gdb/gdbserver/
[binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.6
5
6 * Python scripting
7
8 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
9
10 * New targets
11
12 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
13 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
14 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
15
16 * New commands:
17 catch rethrow
18 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
19 maint check-psymtabs
20 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
21 maint check-symtabs
22 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
23 maint expand-symtabs
24 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
25
26 show configuration
27 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
28
29 maint set|show per-command
30 maint set|show per-command space
31 maint set|show per-command time
32 maint set|show per-command symtab
33 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
34
35 * New options
36
37 set print raw frame-arguments
38 show print raw frame-arguments
39 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
40 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
41
42 set remote trace-status-packet
43 show remote trace-status-packet
44 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
45
46 set debug nios2
47 show debug nios2
48 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
49
50 set range-stepping
51 show range-stepping
52 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
53
54 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
55 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
56 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
57 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
58 "set height 0".
59
60 * New command-line options
61 --configuration
62 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
63
64 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
65 buffer in Common Trace Format.
66
67 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
68 GDB command gcore.
69
70 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
71
72 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
73 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
74
75 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
76 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
77
78 * MI changes
79
80 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
81 Trace Format now.
82
83 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
84
85 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
86 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
87 are displayed.
88
89 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
90 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
91
92 * New system-wide configuration scripts
93 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
94 configuration scripts for the following systems:
95 ** ElinOS
96 ** Wind River Linux
97
98 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
99 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
100 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
101 below.
102
103 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
104 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
105
106 * New remote packets
107
108 vCont;r
109
110 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
111 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
112 involvemement at each single-step.
113
114 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
115 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
116 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
117 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
118 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
119 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
120 speedup.
121
122 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
123
124 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
125 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
126
127 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
128 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
129 trace state variables.
130
131 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
132 target.
133
134 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
135 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
136
137 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
138
139 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
140 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
141 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
142 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
143
144 set|show record full insn-number-max
145 set|show record full stop-at-limit
146 set|show record full memory-query
147
148 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
149 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
150 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
151 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
152 This new recording method can be enabled using:
153
154 record btrace
155
156 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
157 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
158
159 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
160 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
161 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
162
163 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
164 instruction granularity
165
166 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
167 function granularity
168
169 * New native configurations
170
171 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
172 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
173 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
174 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
175
176 * New targets
177
178 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
179 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
180 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
181 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
182 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
183
184 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
185 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
186 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
187 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
188 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
189 --data-directory command-line option.
190
191 * New command line options:
192
193 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
194 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
195
196 * Removed command line options
197
198 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
199 Emacs.
200
201 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
202 type formatting.
203
204 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
205
206 * Python scripting
207
208 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
209
210 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
211
212 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
213
214 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
215
216 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
217 of architecture in the Python API.
218
219 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
220 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
221
222 * New Python-based convenience functions:
223
224 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
225 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
226 ** $_strlen(str)
227 ** $_regex(str, regex)
228
229 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
230 given an argument.
231
232 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
233 default for GCC since November 2000.
234
235 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
236
237 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
238 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
239
240 * New configure options
241
242 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
243 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
244 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
245 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
246 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
247 options allow the user to override that default.
248 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
249 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
250 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
251
252 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
253
254 catch signal
255 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
256 conditions to be attached.
257
258 maint info bfds
259 List the BFDs known to GDB.
260
261 python-interactive [command]
262 pi [command]
263 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
264 and print the result of expressions.
265
266 py [command]
267 "py" is a new alias for "python".
268
269 enable type-printer [name]...
270 disable type-printer [name]...
271 Enable or disable type printers.
272
273 * Removed commands
274
275 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
276 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
277 instead.
278
279 * New options
280
281 set print type methods (on|off)
282 show print type methods
283 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
284 The default is to show them.
285
286 set print type typedefs (on|off)
287 show print type typedefs
288 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
289 The default is to show them.
290
291 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
292 show filename-display
293 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
294 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
295
296 set trace-buffer-size
297 show trace-buffer-size
298 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
299
300 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
301 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
302 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
303
304 set debug aarch64
305 show debug aarch64
306 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
307 The default is off.
308
309 set debug coff-pe-read
310 show debug coff-pe-read
311 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
312 exported symbols.
313
314 set debug mach-o
315 show debug mach-o
316 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
317 processing.
318
319 set debug notification
320 show debug notification
321 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
322
323 * MI changes
324
325 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
326 "=cmd-param-changed".
327 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
328 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
329 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
330 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
331 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
332 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
333 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
334 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
335 "=memory-changed".
336 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
337 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
338 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
339 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
340 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
341 library load/unload events.
342 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
343 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
344 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
345 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
346 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
347 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
348 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
349 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
350
351 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
352 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
353 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
354 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
355
356 * New remote packets
357
358 QTBuffer:size
359 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
360 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
361
362 Qbtrace:bts
363 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
364 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
365 qSupported query.
366
367 Qbtrace:off
368 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
369 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
370
371 qXfer:btrace:read
372 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
373 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
374
375 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
376
377 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
378 for more x32 ABI info.
379
380 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
381
382 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
383
384 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
385 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
386 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
387 "info os files" lists file descriptors
388 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
389 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
390 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
391 "info os msg" lists message queues
392 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
393
394 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
395 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
396 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
397 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
398 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
399 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
400
401 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
402 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
403 record/replay support.
404
405 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
406
407 * Python scripting
408
409 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
410 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
411
412 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
413
414 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
415 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
416
417 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
418
419 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
420 the source at which the symbol was defined.
421
422 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
423 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
424 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
425 symbol's value.
426
427 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
428 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
429
430 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
431 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
432 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
433
434 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
435 object associated with a PC value.
436
437 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
438 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
439
440 * Go language support.
441 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
442 language.
443
444 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
445 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
446
447 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
448 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
449
450 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
451 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
452 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
453 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
454 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
455 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
456
457 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
458 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
459 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
460 build/libcpp/expr.c.
461
462 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
463 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
464
465 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
466 since December 2007.
467
468 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
469 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
470 command does. For instance:
471
472 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
473
474 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
475 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
476 created, using the "condition" command.
477
478 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
479 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
480
481 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
482
483 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
484 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
485 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
486 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
487 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
488 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
489 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
490 files with older .gdb_index sections.
491
492 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
493 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
494 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
495 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
496 the .gdb_index section.
497
498 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
499
500 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
501 target.
502
503 * MI changes
504
505 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
506
507 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
508
509 * New commands
510
511 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
512 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
513 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
514
515 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
516 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
517
518 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
519 several hits.
520
521 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
522 C++ and Java objects.
523
524 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
525 can be used to reccursively explore values and types of
526 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
527 configured with '--with-python'.
528
529 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
530 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
531 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
532 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
533 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
534 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
535 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
536
537 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
538 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
539 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
540 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
541
542 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
543 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
544 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
545 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
546
547 ** "set print symbol"
548 "show print symbol"
549 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
550 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
551 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
552
553 * Deprecated commands
554
555 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
556 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
557
558 * New targets
559
560 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
561 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
562
563 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
564 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
565 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
566 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
567 evaluates to true.
568
569 * New options
570
571 set mips compression
572 show mips compression
573 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
574 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
575 mips16
576 micromips
577 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
578
579 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
580 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
581 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
582 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
583 available mode.
584 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
585 target.
586
587 set auto-load off
588 Disable auto-loading globally.
589
590 show auto-load
591 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
592
593 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
594 show auto-load gdb-scripts
595 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
596
597 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
598 show auto-load python-scripts
599 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
600
601 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
602 show auto-load local-gdbinit
603 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
604
605 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
606 show auto-load libthread-db
607 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
608
609 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
610 show auto-load scripts-directory
611 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
612 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
613 of the directories listed by this option.
614 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
615
616 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
617 show auto-load safe-path
618 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
619 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
620
621 set debug auto-load on|off
622 show debug auto-load
623 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
624
625 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
626 show dprintf-style
627 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
628 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
629 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
630 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
631
632 set dprintf-function <expr>
633 show dprintf-function
634 set dprintf-channel <expr>
635 show dprintf-channel
636 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
637 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
638
639 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
640 show disconnected-dprintf
641 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
642 after GDB disconnects.
643
644 * New configure options
645
646 --with-auto-load-dir
647 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
648 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
649 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
650 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
651 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
652
653 --with-auto-load-safe-path
654 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
655 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
656
657 --without-auto-load-safe-path
658 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
659 security feature.
660
661 * New remote packets
662
663 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
664
665 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
666 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
667 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
668 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
669
670 QProgramSignals:
671
672 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
673 program without GDB involvement.
