
1500 unset exec-wrapper
1501 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1502
1503 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1504 show multiple-symbols
1505 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1506 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1507 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1508
1509 set breakpoint always-inserted
1510 show breakpoint always-inserted
1511 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1512 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1513 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1514
1515 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1516 show arm fallback-mode
1517 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1518 show arm force-mode
1519 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1520 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1521 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1522 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1523
1524 set disable-randomization
1525 show disable-randomization
1526 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1527 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1528 multiple debugging sessions.
1529
1530 set non-stop
1531 show non-stop
1532 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1533 a breakpoint.
1534
1535 set target-async
1536 show target-async
1537 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1538 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1539 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1540 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1541
1542 set target-wide-charset
1543 show target-wide-charset
1544 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1545 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1546
1547 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1548 show tcp auto-retry
1549 set tcp connect-timeout
1550 show tcp connect-timeout
1551 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1552 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1553 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1554
1555 set libthread-db-search-path
1556 show libthread-db-search-path
1557 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1558 libthread_db.
1559
1560 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1561 show schedule-multiple
1562 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1563 the current process.
1564
1565 set stack-cache
1566 show stack-cache
1567 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1568 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1569 affecting correctness.
1570
1571 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1572 show interactive-mode
1573 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1574 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1575 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1576 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1577 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1578
1579 * Removed commands
1580
1581 info forks
1582 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1583 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1584 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1585 command.
1586
1587 fork NUM
1588 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1589 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1590 alias for the `fork' command.
1591
1592 process PID
1593 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1594 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1595 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1596
1597 delete fork NUM
1598 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1599 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1600 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1601 fork' command.
1602
1603 detach fork NUM
1604 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1605 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1606 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1607 fork' command.
1608
1609 * New native configurations
1610
1611 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1612
1613 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1614
1615 * New targets
1616
1617 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1618 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1619 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1620 S+core 3 score-*-*
1621
1622 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1623 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1624
1625 * Removed commands
1626
1627 catch load
1628 catch unload
1629 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1630
1631 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1632
1633 * New native configurations
1634
1635 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1636 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1637
1638 * New targets
1639
1640 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1641 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1642
1643 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1644
1645 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1646 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1647 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1648 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1649
1650 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1651 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1652
1653 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1654 is resolved.
1655
1656 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1657 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1658 and in inlined functions.
1659
1660 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1661 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1662 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1663
1664 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1665
1666 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1667 registers on PowerPC targets.
1668
1669 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1670 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1671
1672 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1673 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1674
1675 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1676 extended-remote mode.
1677
1678 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1679 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1680 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1681 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1682
1683 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1684 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1685 target architectures.
1686
1687 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1688 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1689 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1690 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1691
1692 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1693 breakpoints now.
1694
1695 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1696 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1697 include:
1698 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1699 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1700 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1701 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1702 of an assignment
1703 - Improved command completion in Ada
1704 - Several bug fixes
1705
1706 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1707 process.
1708
1709 * New commands
1710
1711 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1712 show print frame-arguments
1713 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1714 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1715
1716 remote put
1717 remote get
1718 remote delete
1719 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1720
1721 * New MI commands
1722
1723 -target-file-put
1724 -target-file-get
1725 -target-file-delete
1726 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1727
1728 * New remote packets
1729
1730 vFile:open:
1731 vFile:close:
1732 vFile:pread:
1733 vFile:pwrite:
1734 vFile:unlink:
1735 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1736
1737 vAttach
1738 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1739 mode.
1740
1741 vRun
1742 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1743
1744 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1745
1746 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1747 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1748 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1749
1750 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1751 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1752 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1753
1754 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1755 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1756 is not supported.
1757
1758 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1759 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1760
1761 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1762 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1763
1764 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1765
1766 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1767 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1768 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1769
1770 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1771 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1772
1773 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1774 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1775 as strings.
1776
1777 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1778 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1779 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1780
1781 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1782 iWMMXt coprocessor.
1783
1784 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1785 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1786 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1787
1788 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1789
1790 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1791
1792 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1793 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1794 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1795
1796 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1797 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1798
1799 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1800 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1801 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1802 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1803 Windows and SymbianOS).
1804
1805 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1806 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1807
1808 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1809 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1810
1811 * New commands
1812
1813 set remoteflow
1814 show remoteflow
1815 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1816 when debugging using remote targets.
1817
1818 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1819 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1820 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1821 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1822 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1823 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1824 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1825
1826 set breakpoint auto-hw
1827 show breakpoint auto-hw
1828 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1829 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1830 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1831 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1832 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1833 including "next" and "finish".
1834
1835 catch exception
1836 catch exception unhandled
1837 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1838
1839 catch assert
1840 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1841
1842 set sysroot
1843 show sysroot
1844 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1845 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1846 an alias to "set sysroot".
1847
1848 info spu
1849 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1850 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1851 architecture.
1852
1853 * New native configurations
1854
1855 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1856
1857 set tdesc filename
1858 unset tdesc filename
1859 show tdesc filename
1860 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1861 not query the target for its built-in description.
1862
1863 * New targets
1864
1865 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1866 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1867 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1868
1869 * New remote packets
1870
1871 QPassSignals:
1872 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1873 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1874
1875 qXfer:features:read:
1876 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1877 features.
