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