674
675 * New command line options
676
677 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
678 before loading inferior.
679 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
680 execute it before loading inferior.
681
682 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
683
684 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
685 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
686 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
687 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
688 inferior changes.
689
690 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
691 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
692
693 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
694 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
695 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
696 target hardware watchpoint.
697
698 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
699 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
700 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
701 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
702
703 * Python scripting
704
705 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
706 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
707 existing one.
708
709 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
710 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
711 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
712 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
713 now "message", which just prints the error message without
714 the stack trace.
715
716 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
717 Python API.
718
719 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
720 modules library. This module provides functionality for
721 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
722 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
723 corresponding value.
724
725 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
726 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
727 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
728 on GDB start-up.
729
730 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
731 static_block will return the global and static blocks
732 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
733 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
734
735 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
736
737 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
738 "gdb.breakpoints".
739
740 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
741 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
742 available in the CLI.
743
744 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
745 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
746 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
747 "some_type.items()".
748
749 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
750 new object file.
751
752 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
753 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
754 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
755 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
756 any anonymous fields.
757
758 * MI changes
759
760 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
761 "solib-event".
762
763 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
764 "=breakpoint-modified".
765
766 ** New command -ada-task-info.
767
768 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
769 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
770 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
771 lives.
772
773 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
774 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
775 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
776 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
777 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
778
779 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
780 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
781
782 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
783 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
784 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
785 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
786 use this option to specify where to find it.
787
788 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
789 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
790 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
791 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
792 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
793 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
794 section in the user manual for more details.
795
796 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
797 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
798 become available after that.
799
800 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
801
802 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
803 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
804 gcc version 4.7.
805
806 * New commands
807
808 !SHELL COMMAND
809 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
810 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
811
812 * Changed commands
813
814 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
815 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
816 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
817
818 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
819 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
820 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
821
822 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
823 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
824 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
825 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
826 name starts with a hyphen.
827
828 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
829 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
830 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
831 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
832 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
833 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
834 number of bytes that will be collected.
835
836 tstart [NOTES]
837 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
838 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
839 setting the variable trace-notes.
840
841 tstop [NOTES]
842 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
843 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
844 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
845 trace-stop-notes.
846
847 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
848 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
849 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
850 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
851 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
852 is running.
853
854 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
855 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
856 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
857
858 * New options
859
860 set debug dwarf2-read
861 show debug dwarf2-read
862 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
863 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
864
865 set debug symtab-create
866 show debug symtab-create
867 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
868 creation. The default is off.
869
870 set extended-prompt
871 show extended-prompt
872 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
873 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
874 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
875 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
876 prompt is displayed.
877
878 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
879 show print entry-values
880 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
881 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
882 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
883
884 set debug entry-values
885 show debug entry-values
886 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
887 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
888
889 set basenames-may-differ
890 show basenames-may-differ
891 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
892 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
893 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
894 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
895 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
896 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
897 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
898 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
899
900 set trace-user
901 show trace-user
902 set trace-notes
903 show trace-notes
904 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
905 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
906 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
907 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
908
909 set trace-stop-notes
910 show trace-stop-notes
911 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
912 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
913 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
914 started by someone else.
915
916 * New remote packets
917
918 QTEnable
919
920 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
921
922 QTDisable
923
924 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
925
926 QTNotes
927
928 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
929
930 qTP
931
932 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
933
934 qTMinFTPILen
935
936 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
937 be placed.
938
939 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
940 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
941
942 * New targets
943
944 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
945
946 * New Simulators
947
948 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
949
950 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
951
952 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
953
954 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
955
956 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
957 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
958 matches the given regular expression.
959
960 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
961
962 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
963 dumping the instruction opcodes.
964
965 * New command line options
966
967 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
968 This is mostly for testing purposes.
969
970 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
971 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
972
973 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
974 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
975 source path list instead of augmenting it.
976
977 * GDB now understands thread names.
978
979 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
980 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
981
982 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
983 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
984
985 * OpenCL C
986 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
987 has been integrated into GDB.
988
989 * Python scripting
990
991 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
992 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
993 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
994
995 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
996 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
997 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
998 and allows for more dynamic content.
999
1000 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1001 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1002 have an is_valid method.
1003
1004 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1005 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1006 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1007
1008 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1009
1010 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1011 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1012 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1013 that function like so:
1014
1015 result = some_value (10,20)
1016
1017 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1018 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1019 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1020
1021 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1022 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1023 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1024 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1025 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1026
1027 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1028 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1029
1030 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1031
1032 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1033 selected thread.
1034
1035 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1036 holds the thread's name.
1037
1038 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1039 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1040 occurring in the process being debugged.
1041 The following events are currently supported:
1042 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1043 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1044 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1045
1046 * C++ Improvements:
1047
1048 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1049 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1050
1051 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1052
1053 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1054 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1055 was added to GCC 4.5.
1056
1057 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1058 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1059 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1060 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1061 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1062 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1063
1064 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1065 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1066 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1067 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1068 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1069
1070 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1071 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1072 execution to a label.
1073
1074 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1075 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1076 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1077 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1078
1079 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1080 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1081 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1082 of scope.
1083
1084 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1085
1086 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1087 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1088 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1089 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1090 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1091 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1092
1093 (gdb) info threads
1094 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1095
1096 While now you see this:
1097
1098 (gdb) info threads
1099 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1100
1101 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1102 dumps.
1103
1104 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1105 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1106 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1107 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1108
1109 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1110 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1111 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1112 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1113 section in the user manual for more details.
1114
1115 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1116
1117 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1118 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1119
1120 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1121
1122 * New native configurations
1123
1124 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1125
1126 * New targets:
1127
1128 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1129
1130 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1131 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1132 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1133 in the GDB user manual.
1134
1135 * Guile support was removed.
1136
1137 * New features in the GNU simulator
1138
1139 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1140
1141 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1142
1143 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1144
1145 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1146
1147 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1148 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1149 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1150 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1151 was always disabled for such configurations.
1152
1153 * C++ Improvements:
1154
1155 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1156
1157 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1158 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1159 For example:
1160 namespace A
1161 {
1162 class B { };
1163 void foo (B) { }
1164 }
1165 ...
1166 A::B b
1167 foo(b)
1168 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1169 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1170 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1171
1172 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1173
1174 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1175 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1176 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1177 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1178 entry.
1179 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1180 mentioned flavors of operators.
1181
1182 ** static const class members
1183
1184 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1185 class definition has been fixed.
1186
1187 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1188
1189 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1190 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1191 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1192 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1193 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1194 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1195
1196 * Static tracepoints
1197
1198 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1199 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1200 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1201 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1202 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1203 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1204 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1205 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1206 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1207 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1208 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1209 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1210 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1211 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1212 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1213 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1214 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1215 the "New remote packets" section below.
1216
1217 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1218
1219 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1220 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1221 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1222 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1223
1224 * Observer mode
1225
1226 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1227 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1228 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1229 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1230 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1231 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1232 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1233
1234 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1235 current thread.
1236
1237 * New remote packets
1238
1239 qGetTIBAddr
1240
1241 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1242
1243 qRelocInsn
1244
1245 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1246 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1247 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1248 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1249 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1250 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1251
1252 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1253
1254 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1255
1256 qTSTMat
1257
1258 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1259 program.
1260
1261 qXfer:statictrace:read
1262
1263 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1264 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1265 to gdb's qSupported query.
1266
1267 QAllow
1268
1269 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1270
1271 QTDPsrc
1272
1273 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1274 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1275
1276 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1277 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1278 a directory.
1279
1280 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1281
1282 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1283 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1284 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1285 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1286
1287 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1288 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1289 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1290 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1291 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1292 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1293 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1294
1295 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1296 for static tracepoints support.
1297
1298 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1299
1300 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1301 it understands register description.
1302
1303 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1304
1305 * X86 general purpose registers
1306
1307 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1308 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1309 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1310 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1311 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1312
1313 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1314 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1315 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1316 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1317 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1318 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1319
1320 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1321 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1322 in the specified file.
1323
1324 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1325 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1326 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1327 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1328 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1329 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1330 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1331 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1332 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1333 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1334
1335 * New commands
1336
1337 eval template, expressions...
1338 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1339 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1340
1341 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1342 show target-file-system-kind
1343 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1344 names.
1345
1346 save breakpoints <filename>
1347 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1348 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1349 definitions, use the `source' command.
1350
1351 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1352 is now deprecated.
