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