1878
1879 qXfer:spu:read:
1880 qXfer:spu:write:
1881 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1882 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1883
1884 qXfer:libraries:read:
1885 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1886 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1887 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1888 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1889
1890 * Removed targets
1891
1892 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1893
1894 alpha*-*-osf1*
1895 alpha*-*-osf2*
1896 d10v-*-*
1897 hppa*-*-hiux*
1898 i[34567]86-ncr-*
1899 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
1900 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1901 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1902 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1903 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1904 i[34567]86-*-sco*
1905 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1906 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
1907 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
1908 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1909 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1910 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
1911 i[34567]86-*-isc*
1912 m68*-cisco*-*
1913 m68*-tandem-*
1914 mips*-*-pe
1915 rs6000-*-lynxos*
1916 sh*-*-pe
1917
1918 * Other removed features
1919
1920 target abug
1921 target cpu32bug
1922 target est
1923 target rom68k
1924
1925 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1926
1927 target hms
1928 target e7000
1929 target sh3
1930 target sh3e
1931
1932 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1933 H8/300.
1934
1935 target ocd
1936
1937 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1938 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1939 interfaces.
1940
1941 DWARF 1 support
1942
1943 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1944 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1945
1946 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1947
1948 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1949 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1950 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1951 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1952
1953 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1954
1955 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1956 in debugging information.
1957
1958 Scheme support
1959
1960 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1961 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1962
1963 set mips stack-arg-size
1964 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1965
1966 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1967
1968 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1969
1970 * New targets
1971
1972 Xtensa xtensa-elf
1973 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1974
1975 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1976 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1977 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1978
1979 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1980 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1981 supported.
1982
1983 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1984 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1985
1986 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1987 stub provides the required support.
1988
1989 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1990 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1991
1992 * New commands
1993
1994 set substitute-path
1995 unset substitute-path
1996 show substitute-path
1997 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1998 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1999 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2000 between compilation and debugging.
2001
2002 set trace-commands
2003 show trace-commands
2004 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2005 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2006 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2007
2008 * REMOVED features
2009
2010 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2011
2012 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2013 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2014
2015 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2016
2017 * New remote packets
2018
2019 qSupported:
2020 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2021 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2022 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2023 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2024 target.
2025
2026 qXfer:auxv:read:
2027 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2028 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2029
2030 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2031 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2032 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2033
2034 vFlashErase:
2035 vFlashWrite:
2036 vFlashDone:
2037 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2038
2039 * Removed remote packets
2040
2041 qPart:auxv:read:
2042 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2043 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2044
2045 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2046
2047 * New targets
2048
2049 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2050
2051 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2052
2053 * New commands
2054
2055 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2056 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2057
2058 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2059
2060 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2061
2062 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2063 previously saved state.
2064
2065 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2066
2067 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2068
2069 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2070 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2071
2072 info forks List forks of the user program that
2073 are available to be debugged.
2074
2075 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2076 forks of the user program that are
2077 available to be debugged.
2078
2079 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2080 that are available to be debugged (and
2081 kill the forked process).
2082
2083 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2084 that are available to be debugged (and
2085 allow the process to continue).
2086
2087 * New architecture
2088
2089 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2090
2091 * Improved Windows host support
2092
2093 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2094 native console support, and remote communications using either
2095 network sockets or serial ports.
2096
2097 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2098
2099 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2100 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2101 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2102 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2103 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2104 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2105
2106 * REMOVED features
2107
2108 The ARM rdi-share module.
2109
2110 The Netware NLM debug server.
2111
2112 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2113
2114 * New native configurations
2115
2116 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2117 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2118
2119 * New targets
2120
2121 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2122
2123 * New command line options
2124
2125 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2126 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2127 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2128 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2129 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2130 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2131 with the --command (-x) option.
2132
2133 * Deprecated commands removed
2134
2135 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2136 removed:
2137
2138 Command Replacement
2139 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2140 othernames set arm disassembler
2141 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2142 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2143 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2144 regs info registers
2145
2146 * New BSD user-level threads support
2147
2148 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2149 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2150 configurations are:
2151
2152 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2153 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2154 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2155
2156 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2157 are not yet supported.
2158
2159 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2160 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2161
2162 * REMOVED configurations and files
2163
2164 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2165 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2166 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2167
2168 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2169
2170 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2171 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2172 behavior.
2173
2174 * VAX floating point support
2175
2176 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2177
2178 * User-defined command support
2179
2180 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2181 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2182 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2183
2184 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2185
2186 * New command line option
2187
2188 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2189 debugging.
2190
2191 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2192
2193 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2194 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2195 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2196 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2197 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2198
2199 * Internationalization
2200
2201 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2202 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2203 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2204
2205 * Ada
2206
2207 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2208 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2209 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2210
2211 * New native configurations
2212
2213 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2214
2215 * Remote 'p' packet
2216
2217 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2218 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2219
2220 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2221
2222 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2223 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2224 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2225 i386 application).
2226
2227 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2228 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2229 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2230 configurations:
2231
2232 hppa-*-hpux
2233 ia64-*-aix
2234 mips-*-irix*
2235 *-*-lynx
2236 mips-*-linux-gnu
2237 sds protocol
2238 xdr protocol
2239 powerpc bdm protocol
2240
2241 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2242 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2243
2244 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2245
2246 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2247 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2248 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2249 permanently REMOVED.