1353
1354 info static-tracepoint-markers
1355 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1356
1357 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1358 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1359 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1360
1361 set observer on|off
1362 show observer
1363 Enable and disable observer mode.
1364
1365 set may-write-registers on|off
1366 set may-write-memory on|off
1367 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1368 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1369 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1370 set may-interrupt on|off
1371 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1372 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1373 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1374 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1375 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1376 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1377 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1378
1379 set record memory-query on|off
1380 show record memory-query
1381 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1382 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1383
1384 * Changed commands
1385
1386 disassemble
1387 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1388
1389 * Python scripting
1390
1391 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1392 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1393 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1394 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1395 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1396
1397 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1398 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1399 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1400 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1401
1402 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1403 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1404
1405 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1406
1407 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1408
1409 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1410
1411 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1412 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1413 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1414
1415 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1416 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1417 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1418 regular breakpoints.
1419
1420 * New targets
1421
1422 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1423
1424 * D language support.
1425 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1426 language.
1427
1428 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1429 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1430 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1431 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1432 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1433
1434 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1435 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1436 conditions of the form:
1437
1438 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1439
1440 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1441 interface mentioned above.
1442
1443 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1444
1445 * C++ Improvements
1446
1447 ** Namespace Support
1448
1449 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1450 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1451 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1452 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1453 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1454
1455 ** Bug Fixes
1456
1457 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1458 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1459 qualified name.
1460
1461 ** Cast Operators
1462
1463 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1464 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1465
1466 * New targets
1467
1468 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1469 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
1470
1471 * New Simulators
1472
1473 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1474 Renesas RX rx
1475
1476 * Multi-program debugging.
1477
1478 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1479 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1480 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1481 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1482 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1483 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1484 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1485 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1486
1487 * New tracing features
1488
1489 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1490
1491 ** Trace state variables
1492
1493 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1494 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1495 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1496 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1497 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1498 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1499 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1500 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1501 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1502 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1503
1504 ** Fast tracepoints
1505
1506 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1507 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1508 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1509 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1510 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1511 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1512 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1513 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1514 the regular trace command.
1515
1516 ** Disconnected tracing
1517
1518 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1519 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1520 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1521 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1522 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1523
1524 ** Trace files
1525
1526 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1527 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1528 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1529 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1530 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1531 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1532 <name>".
1533
1534 ** Circular trace buffer
1535
1536 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1537 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1538 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1539 not be available for all target agents.
1540
1541 * Changed commands
1542
1543 disassemble
1544 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1545 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1546
1547 info variables
1548 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1549 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1550
1551 source
1552 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1553 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1554 support.
1555
1556 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1557 "set script-extension" (see below).
1558
1559 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1560
1561 record save [<FILENAME>]
1562 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1563 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1564
1565 record restore <FILENAME>
1566 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1567 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1568
1569 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1570 Add a new inferior.
1571
1572 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1573 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1574 inferior has loaded.
1575
1576 remove-inferior ID
1577 Remove an inferior.
1578
1579 maint info program-spaces
1580 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1581
1582 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1583 show remote interrupt-sequence
1584 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1585 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1586 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1587 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1588 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1589
1590 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1591 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1592 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1593 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1594 Linux kernel.
1595
1596 set remotebreak [on | off]
1597 show remotebreak
1598 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1599
1600 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1601 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1602
1603 info tvariables
1604 List trace state variables and their values.
1605
1606 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1607 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1608
1609 teval EXPR, ...
1610 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1611 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1612
1613 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1614 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1615
1616 * New expression syntax
1617
1618 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1619 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1620
1621 * New options
1622
1623 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1624 show follow-exec-mode
1625 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1626 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1627 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1628
1629 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1630 show default-collect
1631 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1632 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1633 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1634
1635 set disconnected-tracing
1636 show disconnected-tracing
1637 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1638 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1639 upon disconnection.
1640
1641 set circular-trace-buffer
1642 show circular-trace-buffer
1643 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1644 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1645 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1646 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1647
1648 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1649 show script-extension
1650 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1651 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1652 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1653 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1654 evaluation failed.
1655 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1656
1657 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1658 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1659 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1660 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1661 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1662 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1663 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1664 is on.
1665
1666 * Python API Improvements
1667
1668 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1669 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1670 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1671
1672 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1673 `is_base_class' attribute.
1674
1675 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1676
1677 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1678 evaluate an expression.
1679
1680 * New remote packets
1681
1682 QTDV
1683 Define a trace state variable.
1684
1685 qTV
1686 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1687
1688 QTDisconnected
1689 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1690
1691 QTBuffer:circular
1692 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1693
1694 qTfP, qTsP
1695 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1696
1697 * Bug fixes
1698
1699 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1700
1701 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1702 much more reliable. In particular:
1703 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1704 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1705 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1706 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1707 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1708 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1709 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1710 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1711 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1712 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1713 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1714 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1715 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1716 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1717 non-threaded programs.
1718
1719 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1720 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1721 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1722 executable program.
1723
1724 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1725
1726 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1727 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1728 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1729 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1730 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1731
1732 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1733 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1734 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1735 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1736 for tracepoint actions.
1737
1738 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1739 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1740 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1741
1742 * Process record and replay
1743
1744 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1745 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1746 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1747 execute commands.
1748
1749 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1750 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1751 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1752 reverse execution.
1753
1754 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1755 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1756 2.6.28 or later.
1757
1758 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1759 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1760 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1761 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1762 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1763 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1764 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1765 the installation instructions for more information.
1766
1767 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1768 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1769 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1770 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1771
1772 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1773 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1774
1775 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1776 now complete on file names.
1777
1778 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1779 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1780 For instance, consider:
1781
1782 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1783 # struct example variable;
1784 (gdb) p variable.
1785
1786 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1787 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1788
1789 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1790 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1791
1792 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1793 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1794 macros.
1795
1796 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1797 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1798 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1799
1800 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1801 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1802 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1803 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1804
1805 * New remote packets
1806
1807 qSearch:memory:
1808 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1809
1810 QStartNoAckMode
1811 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1812 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1813 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1814
1815 vKill
1816 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1817 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1818
1819 qXfer:osdata:read
1820 Obtains additional operating system information
1821
1822 qXfer:siginfo:read
1823 qXfer:siginfo:write
1824 Read or write additional signal information.
1825
1826 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1827
1828 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1829 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1830 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1831
1832 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1833 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1834
1835 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1836 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1837 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1838
1839 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1840 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1841
1842 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1843
1844 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1845
1846 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1847 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1848
1849 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1850 list of section offsets.
1851
1852 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1853 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1854 have also been fixed.
1855
1856 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1857 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1858 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1859
1860 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1861 example, given:
1862
1863 template<typename T> class C { };
1864 C<char const *> c;
1865
1866 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1867
1868 ptype C<char const *>
1869 ptype C<char const*>
1870 ptype C<const char *>
1871 ptype C<const char*>
1872
1873 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1874
1875 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1876 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1877
1878 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1879 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1880 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1881
1882 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1883 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1884
1885 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1886 gdbserver.
1887
1888 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1889 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1890
1891 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1892 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1893 as appropriate.
1894
1895 * Python scripting
1896
1897 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1898 available is determined at configure time.
1899
1900 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1901
1902 * Ada tasking support
1903
1904 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1905 been introduced:
1906
1907 info tasks
1908 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1909 info task N
1910 Print detailed information about task number N.
1911 task
1912 Print the task number of the current task.
1913 task N
1914 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1915
1916 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1917 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1918
1919 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1920
1921 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1922 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1923 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1924 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1925 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1926 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1927 below.
1928
1929 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1930 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1931 information.
1932
1933 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1934 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1935 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1936 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1937 more information.
1938
1939 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1940
1941 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1942 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1943 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1944 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1945 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1946
1947 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1948 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1949 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1950 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1951 --enable-targets configure option.
1952
1953 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1954
1955 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1956 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1957 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1958 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1959 section in the user manual for more information.
1960
1961 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1962 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1963 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1964 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1965 extensions on linux targets.
1966
1967 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1968
1969 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1970 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1971 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1972 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1973 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1974 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1975 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1976 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1977 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1978
1979 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1980 val1 [, val2, ...]
1981 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1982
1983 maint set python print-stack
1984 maint show python print-stack
1985 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1986
1987 python [CODE]
1988 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1989
1990 macro define
1991 macro list
1992 macro undef
1993 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1994 interactively.
