* NEWS: Mention new Windows CE support.
[binutils-gdb.git] / gdb / NEWS
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
5
6 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
8
9 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
10 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
11
12 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
13
14 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
17
18 * Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
19 of numbers.
20
21 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
22 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
23 only ARM).
24
25 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
26 iWMMXt coprocessor.
27
28 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
29 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
30 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
31
32 * New commands
33
34 set mem inaccessible-by-default
35 show mem inaccessible-by-default
36 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
37 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
38 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
39 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
40 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
41
42 set breakpoint auto-hw
43 show breakpoint auto-hw
44 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
45 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
46 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
47 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
48 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
49 including "next" and "finish".
50
51 catch exception
52 catch exception unhandled
53 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
54
55 catch assert
56 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
57
58 set sysroot
59 show sysroot
60 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
61 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
62 an alias to "set sysroot".
63
64 * New native configurations
65
66 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
67
68 set tdesc filename
69 unset tdesc filename
70 show tdesc filename
71 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
72 not query the target for its built-in description.
73
74 * New targets
75
76 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
77 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
78 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
79
80 * New remote packets
81
82 QPassSignals:
83 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
84 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
85
86 qXfer:features:read:
87 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
88 features.
89
90 * Removed targets
91
92 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
93
94 d10v-*-*
95 hppa*-*-hiux*
96 i[34567]86-ncr-*
97 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
98 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
99 i[34567]86-*-netware*
100 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
101 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
102 i[34567]86-*-sco*
103 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
104 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
105 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
106 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
107 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
108 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
109 i[34567]86-*-isc*
110 m68*-cisco*-*
111 m68*-tandem-*
112 mips*-*-pe
113 rs6000-*-lynxos*
114 sh*-*-pe
115
116 * Other removed features
117
118 target abug
119 target cpu32bug
120 target est
121 target rom68k
122
123 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
124
125 DWARF 1 support
126
127 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
128 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
129
130 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
131
132 * New targets
133
134 Xtensa xtensa-elf
135 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
136
137 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
138 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
139 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
140
141 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
142 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
143 supported.
144
145 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
146 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
147
148 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
149 stub provides the required support.
150
151 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
152 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
153
154 * New commands
155
156 set substitute-path
157 unset substitute-path
158 show substitute-path
159 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
160 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
161 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
162 between compilation and debugging.
163
164 set trace-commands
165 show trace-commands
166 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
167 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
168 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
169
170 * REMOVED features
171
172 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
173
174 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
175 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
176
177 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
178
179 * New remote packets
180
181 qSupported:
182 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
183 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
184 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
185 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
186 target.
187
188 qXfer:auxv:read:
189 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
190 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
191
192 qXfer:memory-map:read:
193 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
194 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
195
196 vFlashErase:
197 vFlashWrite:
198 vFlashDone:
199 Erase and program a flash memory device.
200
201 * Removed remote packets
202
203 qPart:auxv:read:
204 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
205 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
206
207 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
208
209 * New targets
210
211 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
212
213 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
214
215 * New commands
216
217 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
218 only if it doesn't already have a value.
219
220 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
221
222 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
223
224 restart <n> Return the program state to a
225 previously saved state.
226
227 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
228
229 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
230
231 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
232 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
233
234 info forks List forks of the user program that
235 are available to be debugged.
236
237 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
238 forks of the user program that are
239 available to be debugged.
240
241 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
242 that are available to be debugged (and
243 kill the forked process).
244
245 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
246 that are available to be debugged (and
247 allow the process to continue).
248
249 * New architecture
250
251 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
252
253 * Improved Windows host support
254
255 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
256 native console support, and remote communications using either
257 network sockets or serial ports.
258
259 * Improved Modula-2 language support
260
261 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
262 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
263 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
264 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
265 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
266 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
267
268 * REMOVED features
269
270 The ARM rdi-share module.
271
272 The Netware NLM debug server.
273
274 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
275
276 * New native configurations
277
278 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
279 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
280
281 * New targets
282
283 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
284
285 * New command line options
286
287 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
288 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
289 the child (debugged) program exited with.