2250
2251 h8300-*-*
2252 mcore-*-*
2253 mn10300-*-*
2254 ns32k-*-*
2255 sh64-*-*
2256 v850-*-*
2257
2258 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2259
2260 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2261
2262 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2263 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2264 been fixed.
2265
2266 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2267
2268 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2269 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2270 IRIX long double values).
2271
2272 * VAX and "next"
2273
2274 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2275 command. This problem has been fixed.
2276
2277 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2278
2279 * Fix for ``many threads''
2280
2281 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2282 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2283 error message:
2284
2285 ptrace: No such process.
2286 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2287
2288 This problem has been fixed.
2289
2290 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2291
2292 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2293 GDB to dump core).
2294
2295 * New ``start'' command.
2296
2297 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2298
2299 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2300
2301 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2302 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2303 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2304
2305 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2306 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2307 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2308 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2309 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2310 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2311 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2312 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2313 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2314
2315 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2316
2317 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2318 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2319 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2320 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2321 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2322
2323 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2324 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2325 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2326
2327 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2328
2329 * New native configurations
2330
2331 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2332 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2333 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2334 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2335 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2336 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2337 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2338
2339 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2340
2341 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2342 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2343 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2344 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2345 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2346 work, was also included.
2347
2348 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2349 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2350
2351 h8300-*-*
2352 mcore-*-*
2353 mn10300-*-*
2354 ns32k-*-*
2355 sh64-*-*
2356 v850-*-*
2357 xstormy16-*-*
2358
2359 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2360 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2361
2362 * REMOVED configurations and files
2363
2364 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2365 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2366 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2367 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2368 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2369 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2370 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2371 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2372 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2373 sonymips mips-sony-*
2374 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2375
2376 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2377
2378 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2379
2380 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2381 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2382 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2383 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2384 with GDB".
2385
2386 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2387
2388 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2389 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2390 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2391 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2392 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2393 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2394 are created.
2395
2396 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2397
2398 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2399
2400 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2401 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2402 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2403
2404 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2405
2406 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2407 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2408
2409 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2410
2411 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2412 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2413 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2414
2415 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2416
2417 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2418 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2419
2420 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2421
2422 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2423 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2424 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2425
2426 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2427
2428 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2429 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2430 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2431
2432 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2433
2434 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2435
2436 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2437 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2438
2439 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2440
2441 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2442 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2443 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2444 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2445
2446 * Revised SPARC target
2447
2448 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2449 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2450 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2451 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2452 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2453
2454 * New C++ demangler
2455
2456 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2457 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2458 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2459 programs.
2460
2461 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2462
2463 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2464 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2465 encountered these.
2466
2467 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2468
2469 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2470 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2471 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2472 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2473 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2474 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2475 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2476 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2477 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2478
2479 * New native configurations
2480
2481 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2482 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2483 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2484 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2485 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2486
2487 * New debugging protocols
2488
2489 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2490
2491 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2492
2493 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2494 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2495 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2496
2497 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2498
2499 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2500 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2501 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2502 permanently REMOVED.
2503
2504 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2505 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2506 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2507 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2508 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2509 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2510 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2511 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2512 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2513 sonymips mips-sony-*
2514 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2515
2516 * REMOVED configurations and files
2517
2518 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2519 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2520 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2521 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2522 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2523 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2524 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2525 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2526 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2527 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2528 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2529 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2530 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2531 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2532 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2533 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2534 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2535
2536 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2537
2538 * Objective-C
2539
2540 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2541 integrated into GDB.
2542
2543 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2544
2545 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2546 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2547 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2548 backtraces.
2549
2550 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2551 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2552 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2553
2554 * Hosted file I/O.
2555
2556 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2557 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2558 remote protocol documentation for details.
2559
2560 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2561
2562 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2563 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2564 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2565 ppc32 on ppc64).
2566
2567 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2568
2569 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2570 per-thread variables.
2571
2572 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2573
2574 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2575 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2576
2577 * Separate debug info.
2578
2579 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2580 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2581 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2582 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2583 and optional debug files.
2584
2585 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2586
2587 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2588 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2589 debugger.
2590
2591 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2592 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2593
2594 * Java
2595
2596 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2597 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2598 considered "useable".
2599
2600 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2601
2602 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2603 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2604 kernel.
2605
2606 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2607
2608 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2609 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2610
2611 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2612
2613 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2614 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2615 command.
2616
2617 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2618
2619 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2620 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2621
2622 * Profiling support
2623
2624 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2625 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2626 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2627 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2628 data, for more informative profiling results.
2629
2630 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2631
2632 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2633 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2634 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2635
2636 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2637 removed.
2638
2639 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2640 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2641 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2642 in a subsequent -var-update.
2643
2644 * New native configurations.
2645
2646 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2647
2648 * Multi-arched targets.
2649
2650 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2651 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2652
2653 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2654
2655 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2656 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2657 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2658 permanently REMOVED.