1995
1996 info os processes
1997 Show operating system information about processes.
1998
1999 info inferiors
2000 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2001
2002 inferior NUM
2003 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2004
2005 detach inferior NUM
2006 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2007
2008 kill inferior NUM
2009 Kill inferior number NUM.
2010
2011 * New options
2012
2013 set spu stop-on-load
2014 show spu stop-on-load
2015 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2016
2017 set spu auto-flush-cache
2018 show spu auto-flush-cache
2019 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2020 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2021
2022 set sh calling-convention
2023 show sh calling-convention
2024 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2025
2026 set debug timestamp
2027 show debug timestamp
2028 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2029
2030 set disassemble-next-line
2031 show disassemble-next-line
2032 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2033 the debuggee stops.
2034
2035 set remote noack-packet
2036 show remote noack-packet
2037 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2038 under "New remote packets."
2039
2040 set remote query-attached-packet
2041 show remote query-attached-packet
2042 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2043
2044 set remote read-siginfo-object
2045 show remote read-siginfo-object
2046 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2047 packet.
2048
2049 set remote write-siginfo-object
2050 show remote write-siginfo-object
2051 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2052 packet.
2053
2054 set remote reverse-continue
2055 show remote reverse-continue
2056 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2057
2058 set remote reverse-step
2059 show remote reverse-step
2060 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2061
2062 set displaced-stepping
2063 show displaced-stepping
2064 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2065 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2066 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2067
2068 set debug displaced
2069 show debug displaced
2070 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2071
2072 maint set internal-error
2073 maint show internal-error
2074 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2075
2076 maint set internal-warning
2077 maint show internal-warning
2078 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2079
2080 set exec-wrapper
2081 show exec-wrapper
2082 unset exec-wrapper
2083 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2084
2085 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2086 show multiple-symbols
2087 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2088 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2089 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2090
2091 set breakpoint always-inserted
2092 show breakpoint always-inserted
2093 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2094 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2095 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2096
2097 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2098 show arm fallback-mode
2099 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2100 show arm force-mode
2101 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2102 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2103 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2104 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2105
2106 set disable-randomization
2107 show disable-randomization
2108 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2109 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2110 multiple debugging sessions.
2111
2112 set non-stop
2113 show non-stop
2114 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2115 a breakpoint.
2116
2117 set target-async
2118 show target-async
2119 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2120 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2121 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2122 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2123
2124 set target-wide-charset
2125 show target-wide-charset
2126 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2127 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2128
2129 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2130 show tcp auto-retry
2131 set tcp connect-timeout
2132 show tcp connect-timeout
2133 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2134 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2135 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2136
2137 set libthread-db-search-path
2138 show libthread-db-search-path
2139 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2140 libthread_db.
2141
2142 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2143 show schedule-multiple
2144 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2145 the current process.
2146
2147 set stack-cache
2148 show stack-cache
2149 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2150 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2151 affecting correctness.
2152
2153 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2154 show interactive-mode
2155 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2156 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2157 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2158 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2159 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2160
2161 * Removed commands
2162
2163 info forks
2164 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2165 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2166 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2167 command.
2168
2169 fork NUM
2170 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2171 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2172 alias for the `fork' command.
2173
2174 process PID
2175 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2176 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2177 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2178
2179 delete fork NUM
2180 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2181 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2182 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2183 fork' command.
2184
2185 detach fork NUM
2186 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2187 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2188 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2189 fork' command.
2190
2191 * New native configurations
2192
2193 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2194
2195 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2196
2197 * New targets
2198
2199 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2200 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2201 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2202 S+core 3 score-*-*
2203
2204 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2205 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2206
2207 * Removed commands
2208
2209 catch load
2210 catch unload
2211 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2212
2213 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2214
2215 * New native configurations
2216
2217 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2218 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2219
2220 * New targets
2221
2222 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2223 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2224
2225 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2226
2227 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2228 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2229 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2230 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2231
2232 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2233 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2234
2235 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2236 is resolved.
2237
2238 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2239 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2240 and in inlined functions.
2241
2242 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2243 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2244 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2245
2246 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2247
2248 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2249 registers on PowerPC targets.
2250
2251 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2252 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2253
2254 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2255 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2256
2257 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2258 extended-remote mode.
2259
2260 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2261 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2262 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2263 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2264
2265 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2266 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2267 target architectures.
2268
2269 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2270 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2271 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2272 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2273
2274 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2275 breakpoints now.
2276
2277 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2278 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2279 include:
2280 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2281 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2282 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2283 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2284 of an assignment
2285 - Improved command completion in Ada
2286 - Several bug fixes
2287
2288 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2289 process.
2290
2291 * New commands
2292
2293 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2294 show print frame-arguments
2295 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2296 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2297
2298 remote put
2299 remote get
2300 remote delete
2301 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2302
2303 * New MI commands
2304
2305 -target-file-put
2306 -target-file-get
2307 -target-file-delete
2308 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2309
2310 * New remote packets
2311
2312 vFile:open:
2313 vFile:close:
2314 vFile:pread:
2315 vFile:pwrite:
2316 vFile:unlink:
2317 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2318
2319 vAttach
2320 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2321 mode.
2322
2323 vRun
2324 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2325
2326 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2327
2328 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2329 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2330 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2331
2332 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2333 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2334 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2335
2336 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2337 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2338 is not supported.
2339
2340 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2341 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2342
2343 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2344 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2345
2346 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2347
2348 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2349 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2350 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2351
2352 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2353 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2354
2355 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2356 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2357 as strings.
2358
2359 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2360 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2361 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2362
2363 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2364 iWMMXt coprocessor.
2365
2366 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2367 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2368 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2369
2370 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2371
2372 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2373
2374 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2375 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2376 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2377
2378 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2379 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2380
2381 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2382 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2383 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2384 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2385 Windows and SymbianOS).
2386
2387 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2388 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2389
2390 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2391 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2392
2393 * New commands
2394
2395 set remoteflow
2396 show remoteflow
2397 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2398 when debugging using remote targets.
2399
2400 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2401 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2402 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2403 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2404 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2405 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2406 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2407
2408 set breakpoint auto-hw
2409 show breakpoint auto-hw
2410 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2411 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2412 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2413 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2414 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2415 including "next" and "finish".
2416
2417 catch exception
2418 catch exception unhandled
2419 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2420
2421 catch assert
2422 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2423
2424 set sysroot
2425 show sysroot
2426 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2427 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2428 an alias to "set sysroot".
2429
2430 info spu
2431 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2432 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2433 architecture.
2434
2435 * New native configurations
2436
2437 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2438
2439 set tdesc filename
2440 unset tdesc filename
2441 show tdesc filename
2442 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2443 not query the target for its built-in description.
2444
2445 * New targets
2446
2447 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2448 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2449 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2450
2451 * New remote packets
2452
2453 QPassSignals:
2454 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2455 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2456
2457 qXfer:features:read:
2458 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2459 features.
2460
2461 qXfer:spu:read:
2462 qXfer:spu:write:
2463 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2464 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2465
2466 qXfer:libraries:read:
2467 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2468 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2469 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2470 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2471
2472 * Removed targets
2473
2474 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2475
2476 alpha*-*-osf1*
2477 alpha*-*-osf2*
2478 d10v-*-*
2479 hppa*-*-hiux*
2480 i[34567]86-ncr-*
2481 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2482 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2483 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2484 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2485 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2486 i[34567]86-*-sco*
2487 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2488 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2489 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2490 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2491 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2492 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2493 i[34567]86-*-isc*
2494 m68*-cisco*-*
2495 m68*-tandem-*
2496 mips*-*-pe
2497 rs6000-*-lynxos*
2498 sh*-*-pe
2499
2500 * Other removed features
2501
2502 target abug
2503 target cpu32bug
2504 target est
2505 target rom68k
2506
2507 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2508
2509 target hms
2510 target e7000
2511 target sh3
2512 target sh3e
2513
2514 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2515 H8/300.
2516
2517 target ocd
2518
2519 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2520 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2521 interfaces.
2522
2523 DWARF 1 support
2524
2525 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2526 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2527
2528 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2529
2530 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2531 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2532 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2533 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2534
2535 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2536
2537 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2538 in debugging information.
2539
2540 Scheme support
2541
2542 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2543 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2544
2545 set mips stack-arg-size
2546 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2547
2548 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2549
2550 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2551
2552 * New targets
2553
2554 Xtensa xtensa-elf
2555 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2556
2557 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2558 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2559 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2560
2561 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2562 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2563 supported.
2564
2565 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2566 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2567
2568 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2569 stub provides the required support.
2570
2571 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2572 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2573
2574 * New commands
2575
2576 set substitute-path
2577 unset substitute-path
2578 show substitute-path
2579 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2580 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2581 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2582 between compilation and debugging.
