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