2659
2660 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2661 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2662 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2663 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2664 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2665 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2666 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2667 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2668 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2669 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2670 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2671 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2672
2673 * REMOVED configurations and files
2674
2675 V850EA ISA
2676 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2677 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2678 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2679 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2680 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2681 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2682 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2683 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2684 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2685 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2686 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2687 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2688 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2689
2690 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2691
2692 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2693 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2694 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2695 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2696 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2697
2698 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2699
2700 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2701
2702 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2703 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2704 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2705 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2706 shared libs like mad''.
2707
2708 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2709
2710 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2711 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2712 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2713 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2714
2715 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2716
2717 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2718 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2719 they expand.
2720
2721 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2722 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2723
2724 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2725 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2726
2727 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2728 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2729 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2730 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2731
2732 * Multi-arched targets.
2733
2734 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2735 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2736 NEC V850 v850-*-*
2737 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2738 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2739 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2740
2741 * New targets.
2742
2743 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2744
2745
2746 * New native configurations
2747
2748 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2749 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2750 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2751 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2752
2753 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2754
2755 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2756 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2757 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2758 permanently REMOVED.
2759
2760 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2761 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2762 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2763 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2764 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2765 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2766 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2767 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2768 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2769 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2770 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
2771 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2772 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2773
2774 * OBSOLETE languages
2775
2776 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2777
2778 * REMOVED configurations and files
2779
2780 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2781 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2782 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2783 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2784 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2785
2786 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2787
2788 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2789
2790 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2791 commands. The default is 1024.
2792
2793 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2794
2795 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2796
2797 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2798
2799 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2800 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2801 from a file into memory (restore).
2802
2803 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2804
2805 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2806 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2807 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2808
2809 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2810
2811 * New targets.
2812
2813 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
2814
2815 * Bug fixes
2816
2817 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2818 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2819 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2820
2821 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2822 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2823 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2824
2825 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2826 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2827 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2828
2829 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2830 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2831 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2832
2833 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2834
2835 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2836
2837 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2838 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2839 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2840 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2841 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2842 (notably embedded) targets.
2843
2844 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2845
2846 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2847 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2848 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2849 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2850
2851 * New command line option
2852
2853 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2854
2855 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2856
2857 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2858 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2859 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2860 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2861 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2862 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2863 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2864 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2865 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2866 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2867
2868 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2869
2870 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2871 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2872
2873 * New native configurations
2874
2875 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2876 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2877 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2878 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2879
2880 * New targets
2881
2882 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2883
2884 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2885
2886 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2887 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2888 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2889 permanently REMOVED.
2890
2891 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2892 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2893 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2894 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2895 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2896
2897 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2898
2899 * REMOVED configurations and files
2900
2901 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2902 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2903 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2904 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2905 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2906 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2907 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2908 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2909 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2910 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2911 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2912 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2913 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2914
2915 * Changes to command line processing
2916
2917 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2918 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2919
2920 * Changes to key bindings
2921
2922 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2923
2924 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2925
2926 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2927
2928 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2929 corrupted.
2930
2931 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2932
2933 Numerous documentation fixes.
2934
2935 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2936
2937 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2938
2939 * New native configurations
2940
2941 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2942 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2943 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2944 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2945 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2946 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2947
2948 * New targets
2949
2950 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2951 CRIS cris-axis
2952 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2953
2954 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2955
2956 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2957 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2958 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2959 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2960 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2961 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
2962 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2963 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2964 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2965 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2966 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2967 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2968 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2969 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2970
2971 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2972 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2973
2974 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2975 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2976 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2977 permanently REMOVED.
2978
2979 * REMOVED configurations and files
2980
2981 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2982 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2983 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
2984 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2985 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
2986 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
2987
2988 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2989
2990 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2991 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2992 present.
2993
2994 * Other news:
2995
2996 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2997
2998 * The MI enabled by default.
2999
3000 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3001 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3002 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3003 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3004 which is now deprecated.
3005
3006 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3007
3008 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3009 main features are supported:
3010
3011 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3012
3013 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3014 extension;
3015
3016 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3017
3018 - a Pascal expression parser.
3019
3020 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3021
3022 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3023
3024 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3025
3026 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3027 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3028
3029 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3030
3031 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3032
3033 * Changes in completion.
3034
3035 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3036 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3037 users expect at the shell prompt.
3038
3039 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3040 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3041 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3042 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3043 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3044 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3045 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3046
3047 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3048
3049 * New platform-independent commands:
3050
3051 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3052 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3053 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3054
3055 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3056
3057 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3058 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3059 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3060
3061 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3062
3063 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3064 multi-threaded programs though.
3065
3066 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3067
3068 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3069
3070 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3071 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3072 supported.)
3073
3074 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3075
3076 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3077 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3078 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3079 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3080 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3081 registers.
3082
3083 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3084 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3085 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3086
3087 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3088
3089 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3090 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3091
3092 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3093 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3094 IDT.
3095
3096 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3097 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3098 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3099 a given linear address.
3100
3101 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3102 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3103 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3104
3105 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3106
3107 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3108
3109 * Changes in documentation.
3110
3111 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3112 Documentation License.
3113
3114 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3115 manual.
3116
3117 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3118
3119 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3120 manual.
3121
3122 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3123 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3124 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3125
3126 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3127
3128 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3129 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3130 contents of this file.
3131
3132 * gdba.el deleted
3133
3134 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3135
3136 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3137
3138 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3139
3140 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3141 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3142 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3143 greater level of detail.
