- What has changed since GDB-3.5?
- (Organized release by release)
+ What has changed in GDB?
+ (Organized release by release)
-*** Changes in GDB-???:
+*** Changes since GDB-4.17:
+
+* New native configurations
+
+M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
+
+* New targets
+
+Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
+Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
+
+* GDB Remote protocol
+
+For 64 bit targets, the memory packets ("M" and "m") can now contain a
+full 64 bit address. The class-obscure gdb command:
+ set targetaddresssize 32
+can be used to revert to the old behavour. For existing remote stubs
+the change should not be noticed as the additional address information
+will be discarded.
+
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.17:
+
+* New native configurations
+
+Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
+Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
+Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
+PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
+PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
+Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
+Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
+
+* New targets
+
+Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
+Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
+Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
+Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
+MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
+MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
+MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
+Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
+Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
+Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
+NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
+
+* New debugging protocols
+
+ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
+M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
+DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
+PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
+PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
+Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
+
+* DWARF 2
+
+All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
+format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
+information.
+
+start-sanitize-java
+* Java frontend
+
+GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
+only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
+
+end-sanitize-java
+* solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
+
+For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
+loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
+locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
+
+* Live range splitting
+
+GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
+range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
+more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
+
+* Hurd support
+
+GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
+updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
+
+* ARM Thumb support
+
+GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
+instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
+instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
+accordingly.
+
+* MIPS16 support
+
+GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
+instruction set.
+
+* Overlay support
+
+GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
+linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
+will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
+control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
+additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
+in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
+
+* info symbol
+
+The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
+the symbol at the specified address.
+
+* Trace support
+
+The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
+asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
+extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
+includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
+file tracepoint.c for more details.
+
+* MIPS simulator
+
+Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
+by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
+of most MIPS variants.
+
+* Sparc simulator
+
+Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
+by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
+Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
+
+* set architecture
+
+For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
+basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
+architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
+the possible architectures.
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.16:
+
+* New native configurations
+
+Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
+M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
+PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
+PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
+PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
+RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
+
+* New targets
+
+ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
+I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
+MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
+MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
+PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
+Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
+Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
+
+* PowerPC simulator
+
+The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
+contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
+PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
+basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
+performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
+
+* Solaris 2.5
+
+GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
+
+* Windows 95/NT native
+
+GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
+To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
+which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
+Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
+ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
+
+* dont-repeat command
+
+If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
+command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
+useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
+extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
+
+* Send break instead of ^C
+
+The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
+rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
+GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
+
+* Remote protocol timeout
+
+The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
+that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
+to read from the target. The default value is 2.
+
+* Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
+
+By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
+loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
+stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
+when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
+in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
+
+Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
+/usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
+automatically on hpux10.
+
+* Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
+
+Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
+
+* Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
+
+When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
+may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
+the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
+every character. The default value is 1050.
+
+* Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
+
+If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
+a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
+replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
+details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
+remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
+to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
+
+* Speedups for remote debugging
+
+GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
+the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
+and more efficient S-record downloading.
+
+* Memory use reductions and statistics collection
+
+GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
+Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.15:
+
+* Psymtabs for XCOFF
+
+The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
+can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
+
+* Remote targets use caching
+
+Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
+remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
+it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
+debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
+off' turns the the data cache off.
+
+* Remote targets may have threads
+
+The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
+in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
+gdb/remote.c for details.
+
+* NetROM support
+
+If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
+support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
+acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
+write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
+support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
+another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
+sequence is something like
+
+ target nrom <netrom-hostname>
+ load <prog>
+ target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
+
+* Macintosh host
+
+GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
+may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
+it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
+available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
+device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
+directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
+scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
+mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
+
+* Autoconf
+
+GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
+but does simplify configuration and building.
+
+* hpux10
+
+GDB now supports hpux10.
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.14:
+
+* New native configurations
+
+x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
+x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
+NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
+Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
+
+* New targets
+
+A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
+HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
+CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
+PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
+WDC 65816 w65-*-*
+
+* Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
+
+GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
+possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
+filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
+the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
+if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
+
+* Arguments to user-defined commands
+
+User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
+Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
+trivial example:
+define adder
+ print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
+
+To execute the command use:
+adder 1 2 3
+
+Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
+Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
+use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
+
+* New `if' and `while' commands
+
+This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
+commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
+expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
+execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
+terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
+`else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
+if the expression is zero.
+
+* Fortran source language mode
+
+GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
+Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
+variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
+with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
+Fortran compilers.
+
+* Better HPUX support
+
+Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
+running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
+processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
+for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
+that behavior do the following before running the program:
+
+ adb -w a.out
+ __dld_flags?W 0x5
+ control-d
+
+This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
+To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
+
+ adb -w a.out
+ __dld_flags?W 0x4
+ control-d
+
+You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
+the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
+external linkage.
+
+GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
+HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
+
+* Target byte order now dynamically selectable
+
+You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
+commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
+current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
+"set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
+associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
+configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
+
+* New DOS host serial code
+
+This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
+no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
+a PC's serial port.
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.13:
+
+* New "complete" command
+
+This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
+were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
+
+* Trailing space optional in prompt
+
+"set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
+allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
+
+* Breakpoint hit counts
+
+"info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
+has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
+can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
+to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
+less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
+that breakpoint.
+
+* Ability to stop printing at NULL character
+
+"set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
+an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
+arrays actually contain only short strings.
+
+* Shared library breakpoints
+
+In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
+breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
+
+* Hardware watchpoints
+
+There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
+targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
+
+Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
+
+* Annotations
+
+Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
+and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
+
+* Improved Irix 5 support
+
+GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
+
+* Improved HPPA support
+
+GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
+
+* New native configurations
+
+Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
+HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
+Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
+RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
+
+* New targets
+
+OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
+MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
+Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
+
+* Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
+
+There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
+This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
+
+* Fixes
+
+As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
+and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.12:
+
+* Irix 5 is now supported
+
+* HPPA support
+
+GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
+to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
+GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
+of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
+can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
+
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.11:
+
+* User visible changes:
+
+* Remote Debugging
+
+The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
+target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
+debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
+integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
+debugging info for the mips target).
+
+* DEC Alpha native support
+
+GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
+debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
+work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
+Alpha-specific notes.
+
+* Preliminary thread implementation
+
+GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
+
+* LynxOS native and target support for 386
+
+This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
+to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
+for details).
+
+* Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
+
+This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
+mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
+call methods, ...etc.
+
+*** Changes in GDB-4.10:
* User visible changes:
Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
-supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some way
-of getting the stub to the target system, and putting it somewhere in
-memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
+supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
+other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
+somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
Filename completion now works.
When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
-addresses in symbolic form.
+addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
to be on the far side of a thin network line.
+ * DEC alpha support
+
+This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
+cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
+
+
*** Changes in GDB-4.9:
* Testsuite