2583
2584 set trace-commands
2585 show trace-commands
2586 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2587 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2588 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2589
2590 * REMOVED features
2591
2592 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2593
2594 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2595 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2596
2597 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2598
2599 * New remote packets
2600
2601 qSupported:
2602 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2603 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2604 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2605 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2606 target.
2607
2608 qXfer:auxv:read:
2609 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2610 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2611
2612 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2613 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2614 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2615
2616 vFlashErase:
2617 vFlashWrite:
2618 vFlashDone:
2619 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2620
2621 * Removed remote packets
2622
2623 qPart:auxv:read:
2624 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2625 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2626
2627 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2628
2629 * New targets
2630
2631 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2632
2633 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2634
2635 * New commands
2636
2637 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2638 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2639
2640 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2641
2642 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2643
2644 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2645 previously saved state.
2646
2647 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2648
2649 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2650
2651 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2652 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2653
2654 info forks List forks of the user program that
2655 are available to be debugged.
2656
2657 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2658 forks of the user program that are
2659 available to be debugged.
2660
2661 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2662 that are available to be debugged (and
2663 kill the forked process).
2664
2665 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2666 that are available to be debugged (and
2667 allow the process to continue).
2668
2669 * New architecture
2670
2671 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2672
2673 * Improved Windows host support
2674
2675 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2676 native console support, and remote communications using either
2677 network sockets or serial ports.
2678
2679 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2680
2681 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2682 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2683 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2684 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2685 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2686 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2687
2688 * REMOVED features
2689
2690 The ARM rdi-share module.
2691
2692 The Netware NLM debug server.
2693
2694 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2695
2696 * New native configurations
2697
2698 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2699 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2700
2701 * New targets
2702
2703 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2704
2705 * New command line options
2706
2707 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2708 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2709 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2710 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2711 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2712 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2713 with the --command (-x) option.
2714
2715 * Deprecated commands removed
2716
2717 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2718 removed:
2719
2720 Command Replacement
2721 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2722 othernames set arm disassembler
2723 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2724 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2725 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2726 regs info registers
2727
2728 * New BSD user-level threads support
2729
2730 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2731 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2732 configurations are:
2733
2734 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2735 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2736 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2737
2738 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2739 are not yet supported.
2740
2741 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2742 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2743
2744 * REMOVED configurations and files
2745
2746 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2747 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2748 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2749
2750 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2751
2752 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2753 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2754 behavior.
2755
2756 * VAX floating point support
2757
2758 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2759
2760 * User-defined command support
2761
2762 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2763 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2764 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2765
2766 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2767
2768 * New command line option
2769
2770 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2771 debugging.
2772
2773 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2774
2775 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2776 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2777 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2778 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2779 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2780
2781 * Internationalization
2782
2783 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2784 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2785 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2786
2787 * Ada
2788
2789 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2790 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2791 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2792
2793 * New native configurations
2794
2795 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2796
2797 * Remote 'p' packet
2798
2799 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2800 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2801
2802 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2803
2804 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2805 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2806 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2807 i386 application).
2808
2809 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2810 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2811 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2812 configurations:
2813
2814 hppa-*-hpux
2815 ia64-*-aix
2816 mips-*-irix*
2817 *-*-lynx
2818 mips-*-linux-gnu
2819 sds protocol
2820 xdr protocol
2821 powerpc bdm protocol
2822
2823 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2824 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2825
2826 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2827
2828 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2829 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2830 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2831 permanently REMOVED.
2832
2833 h8300-*-*
2834 mcore-*-*
2835 mn10300-*-*
2836 ns32k-*-*
2837 sh64-*-*
2838 v850-*-*
2839
2840 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2841
2842 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2843
2844 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2845 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2846 been fixed.
2847
2848 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2849
2850 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2851 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2852 IRIX long double values).
2853
2854 * VAX and "next"
2855
2856 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2857 command. This problem has been fixed.
2858
2859 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2860
2861 * Fix for ``many threads''
2862
2863 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2864 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2865 error message:
2866
2867 ptrace: No such process.
2868 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2869
2870 This problem has been fixed.
2871
2872 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2873
2874 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2875 GDB to dump core).
2876
2877 * New ``start'' command.
2878
2879 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2880
2881 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2882
2883 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2884 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2885 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2886
2887 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2888 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2889 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2890 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2891 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2892 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2893 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2894 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2895 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2896
2897 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2898
2899 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2900 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2901 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2902 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2903 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2904
2905 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2906 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2907 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2908
2909 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2910
2911 * New native configurations
2912
2913 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2914 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2915 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2916 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2917 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2918 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2919 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2920
2921 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2922
2923 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2924 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2925 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2926 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2927 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2928 work, was also included.
2929
2930 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2931 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2932
2933 h8300-*-*
2934 mcore-*-*
2935 mn10300-*-*
2936 ns32k-*-*
2937 sh64-*-*
2938 v850-*-*
2939 xstormy16-*-*
2940
2941 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2942 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2943
2944 * REMOVED configurations and files
2945
2946 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2947 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2948 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2949 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2950 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2951 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2952 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2953 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2954 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2955 sonymips mips-sony-*
2956 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2957
2958 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2959
2960 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2961
2962 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2963 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2964 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2965 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2966 with GDB".
2967
2968 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2969
2970 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2971 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2972 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2973 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2974 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2975 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2976 are created.
2977
2978 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2979
2980 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2981
2982 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2983 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2984 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2985
2986 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2987
2988 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2989 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2990
2991 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2992
2993 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2994 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2995 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2996
2997 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2998
2999 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3000 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3001
3002 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3003
3004 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3005 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3006 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3007
3008 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3009
3010 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3011 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3012 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3013
3014 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3015
3016 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3017
3018 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3019 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3020
3021 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3022
3023 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3024 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3025 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3026 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3027
3028 * Revised SPARC target
3029
3030 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3031 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3032 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3033 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3034 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3035
3036 * New C++ demangler
3037
3038 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3039 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3040 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3041 programs.
3042
3043 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3044
3045 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3046 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3047 encountered these.
3048
3049 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3050
3051 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3052 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3053 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3054 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3055 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3056 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3057 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3058 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3059 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3060
3061 * New native configurations
3062
3063 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3064 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3065 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3066 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3067 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3068
3069 * New debugging protocols
3070
3071 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3072
3073 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3074
3075 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3076 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3077 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3078
3079 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3080
3081 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3082 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3083 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3084 permanently REMOVED.
3085
3086 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3087 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3088 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3089 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3090 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3091 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3092 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3093 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3094 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3095 sonymips mips-sony-*
3096 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3097
3098 * REMOVED configurations and files
3099
3100 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3101 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3102 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3103 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3104 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3105 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3106 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3107 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3108 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3109 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3110 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3111 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3112 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3113 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3114 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3115 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3116 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3117
3118 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3119
3120 * Objective-C
3121
3122 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3123 integrated into GDB.
3124
3125 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3126
3127 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3128 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3129 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3130 backtraces.
3131
3132 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3133 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3134 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3135
3136 * Hosted file I/O.
3137
3138 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3139 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3140 remote protocol documentation for details.
3141
3142 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3143
3144 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3145 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3146 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3147 ppc32 on ppc64).
3148
3149 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3150
3151 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3152 per-thread variables.
3153
3154 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3155
3156 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3157 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3158
3159 * Separate debug info.
3160
3161 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3162 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3163 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3164 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3165 and optional debug files.
3166
3167 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3168
3169 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3170 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3171 debugger.
3172
3173 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3174 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3175
3176 * Java
3177
3178 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3179 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3180 considered "useable".
3181
3182 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3183
3184 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3185 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3186 kernel.
3187
3188 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3189
3190 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3191 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3192
3193 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3194
3195 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3196 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3197 command.
3198
3199 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3200
3201 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3202 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3203
3204 * Profiling support
3205
3206 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3207 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3208 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3209 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3210 data, for more informative profiling results.
3211
3212 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3213
3214 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3215 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3216 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3217
3218 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3219 removed.
3220
3221 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3222 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3223 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3224 in a subsequent -var-update.
3225
3226 * New native configurations.
3227
3228 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3229
3230 * Multi-arched targets.
3231
3232 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3233 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3234
3235 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3236
3237 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3238 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3239 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3240 permanently REMOVED.
3241
3242 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3243 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3244 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3245 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3246 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3247 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3248 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3249 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3250 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3251 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3252 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3253 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3254
3255 * REMOVED configurations and files
3256
3257 V850EA ISA
3258 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3259 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3260 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3261 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3262 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3263 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3264 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3265 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3266 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3267 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3268 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3269 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3270 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3271
3272 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3273
3274 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3275 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3276 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3277 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3278 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3279
3280 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3281
3282 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3283
3284 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3285 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3286 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3287 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3288 shared libs like mad''.
