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