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