3289
3290 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3291
3292 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3293 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3294 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3295 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3296
3297 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3298
3299 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3300 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3301 they expand.
3302
3303 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3304 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3305
3306 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3307 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3308
3309 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3310 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3311 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3312 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3313
3314 * Multi-arched targets.
3315
3316 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3317 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3318 NEC V850 v850-*-*
3319 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3320 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3321 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3322
3323 * New targets.
3324
3325 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3326
3327
3328 * New native configurations
3329
3330 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3331 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3332 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3333 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3334
3335 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3336
3337 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3338 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3339 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3340 permanently REMOVED.
3341
3342 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3343 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3344 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3345 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3346 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3347 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3348 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3349 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3350 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3351 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3352 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3353 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3354 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3355
3356 * OBSOLETE languages
3357
3358 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3359
3360 * REMOVED configurations and files
3361
3362 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3363 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3364 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3365 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3366 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3367
3368 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3369
3370 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3371
3372 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3373 commands. The default is 1024.
3374
3375 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3376
3377 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3378
3379 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3380
3381 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3382 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3383 from a file into memory (restore).
3384
3385 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3386
3387 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3388 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3389 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3390
3391 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3392
3393 * New targets.
3394
3395 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3396
3397 * Bug fixes
3398
3399 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3400 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3401 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3402
3403 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3404 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3405 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3406
3407 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3408 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3409 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3410
3411 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3412 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3413 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3414
3415 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3416
3417 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3418
3419 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3420 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3421 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3422 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3423 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3424 (notably embedded) targets.
3425
3426 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3427
3428 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3429 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3430 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3431 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3432
3433 * New command line option
3434
3435 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3436
3437 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3438
3439 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3440 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3441 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3442 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3443 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3444 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3445 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3446 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3447 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3448 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3449
3450 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3451
3452 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3453 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3454
3455 * New native configurations
3456
3457 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3458 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3459 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3460 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3461
3462 * New targets
3463
3464 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3465
3466 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3467
3468 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3469 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3470 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3471 permanently REMOVED.
3472
3473 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3474 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3475 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3476 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3477 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3478
3479 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3480
3481 * REMOVED configurations and files
3482
3483 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3484 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3485 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3486 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3487 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3488 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3489 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3490 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3491 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3492 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3493 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3494 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3495 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3496
3497 * Changes to command line processing
3498
3499 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3500 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3501
3502 * Changes to key bindings
3503
3504 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3505
3506 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3507
3508 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3509
3510 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3511 corrupted.
3512
3513 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3514
3515 Numerous documentation fixes.
3516
3517 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3518
3519 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3520
3521 * New native configurations
3522
3523 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3524 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3525 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3526 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3527 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3528 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3529
3530 * New targets
3531
3532 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3533 CRIS cris-axis
3534 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3535
3536 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3537
3538 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3539 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3540 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3541 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3542 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3543 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3544 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3545 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3546 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3547 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3548 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3549 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3550 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3551 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3552
3553 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3554 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3555
3556 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3557 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3558 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3559 permanently REMOVED.
3560
3561 * REMOVED configurations and files
3562
3563 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3564 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3565 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3566 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3567 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3568 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
3569
3570 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3571
3572 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3573 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3574 present.
3575
3576 * Other news:
3577
3578 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3579
3580 * The MI enabled by default.
3581
3582 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3583 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3584 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3585 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3586 which is now deprecated.
3587
3588 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3589
3590 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3591 main features are supported:
3592
3593 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3594
3595 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3596 extension;
3597
3598 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3599
3600 - a Pascal expression parser.
3601
3602 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3603
3604 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3605
3606 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3607
3608 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3609 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3610
3611 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3612
3613 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3614
3615 * Changes in completion.
3616
3617 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3618 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3619 users expect at the shell prompt.
3620
3621 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3622 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3623 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3624 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3625 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3626 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3627 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3628
3629 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3630
3631 * New platform-independent commands:
3632
3633 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3634 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3635 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3636
3637 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3638
3639 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3640 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3641 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3642
3643 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3644
3645 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3646 multi-threaded programs though.
3647
3648 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3649
3650 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3651
3652 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3653 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3654 supported.)
3655
3656 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3657
3658 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3659 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3660 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3661 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3662 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3663 registers.
3664
3665 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3666 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3667 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3668
3669 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3670
3671 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3672 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3673
3674 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3675 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3676 IDT.
3677
3678 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3679 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3680 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3681 a given linear address.
3682
3683 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3684 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3685 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3686
3687 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3688
3689 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3690
3691 * Changes in documentation.
3692
3693 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3694 Documentation License.
3695
3696 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3697 manual.
3698
3699 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3700
3701 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3702 manual.
3703
3704 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3705 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3706 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3707
3708 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3709
3710 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3711 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3712 contents of this file.
3713
3714 * gdba.el deleted
3715
3716 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3717
3718 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3719
3720 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3721
3722 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3723 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3724 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3725 greater level of detail.
3726
3727 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3728
3729 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3730 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3731 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3732 written.
3733
3734 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3735
3736 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3737 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3738 machines ``out of the box''.
3739
3740 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3741 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3742 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3743 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3744 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3745
3746 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3747 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3748 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3749 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3750 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3751
3752 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3753 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3754 also works.
3755
3756 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3757 GDB.
3758
3759 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3760 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3761 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3762 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3763
3764 * New native configurations
3765
3766 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3767 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3768
3769 * New targets
3770
3771 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3772 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3773 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3774 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3775
3776 * OBSOLETE configurations
3777
3778 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3779 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3780 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3781 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3782 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3783
3784 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3785 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3786 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3787 be permanently REMOVED.
3788
3789 * Gould support removed
3790
3791 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3792
3793 * New features for SVR4
3794
3795 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3796 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3797 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3798
3799 * Many C++ enhancements
3800
3801 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3802 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3803
3804 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3805
3806 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3807 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3808 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3809 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3810
3811 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3812 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3813
3814 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3815
3816 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3817 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3818 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3819
3820 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3821 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3822
3823 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3824
3825 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3826 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3827 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3828
3829 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3830
3831 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3832 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3833 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3834
3835 * ``apropos'' command added.
3836
3837 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3838 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3839 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3840
3841 * New MI interface
3842
3843 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3844 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3845 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3846 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3847 enabled by configuring with:
3848
3849 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3850
3851 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3852
3853 * New native configurations
3854
3855 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3856 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3857 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3858
3859 * New targets
3860
3861 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3862 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3863 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3864
3865 * OBSOLETE configurations
3866
3867 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3868
3869 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3870 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3871 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3872 be permanently REMOVED.
3873
3874 * ANSI/ISO C
3875
3876 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3877 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3878 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3879 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3880 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3881 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3882 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3883 already.
3884
3885 * Readline 2.2
3886
3887 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3888
3889 * set extension-language
3890
3891 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3892 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3893 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3894 set extension-language .c c++
3895 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3896 and their associated languages.
3897
3898 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3899
3900 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3901 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3902 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3903
3904 set processor NAME
3905
3906 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3907 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3908
3909 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3910 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3911 403 IBM PowerPC 403
3912 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3913 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3914 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3915 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3916 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3917 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3918 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3919 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3920
3921 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3922 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3923 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3924 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3925
3926 * HP-UX support
3927
3928 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3929 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3930 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3931 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3932 for xdb and dbx commands.
3933
3934 * Catchpoints
3935
3936 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3937 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3938 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3939
3940 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3941 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3942 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3943
3944 * Debugging across forks
3945
3946 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3947 in the inferior.
3948
3949 * TUI
3950
3951 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3952 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3953 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3954
3955 * GDB remote protocol additions
3956
3957 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3958 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3959 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3960 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3961
3962 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3963 full 64-bit address. The command
3964
3965 set remoteaddresssize 32
3966
3967 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3968 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3969 will be discarded.
3970
3971 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3972 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3973
3974 maint packet heythere
3975
3976 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3977 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3978 time.
3979
3980 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3981 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3982 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3983
3984 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3985
3986 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3987 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3988 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3989
3990 * mask-address variable for Mips
3991
3992 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3993 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3994 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3995
3996 * Higher serial baud rates
3997
3998 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3999 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4000 to achieve all of these rates.)