3144
3145 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3146
3147 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3148 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3149 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3150 written.
3151
3152 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3153
3154 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3155 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3156 machines ``out of the box''.
3157
3158 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3159 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3160 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3161 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3162 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3163
3164 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3165 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3166 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3167 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3168 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3169
3170 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3171 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3172 also works.
3173
3174 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3175 GDB.
3176
3177 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3178 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3179 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3180 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3181
3182 * New native configurations
3183
3184 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3185 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3186
3187 * New targets
3188
3189 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3190 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3191 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3192 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3193
3194 * OBSOLETE configurations
3195
3196 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3197 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3198 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3199 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3200 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3201
3202 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3203 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3204 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3205 be permanently REMOVED.
3206
3207 * Gould support removed
3208
3209 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3210
3211 * New features for SVR4
3212
3213 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3214 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3215 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3216
3217 * Many C++ enhancements
3218
3219 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3220 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3221
3222 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3223
3224 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3225 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3226 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3227 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3228
3229 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3230 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3231
3232 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3233
3234 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3235 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3236 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3237
3238 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3239 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3240
3241 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3242
3243 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3244 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3245 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3246
3247 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3248
3249 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3250 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3251 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3252
3253 * ``apropos'' command added.
3254
3255 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3256 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3257 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3258
3259 * New MI interface
3260
3261 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3262 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3263 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3264 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3265 enabled by configuring with:
3266
3267 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3268
3269 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3270
3271 * New native configurations
3272
3273 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3274 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3275 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3276
3277 * New targets
3278
3279 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3280 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3281 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3282
3283 * OBSOLETE configurations
3284
3285 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3286
3287 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3288 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3289 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3290 be permanently REMOVED.
3291
3292 * ANSI/ISO C
3293
3294 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3295 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3296 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3297 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3298 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3299 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3300 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3301 already.
3302
3303 * Readline 2.2
3304
3305 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3306
3307 * set extension-language
3308
3309 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3310 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3311 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3312 set extension-language .c c++
3313 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3314 and their associated languages.
3315
3316 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3317
3318 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3319 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3320 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3321
3322 set processor NAME
3323
3324 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3325 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3326
3327 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3328 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3329 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3330 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3331 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3332 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3333 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3334 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3335 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3336 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3337 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3338
3339 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3340 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3341 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3342 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3343
3344 * HP-UX support
3345
3346 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3347 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3348 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3349 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3350 for xdb and dbx commands.
3351
3352 * Catchpoints
3353
3354 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3355 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3356 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3357
3358 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3359 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3360 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3361
3362 * Debugging across forks
3363
3364 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3365 in the inferior.
3366
3367 * TUI
3368
3369 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3370 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3371 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3372
3373 * GDB remote protocol additions
3374
3375 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3376 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3377 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3378 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3379
3380 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3381 full 64-bit address. The command
3382
3383 set remoteaddresssize 32
3384
3385 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3386 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3387 will be discarded.
3388
3389 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3390 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3391
3392 maint packet heythere
3393
3394 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3395 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3396 time.
3397
3398 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3399 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3400 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3401
3402 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3403
3404 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3405 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3406 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3407
3408 * mask-address variable for Mips
3409
3410 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3411 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3412 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3413
3414 * Higher serial baud rates
3415
3416 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3417 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3418 to achieve all of these rates.)
3419
3420 * i960 simulator
3421
3422 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3423 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3424
3425
3426 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3427
3428 * New native configurations
3429
3430 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3431 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3432 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3433 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3434 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3435 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3436 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3437
3438 * New targets
3439
3440 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3441 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3442 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3443 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3444 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3445 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3446 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3447 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3448 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3449 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3450 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3451
3452 * New debugging protocols
3453
3454 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3455 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3456 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3457 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3458 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3459 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3460
3461 * DWARF 2
3462
3463 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3464 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3465 information.
3466
3467 * Java frontend
3468
3469 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3470 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3471
3472 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3473
3474 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3475 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3476 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3477
3478 * Live range splitting
3479
3480 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3481 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3482 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3483
3484 * Hurd support
3485
3486 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3487 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3488
3489 * ARM Thumb support
3490
3491 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3492 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3493 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3494 accordingly.
3495
3496 * MIPS16 support
3497
3498 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3499 instruction set.
3500
3501 * Overlay support
3502
3503 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3504 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3505 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3506 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3507 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3508 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3509
3510 * info symbol
3511
3512 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3513 the symbol at the specified address.
3514
3515 * Trace support
3516
3517 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3518 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3519 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3520 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3521 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3522
3523 * MIPS simulator
3524
3525 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3526 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3527 of most MIPS variants.
3528
3529 * Sparc simulator
3530
3531 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3532 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3533 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3534
3535 * set architecture
3536
3537 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3538 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3539 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3540 the possible architectures.