4001
4002 * i960 simulator
4003
4004 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4005 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4006
4007
4008 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4009
4010 * New native configurations
4011
4012 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4013 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4014 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4015 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4016 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4017 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4018 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4019
4020 * New targets
4021
4022 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4023 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4024 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4025 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4026 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4027 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4028 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4029 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4030 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4031 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4032 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4033
4034 * New debugging protocols
4035
4036 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4037 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4038 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4039 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4040 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4041 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4042
4043 * DWARF 2
4044
4045 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4046 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4047 information.
4048
4049 * Java frontend
4050
4051 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4052 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4053
4054 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4055
4056 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4057 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4058 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4059
4060 * Live range splitting
4061
4062 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4063 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4064 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4065
4066 * Hurd support
4067
4068 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4069 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4070
4071 * ARM Thumb support
4072
4073 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4074 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4075 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4076 accordingly.
4077
4078 * MIPS16 support
4079
4080 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4081 instruction set.
4082
4083 * Overlay support
4084
4085 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4086 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4087 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4088 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4089 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4090 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4091
4092 * info symbol
4093
4094 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4095 the symbol at the specified address.
4096
4097 * Trace support
4098
4099 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4100 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4101 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4102 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4103 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4104
4105 * MIPS simulator
4106
4107 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4108 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4109 of most MIPS variants.
4110
4111 * Sparc simulator
4112
4113 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4114 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4115 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4116
4117 * set architecture
4118
4119 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4120 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4121 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4122 the possible architectures.
4123
4124 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4125
4126 * New native configurations
4127
4128 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4129 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4130 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4131 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4132 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4133 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4134
4135 * New targets
4136
4137 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4138 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4139 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4140 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4141 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4142 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4143 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4144
4145 * PowerPC simulator
4146
4147 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4148 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4149 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4150 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4151 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4152
4153 * Solaris 2.5
4154
4155 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4156
4157 * Windows 95/NT native
4158
4159 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4160 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4161 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4162 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4163 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4164
4165 * dont-repeat command
4166
4167 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4168 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4169 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4170 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4171
4172 * Send break instead of ^C
4173
4174 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4175 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4176 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4177
4178 * Remote protocol timeout
4179
4180 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4181 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4182 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4183
4184 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4185
4186 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4187 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4188 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4189 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4190 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4191
4192 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4193 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4194 automatically on hpux10.
4195
4196 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4197
4198 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4199
4200 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4201
4202 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4203 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4204 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4205 every character. The default value is 1050.
4206
4207 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4208
4209 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4210 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4211 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4212 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4213 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4214 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4215
4216 * Speedups for remote debugging
4217
4218 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4219 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4220 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4221
4222 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4223
4224 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4225 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4226
4227 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4228
4229 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4230
4231 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4232 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4233
4234 * Remote targets use caching
4235
4236 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4237 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4238 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4239 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4240 off' turns the the data cache off.
4241
4242 * Remote targets may have threads
4243
4244 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4245 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4246 gdb/remote.c for details.
4247
4248 * NetROM support
4249
4250 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4251 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4252 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4253 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4254 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4255 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4256 sequence is something like
4257
4258 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4259 load <prog>
4260 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4261
4262 * Macintosh host
4263
4264 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4265 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4266 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4267 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4268 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4269 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4270 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4271 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4272
4273 * Autoconf
4274
4275 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4276 but does simplify configuration and building.
4277
4278 * hpux10
4279
4280 GDB now supports hpux10.
4281
4282 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4283
4284 * New native configurations
4285
4286 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4287 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4288 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4289 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4290
4291 * New targets
4292
4293 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4294 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4295 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4296 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4297 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4298
4299 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4300
4301 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4302 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4303 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4304 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4305 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4306
4307 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4308
4309 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4310 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4311 trivial example:
4312 define adder
4313 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4314
4315 To execute the command use:
4316 adder 1 2 3
4317
4318 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4319 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4320 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4321
4322 * New `if' and `while' commands
4323
4324 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4325 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4326 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4327 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4328 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4329 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4330 if the expression is zero.
4331
4332 * Fortran source language mode
4333
4334 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4335 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4336 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4337 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4338 Fortran compilers.
4339
4340 * Better HPUX support
4341
4342 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4343 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4344 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4345 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4346 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4347
4348 adb -w a.out
4349 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4350 control-d
4351
4352 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4353 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4354
4355 adb -w a.out
4356 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4357 control-d
4358
4359 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4360 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4361 external linkage.
4362
4363 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4364 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4365
4366 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4367
4368 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4369 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4370 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4371 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4372 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4373 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4374
4375 * New DOS host serial code
4376
4377 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4378 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4379 a PC's serial port.
4380
4381 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4382
4383 * New "complete" command
4384
4385 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4386 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4387
4388 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4389
4390 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4391 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4392
4393 * Breakpoint hit counts
4394
4395 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4396 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4397 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4398 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4399 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4400 that breakpoint.
4401
4402 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4403
4404 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4405 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4406 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4407
4408 * Shared library breakpoints
4409
4410 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4411 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4412
4413 * Hardware watchpoints
4414
4415 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4416 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4417
4418 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4419
4420 * Annotations
4421
4422 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4423 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4424
4425 * Improved Irix 5 support
4426
4427 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4428
4429 * Improved HPPA support
4430
4431 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4432
4433 * New native configurations
4434
4435 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4436 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4437 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4438 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4439
4440 * New targets
4441
4442 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4443 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4444 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4445
4446 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4447
4448 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4449 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4450
4451 * Fixes
4452
4453 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4454 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4455
4456 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4457
4458 * Irix 5 is now supported
4459
4460 * HPPA support
4461
4462 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4463 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4464 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4465 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4466 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4467
4468
4469 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4470
4471 * User visible changes:
4472
4473 * Remote Debugging
4474
4475 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4476 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4477 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4478 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4479 debugging info for the mips target).
4480
4481 * DEC Alpha native support
4482
4483 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4484 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4485 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4486 Alpha-specific notes.
4487
4488 * Preliminary thread implementation
4489
4490 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4491
4492 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4493
4494 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4495 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4496 for details).
4497
4498 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4499
4500 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4501 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4502 call methods, ...etc.
4503
4504 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4505
4506 * User visible changes:
4507
4508 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4509 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4510 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4511 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4512
4513 Filename completion now works.
4514
4515 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4516 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4517 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4518
4519 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4520 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4521 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4522 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4523 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4524
4525 * DEC alpha support
4526
4527 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4528 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4529
4530
4531 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4532
4533 * Testsuite
4534
4535 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4536 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4537 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4538
4539 * C++ demangling
4540
4541 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4542 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4543 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4544 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4545 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4546
4547 * Simulators
4548
4549 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4550 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4551 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4552
4553 * New targets supported
4554
4555 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4556 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4557 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4558 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4559 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4560
4561 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4562 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4563 GO32 memory extender.
4564
4565 * New remote protocols
4566
4567 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4568
4569 * New source languages supported
4570
4571 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4572 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4573 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4574
4575
4576 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4577
4578 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4579
4580 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4581 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4582 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4583 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4584 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4585 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4586
4587 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4588
4589 * Faster and better demangling
4590
4591 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4592 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4593 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4594 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4595 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4596 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4597 symbol lookups.
4598
4599 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4600 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4601 compiler does not actually implement.
4602
4603 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4604
4605 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4606 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4607 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4608 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4609 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4610 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4611 fix.
4612
4613 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4614 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4615
4616 * Improved configure script
4617
4618 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4619 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4620 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4621 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4622
4623 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4624 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4625 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4626 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4627 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4628 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4629
4630 * Documentation improvements
4631
4632 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4633 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4634 before submitting changes.
4635
4636 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4637 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4638 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4639 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4640 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4641
4642 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4643 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4644 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4645 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4646 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4647 around this problem.
4648
4649 * New features
4650
4651 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4652 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4653 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4654 the target program.
4655
4656 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4657 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4658
4659 * New native hosts supported
4660
4661 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4662 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4663
4664 * New targets supported
4665
4666 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4667
4668 * New file formats supported
4669
4670 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4671 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4672
4673 * Major bug fixes
4674
4675 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4676
4677 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4678 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4679
4680 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4681 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4682 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4683
4684 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4685 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4686
4687 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4688 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4689 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4690 libraries.
4691
4692 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4693 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4694 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4695 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4696 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4697
4698 * Internal improvements
4699
4700 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4701 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4702
4703 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4704 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4705 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4706 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4707 shared code that handles any of them.
4708
4709 * New command line options
4710
4711 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4712
4713 * Mmalloc licensing
4714
4715 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4716 General Public License.