3541
3542 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3543
3544 * New native configurations
3545
3546 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3547 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3548 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3549 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3550 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3551 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3552
3553 * New targets
3554
3555 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3556 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3557 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3558 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3559 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3560 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
3561 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3562
3563 * PowerPC simulator
3564
3565 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3566 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3567 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3568 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3569 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3570
3571 * Solaris 2.5
3572
3573 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3574
3575 * Windows 95/NT native
3576
3577 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3578 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3579 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3580 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3581 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3582
3583 * dont-repeat command
3584
3585 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3586 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3587 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3588 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3589
3590 * Send break instead of ^C
3591
3592 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3593 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3594 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3595
3596 * Remote protocol timeout
3597
3598 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3599 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3600 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3601
3602 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3603
3604 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3605 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3606 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3607 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3608 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3609
3610 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3611 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3612 automatically on hpux10.
3613
3614 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3615
3616 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3617
3618 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3619
3620 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3621 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3622 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3623 every character. The default value is 1050.
3624
3625 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3626
3627 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3628 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3629 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3630 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3631 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3632 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3633
3634 * Speedups for remote debugging
3635
3636 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3637 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3638 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3639
3640 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3641
3642 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3643 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3644
3645 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3646
3647 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3648
3649 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3650 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3651
3652 * Remote targets use caching
3653
3654 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3655 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3656 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3657 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3658 off' turns the the data cache off.
3659
3660 * Remote targets may have threads
3661
3662 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3663 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3664 gdb/remote.c for details.
3665
3666 * NetROM support
3667
3668 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3669 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3670 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3671 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3672 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3673 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3674 sequence is something like
3675
3676 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3677 load <prog>
3678 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3679
3680 * Macintosh host
3681
3682 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3683 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3684 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3685 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3686 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3687 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3688 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3689 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3690
3691 * Autoconf
3692
3693 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3694 but does simplify configuration and building.
3695
3696 * hpux10
3697
3698 GDB now supports hpux10.
3699
3700 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3701
3702 * New native configurations
3703
3704 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3705 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3706 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3707 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3708
3709 * New targets
3710
3711 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3712 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3713 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3714 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3715 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3716
3717 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3718
3719 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3720 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3721 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3722 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3723 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3724
3725 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3726
3727 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3728 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3729 trivial example:
3730 define adder
3731 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3732
3733 To execute the command use:
3734 adder 1 2 3
3735
3736 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3737 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3738 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3739
3740 * New `if' and `while' commands
3741
3742 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3743 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3744 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3745 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3746 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3747 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3748 if the expression is zero.
3749
3750 * Fortran source language mode
3751
3752 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3753 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3754 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3755 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3756 Fortran compilers.
3757
3758 * Better HPUX support
3759
3760 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3761 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3762 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3763 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3764 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3765
3766 adb -w a.out
3767 __dld_flags?W 0x5
3768 control-d
3769
3770 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3771 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3772
3773 adb -w a.out
3774 __dld_flags?W 0x4
3775 control-d
3776
3777 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3778 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3779 external linkage.
3780
3781 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3782 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3783
3784 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3785
3786 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3787 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3788 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3789 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3790 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3791 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3792
3793 * New DOS host serial code
3794
3795 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3796 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3797 a PC's serial port.
3798
3799 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3800
3801 * New "complete" command
3802
3803 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3804 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3805
3806 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3807
3808 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3809 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3810
3811 * Breakpoint hit counts
3812
3813 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3814 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3815 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3816 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3817 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3818 that breakpoint.
3819
3820 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3821
3822 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3823 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3824 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3825
3826 * Shared library breakpoints
3827
3828 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3829 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3830
3831 * Hardware watchpoints
3832
3833 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3834 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3835
3836 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3837
3838 * Annotations
3839
3840 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3841 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3842
3843 * Improved Irix 5 support
3844
3845 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3846
3847 * Improved HPPA support
3848
3849 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3850
3851 * New native configurations
3852
3853 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3854 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3855 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3856 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3857
3858 * New targets
3859
3860 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3861 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3862 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
3863
3864 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3865
3866 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3867 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3868
3869 * Fixes
3870
3871 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3872 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3873
3874 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3875
3876 * Irix 5 is now supported
3877
3878 * HPPA support
3879
3880 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3881 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3882 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3883 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3884 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3885
3886
3887 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3888
3889 * User visible changes:
3890
3891 * Remote Debugging
3892
3893 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3894 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3895 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3896 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3897 debugging info for the mips target).
3898
3899 * DEC Alpha native support
3900
3901 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3902 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3903 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3904 Alpha-specific notes.
3905
3906 * Preliminary thread implementation
3907
3908 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3909
3910 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3911
3912 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3913 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3914 for details).
3915
3916 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3917
3918 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3919 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3920 call methods, ...etc.
3921
3922 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3923
3924 * User visible changes:
3925
3926 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3927 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3928 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3929 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3930
3931 Filename completion now works.
3932
3933 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3934 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3935 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3936
3937 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3938 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3939 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3940 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3941 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3942
3943 * DEC alpha support
3944
3945 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3946 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3947
3948
3949 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3950
3951 * Testsuite
3952
3953 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3954 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3955 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3956
3957 * C++ demangling
3958
3959 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3960 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3961 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3962 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3963 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3964
3965 * Simulators
3966
3967 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3968 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3969 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3970
3971 * New targets supported
3972
3973 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3974 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3975 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3976 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3977 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3978
3979 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3980 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3981 GO32 memory extender.