4717
4718 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4719
4720 * Host/native/target split
4721
4722 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4723 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4724 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4725 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4726 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4727
4728 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4729 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4730 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4731 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4732 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4733 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4734 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4735
4736 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4737 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4738 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4739
4740 * New hosts supported
4741
4742 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4743 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4744 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4745
4746 * New targets supported
4747
4748 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4749 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4750
4751 * New native hosts supported
4752
4753 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4754 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4755 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4756
4757 * New file formats supported
4758
4759 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4760 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4761 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4762
4763 * New commands
4764
4765 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4766 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4767 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4768
4769 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4770
4771 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4772 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4773 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4774 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4775
4776 * C++ improvements
4777
4778 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4779 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4780 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4781
4782 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4783
4784 * Major bug fixes
4785
4786 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4787 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4788 by the compiler.
4789
4790 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4791 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4792
4793 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4794 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4795 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4796 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4797 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4798 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4799
4800 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4801 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4802 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4803 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4804
4805 * AMD 29k support
4806
4807 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4808 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4809 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4810 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4811 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4812
4813 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4814 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4815 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4816 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4817
4818 * Remote interfaces
4819
4820 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4821 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4822 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4823 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4824 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4825 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4826 each instruction being stepped through.
4827
4828 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4829 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4830
4831 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4832 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4833 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4834 processor with a serial port.
4835
4836 * Configuration
4837
4838 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4839 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4840 supported, and what files each one uses.
4841
4842 * Library changes
4843
4844 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4845 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4846 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4847 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4848
4849 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4850 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4851 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4852 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4853
4854 * Documentation
4855
4856 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4857 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4858 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4859 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4860 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4861 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4862
4863 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4864
4865
4866 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4867
4868 * Better support for C++ function names
4869
4870 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4871 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4872 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4873 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4874 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4875
4876 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4877 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4878 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4879 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4880 for the list of formats.
4881
4882 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4883
4884 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4885 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4886 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4887 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4888 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4889 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4890 this problem.)
4891
4892 * New 'maintenance' command
4893
4894 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4895 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4896 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4897
4898 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4899 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4900 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4901 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4902 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4903 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4904
4905 The following commands are new:
4906
4907 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4908 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4909 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4910
4911 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4912
4913 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4914 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4915 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4916 read after argv processing.
4917
4918 * New hosts supported
4919
4920 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4921
4922 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4923
4924 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4925 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4926 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4927 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4928 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4929 It costs extra.
4930
4931 * New targets supported
4932
4933 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4934
4935 * More smarts about finding #include files
4936
4937 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4938 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4939 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4940 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4941 the one that contains your sources.
4942
4943 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4944 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4945 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4946
4947 * Interesting infernals change
4948
4949 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4950 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4951 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4952 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4953
4954 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4955
4956 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4957 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4958 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4959
4960 See the ChangeLog for details.
4961
4962 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4963
4964 * New machines supported (host and target)
4965
4966 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4967
4968 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4969
4970 * New malloc package
4971
4972 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4973 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4974 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4975 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4976 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4977 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4978
4979 * info proc
4980
4981 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4982 'help info proc' for details.
4983
4984 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4985
4986 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4987 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4988 possible.
4989
4990 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4991
4992 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4993 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4994 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4995 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4996 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4997 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4998
4999 * Cross byte order fixes
5000
5001 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5002 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5003
5004 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5005
5006 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5007 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5008 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5009 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5010 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5011 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5012 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5013 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5014 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5015 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5016
5017 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5018 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5019 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5020 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5021
5022 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5023 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5024 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5025 use is:
5026
5027 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5028
5029 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5030 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5031 shared across multiple host platforms.
5032
5033 * longjmp() handling
5034
5035 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5036 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5037 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5038 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5039
5040 * Solaris 2.0
5041
5042 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5043 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5044 reading symbols.
5045
5046 * Bug fixes
5047
5048 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5049 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5050 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5051
5052 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5053
5054 * New machines supported (host and target)
5055
5056 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5057 (except core files)
5058 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5059 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5060
5061 * New machines supported (target)
5062
5063 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5064
5065 * C++ support
5066
5067 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5068 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5069 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5070
5071 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5072 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5073 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5074 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5075 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5076 released.
5077
5078 * New features for SVR4
5079
5080 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5081 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5082 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5083
5084 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5085 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5086 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5087
5088 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5089 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5090
5091 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5092
5093 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5094 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5095 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5096 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5097 same code linked statically.
5098
5099 * New Getopt
5100
5101 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5102 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5103 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5104 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5105 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5106 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5107
5108 * Bugs fixed
5109
5110 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5111 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5112 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5113
5114
5115 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5116
5117 * New machines supported (host and target)
5118
5119 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5120 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5121 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5122
5123 * Almost SCO Unix support
5124
5125 We had hoped to support:
5126 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5127 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5128 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5129 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5130
5131 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5132
5133 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5134 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5135 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5136 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5137 reqired (if any).
5138
5139 * New Readline
5140
5141 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5142 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5143 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5144
5145 * Bugs fixed
5146
5147 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5148 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5149 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5150
5151 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5152
5153 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5154 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5155 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5156
5157 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5158 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5159 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5160 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5161 version 2.
5162
5163 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5164 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5165 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5166 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5167 situation somewhat.
5168
5169 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5170 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5171 methods.
5172
5173 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5174 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5175 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5176
5177
5178 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5179
5180 * Improved configuration
5181
5182 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5183 Porting BFD is simpler.
5184
5185 * Stepping improved
5186
5187 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5188 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5189 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5190 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5191
5192 * Bug fixing
5193
5194 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5195
5196 * New host supported (not target)
5197
5198 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5199
5200
5201 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5202
5203 * Multiple source language support
5204
5205 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5206 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5207 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5208 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5209 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5210 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5211
5212 * GDB and Modula-2
5213
5214 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5215 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5216 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5217 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5218
5219 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5220 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5221 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5222
5223 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5224 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5225
5226 * set write on/off
5227
5228 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5229 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5230 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5231 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5232 effect immediately.
5233
5234 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5235
5236 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5237 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5238 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5239 examining core files.
5240
5241 * set listsize
5242
5243 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5244 The default is 10.
5245
5246 * New machines supported (host and target)
5247
5248 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5249 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5250 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5251
5252 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5253
5254 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5255
5256 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5257
5258 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5259 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5260 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5261
5262 * New remote interfaces
5263
5264 AMD 29000 Adapt
5265 AMD 29000 Minimon
5266
5267
5268 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5269
5270 * New Facilities
5271
5272 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5273
5274 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5275 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5276 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5277 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5278 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5279 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5280 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5281 stub on the target system.
5282
5283 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5284
5285 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5286 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5287 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5288
5289 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5290 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5291
5292
5293 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5294
5295 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5296 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5297
5298 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5299 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5300 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5301
5302 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5303 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5304 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5305 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5306
5307 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5308 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5309 it is already running. Default is ON.
5310
5311 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5312 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5313 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5314 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5315 Default is ON.
5316
5317 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5318 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5319 or the value of the environment variable
5320 GDBHISTFILE.
5321
5322 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5323 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5324 HISTSIZE.
5325
5326 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5327 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5328 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5329
5330 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5331 history expansion will be performed on
5332 command line input. The default is OFF.
5333
5334 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5335 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5336 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5337
5338 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5339 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5340 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5341 variable TERM.
5342
5343 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5344 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5345 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5346 variable TERM.
5347
5348 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5349 ``set width'' instead.
5350
5351 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5352 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5353 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5354 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5355
5356 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5357 is OFF.
5358
5359 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5360 "raw" form if off.
5361
5362 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5363 like instructions.
5364
5365 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5366
5367
5368 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5369
5370 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5371 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5372 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5373 window.
5374
5375
5376 * Support for Shared Libraries
5377
5378 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5379 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5380 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5381 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5382 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5383 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5384 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5385 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5386
5387 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5388 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5389 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5390
5391 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5392
5393
5394 * Watchpoints
5395
5396 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5397 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5398 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5399 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5400 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5401 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5402
5403 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5404
5405 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5406
5407 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5408 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5409 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5410
5411
5412 * C++ multiple inheritance
5413
5414 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5415 for C++ programs.
5416
5417 * C++ exception handling
5418
5419 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5420 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5421 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5422 handler's context).
5423
5424 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5425 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5426 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5427
5428 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5429 current stack frame.
5430
5431
5432 * Minor command changes
5433
5434 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5435 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5436 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5437
5438 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5439 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5440 frames without printing.
5441
5442 * New directory command
5443
5444 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5445 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5446 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5447 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5448 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5449
5450 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5451
5452 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5453 for more details.
5454
5455 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5456 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5457 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5458 where the program that you are debugging will run.