3982
3983 * New remote protocols
3984
3985 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3986
3987 * New source languages supported
3988
3989 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3990 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3991 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3992
3993
3994 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3995
3996 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3997
3998 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3999 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4000 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4001 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4002 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4003 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4004
4005 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4006
4007 * Faster and better demangling
4008
4009 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4010 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4011 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4012 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4013 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4014 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4015 symbol lookups.
4016
4017 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4018 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4019 compiler does not actually implement.
4020
4021 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4022
4023 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4024 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4025 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4026 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4027 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4028 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4029 fix.
4030
4031 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4032 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4033
4034 * Improved configure script
4035
4036 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4037 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4038 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4039 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4040
4041 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4042 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4043 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4044 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4045 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4046 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4047
4048 * Documentation improvements
4049
4050 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4051 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4052 before submitting changes.
4053
4054 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4055 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4056 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4057 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4058 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4059
4060 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4061 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4062 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4063 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4064 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4065 around this problem.
4066
4067 * New features
4068
4069 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4070 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4071 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4072 the target program.
4073
4074 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4075 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4076
4077 * New native hosts supported
4078
4079 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4080 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4081
4082 * New targets supported
4083
4084 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4085
4086 * New file formats supported
4087
4088 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4089 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4090
4091 * Major bug fixes
4092
4093 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4094
4095 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4096 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4097
4098 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4099 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4100 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4101
4102 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4103 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4104
4105 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4106 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4107 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4108 libraries.
4109
4110 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4111 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4112 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4113 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4114 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4115
4116 * Internal improvements
4117
4118 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4119 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4120
4121 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4122 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4123 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4124 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4125 shared code that handles any of them.
4126
4127 * New command line options
4128
4129 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4130
4131 * Mmalloc licensing
4132
4133 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4134 General Public License.
4135
4136 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4137
4138 * Host/native/target split
4139
4140 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4141 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4142 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4143 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4144 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4145
4146 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4147 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4148 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4149 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4150 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4151 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4152 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4153
4154 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4155 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4156 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4157
4158 * New hosts supported
4159
4160 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4161 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4162 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4163
4164 * New targets supported
4165
4166 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4167 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4168
4169 * New native hosts supported
4170
4171 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4172 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4173 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4174
4175 * New file formats supported
4176
4177 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4178 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4179 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4180
4181 * New commands
4182
4183 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4184 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4185 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4186
4187 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4188
4189 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4190 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4191 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4192 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4193
4194 * C++ improvements
4195
4196 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4197 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4198 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4199
4200 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4201
4202 * Major bug fixes
4203
4204 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4205 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4206 by the compiler.
4207
4208 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4209 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4210
4211 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4212 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4213 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4214 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4215 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4216 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4217
4218 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4219 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4220 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4221 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4222
4223 * AMD 29k support
4224
4225 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4226 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4227 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4228 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4229 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4230
4231 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4232 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4233 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4234 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4235
4236 * Remote interfaces
4237
4238 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4239 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4240 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4241 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4242 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4243 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4244 each instruction being stepped through.
4245
4246 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4247 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4248
4249 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4250 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4251 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4252 processor with a serial port.
4253
4254 * Configuration
4255
4256 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4257 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4258 supported, and what files each one uses.
4259
4260 * Library changes
4261
4262 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4263 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4264 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4265 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4266
4267 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4268 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4269 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4270 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4271
4272 * Documentation
4273
4274 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4275 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4276 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4277 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4278 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4279 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4280
4281 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4282
4283
4284 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4285
4286 * Better support for C++ function names
4287
4288 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4289 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4290 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4291 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4292 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4293
4294 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4295 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4296 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4297 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4298 for the list of formats.
4299
4300 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4301
4302 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4303 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4304 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4305 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4306 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4307 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4308 this problem.)
4309
4310 * New 'maintenance' command
4311
4312 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4313 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4314 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4315
4316 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4317 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4318 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4319 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4320 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4321 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4322
4323 The following commands are new:
4324
4325 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4326 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4327 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4328
4329 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4330
4331 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4332 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4333 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4334 read after argv processing.
4335
4336 * New hosts supported
4337
4338 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4339
4340 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4341
4342 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4343 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4344 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4345 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4346 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4347 It costs extra.
4348
4349 * New targets supported
4350
4351 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4352
4353 * More smarts about finding #include files
4354
4355 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4356 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4357 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4358 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4359 the one that contains your sources.
4360
4361 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4362 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4363 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4364
4365 * Interesting infernals change
4366
4367 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4368 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4369 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4370 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4371
4372 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4373
4374 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4375 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4376 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4377
4378 See the ChangeLog for details.
4379
4380 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4381
4382 * New machines supported (host and target)
4383
4384 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4385
4386 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4387
4388 * New malloc package
4389
4390 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4391 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4392 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4393 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4394 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4395 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4396
4397 * info proc
4398
4399 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4400 'help info proc' for details.
4401
4402 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4403
4404 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4405 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4406 possible.
4407
4408 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4409
4410 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4411 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4412 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4413 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4414 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4415 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4416
4417 * Cross byte order fixes
4418
4419 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4420 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4421
4422 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4423
4424 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4425 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4426 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4427 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4428 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4429 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4430 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4431 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4432 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4433 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4434
4435 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4436 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4437 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4438 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4439
4440 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4441 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4442 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4443 use is:
4444
4445 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4446
4447 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4448 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4449 shared across multiple host platforms.
4450
4451 * longjmp() handling
4452
4453 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4454 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4455 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4456 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4457
4458 * Solaris 2.0
4459
4460 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4461 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4462 reading symbols.
4463
4464 * Bug fixes
4465
4466 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4467 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4468 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4469
4470 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4471
4472 * New machines supported (host and target)
4473
4474 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4475 (except core files)
4476 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4477 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4478
4479 * New machines supported (target)
4480
4481 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4482
4483 * C++ support
4484
4485 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4486 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4487 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4488
4489 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4490 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4491 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4492 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4493 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4494 released.
4495
4496 * New features for SVR4
4497
4498 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4499 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4500 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4501
4502 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4503 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4504 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4505
4506 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4507 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4508
4509 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4510
4511 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4512 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4513 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4514 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4515 same code linked statically.
4516
4517 * New Getopt
4518
4519 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4520 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4521 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4522 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4523 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4524 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4525
4526 * Bugs fixed
4527
4528 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4529 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4530 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4531
4532
4533 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4534
4535 * New machines supported (host and target)
4536
4537 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4538 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4539 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4540
4541 * Almost SCO Unix support
4542
4543 We had hoped to support:
4544 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4545 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4546 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4547 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4548
4549 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4550
4551 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4552 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4553 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4554 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4555 reqired (if any).
4556
4557 * New Readline
4558
4559 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4560 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4561 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4562
4563 * Bugs fixed
4564
4565 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4566 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4567 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4568
4569 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4570
4571 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4572 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4573 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4574
4575 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4576 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4577 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4578 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4579 version 2.
4580
4581 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4582 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4583 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4584 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4585 situation somewhat.
4586
4587 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4588 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4589 methods.
4590
4591 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4592 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4593 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4594
4595
4596 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4597
4598 * Improved configuration
4599
4600 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4601 Porting BFD is simpler.
4602
4603 * Stepping improved
4604
4605 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4606 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4607 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4608 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4609
4610 * Bug fixing
4611
4612 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4613
4614 * New host supported (not target)
4615
4616 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4617
4618
4619 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4620
4621 * Multiple source language support
4622
4623 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4624 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4625 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4626 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4627 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4628 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4629
4630 * GDB and Modula-2
4631
4632 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4633 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4634 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4635 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4636
4637 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4638 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4639 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4640
4641 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4642 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4643
4644 * set write on/off
4645
4646 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4647 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4648 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4649 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4650 effect immediately.
4651
4652 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4653
4654 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4655 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4656 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4657 examining core files.
4658
4659 * set listsize
4660
4661 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4662 The default is 10.
4663
4664 * New machines supported (host and target)
4665
4666 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4667 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4668 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4669
4670 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4671
4672 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4673
4674 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4675
4676 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4677 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4678 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4679
4680 * New remote interfaces
4681
4682 AMD 29000 Adapt
4683 AMD 29000 Minimon
4684
4685
4686 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4687
4688 * New Facilities
4689
4690 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4691
4692 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4693 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4694 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4695 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4696 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4697 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4698 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4699 stub on the target system.
4700
4701 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4702
4703 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4704 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4705 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4706
4707 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4708 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4709
4710
4711 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4712
4713 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4714 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4715
4716 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4717 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4718 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4719
4720 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4721 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4722 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4723 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4724
4725 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4726 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4727 it is already running. Default is ON.
4728
4729 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4730 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4731 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4732 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4733 Default is ON.
4734
4735 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4736 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4737 or the value of the environment variable
4738 GDBHISTFILE.
4739
4740 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4741 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4742 HISTSIZE.
4743
4744 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4745 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4746 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4747
4748 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4749 history expansion will be performed on
4750 command line input. The default is OFF.
4751
4752 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4753 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4754 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4755
4756 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4757 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4758 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4759 variable TERM.
4760
4761 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4762 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4763 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4764 variable TERM.
4765
4766 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4767 ``set width'' instead.
4768
4769 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4770 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4771 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4772 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4773
4774 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4775 is OFF.
4776
4777 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4778 "raw" form if off.
4779
4780 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4781 like instructions.
4782
4783 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4784
4785
4786 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4787
4788 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4789 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4790 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4791 window.
4792
4793
4794 * Support for Shared Libraries
4795
4796 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4797 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4798 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4799 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4800 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4801 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4802 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4803 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4804
4805 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4806 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4807 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4808
4809 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4810
4811
4812 * Watchpoints
4813
4814 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4815 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4816 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4817 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4818 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4819 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4820
4821 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4822
4823 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4824
4825 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4826 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4827 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4828
4829
4830 * C++ multiple inheritance
4831
4832 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4833 for C++ programs.
4834
4835 * C++ exception handling
4836
4837 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4838 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4839 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4840 handler's context).
4841
4842 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4843 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4844 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4845
4846 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4847 current stack frame.
4848
4849
4850 * Minor command changes
4851
4852 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4853 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4854 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4855
4856 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4857 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4858 frames without printing.
4859
4860 * New directory command
4861
4862 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4863 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4864 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4865 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4866 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4867
4868 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4869
4870 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4871 for more details.
4872
4873 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4874 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4875 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4876 where the program that you are debugging will run.
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