290 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
291 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
292 specified multiple times and in conjunction
293 with the --command (-x) option.
294
295 * Deprecated commands removed
296
297 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
298 removed:
299
300 Command Replacement
301 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
302 othernames set arm disassembler
303 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
304 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
305 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
306 regs info registers
307
308 * New BSD user-level threads support
309
310 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
311 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
312 configurations are:
313
314 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
315 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
316 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
317
318 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
319 are not yet supported.
320
321 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
322 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
323
324 * REMOVED configurations and files
325
326 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
327 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
328 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
329
330 * New "set print array-indexes" command
331
332 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
333 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
334 behavior.
335
336 * VAX floating point support
337
338 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
339
340 * User-defined command support
341
342 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
343 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
344 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
345
346 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
347
348 * New command line option
349
350 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
351 debugging.
352
353 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
354
355 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
356 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
357 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
358 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
359 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
360
361 * Internationalization
362
363 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
364 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
365 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
366
367 * Ada
368
369 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
370 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
371 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
372
373 * New native configurations
374
375 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
376
377 * Remote 'p' packet
378
379 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
380 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
381
382 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
383
384 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
385 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
386 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
387 i386 application).
388
389 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
390 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
391 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
392 configurations:
393
394 hppa-*-hpux
395 ia64-*-aix
396 mips-*-irix*
397 *-*-lynx
398 mips-*-linux-gnu
399 sds protocol
400 xdr protocol
401 powerpc bdm protocol
402
403 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
404 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
405
406 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
407
408 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
409 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
410 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
411 permanently REMOVED.
412
413 h8300-*-*
414 mcore-*-*
415 mn10300-*-*
416 ns32k-*-*
417 sh64-*-*
418 v850-*-*
419
420 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
421
422 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
423
424 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
425 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
426 been fixed.
427
428 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
429
430 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
431 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
432 IRIX long double values).
433
434 * VAX and "next"
435
436 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
437 command. This problem has been fixed.
438
439 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
440
441 * Fix for ``many threads''
442
443 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
444 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
445 error message:
446
447 ptrace: No such process.
448 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
449
450 This problem has been fixed.
451
452 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
453
454 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
455 GDB to dump core).
456
457 * New ``start'' command.
458
459 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
460
461 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
462
463 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
464 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
465 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
466
467 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
468 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
469 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
470 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
471 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
472 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
473 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
474 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
475 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
476
477 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
478
479 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
480 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
481 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
482 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
483 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
484
485 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
486 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
487 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
488
489 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
490
491 * New native configurations
492
493 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
494 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
495 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
496 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
497 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
498 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
499 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
500
501 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
502
503 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
504 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
505 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
506 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
507 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
508 work, was also included.
509
510 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
511 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
512
513 h8300-*-*
514 mcore-*-*
515 mn10300-*-*
516 ns32k-*-*
517 sh64-*-*
518 v850-*-*
519 xstormy16-*-*
520
521 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
522 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
523
524 * REMOVED configurations and files
525
526 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
527 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
528 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
529 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
530 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
531 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
532 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
533 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
534 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
535 sonymips mips-sony-*
536 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
537
538 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
539
540 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
541
542 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
543 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
544 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
545 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
546 with GDB".
547
548 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
549
550 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
551 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
552 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
553 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
554 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
555 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
556 are created.
557
558 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
559
560 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
561
562 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
563 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
564 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
565
566 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
567
568 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
569 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
570
571 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
572
573 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
574 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
575 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
576
577 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
578
579 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
580 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
581
582 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
583
584 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
585 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
586 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
587
588 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
589
590 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
591 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
592 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
593
594 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
595
596 * Removed --with-mmalloc
597
598 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
599 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
600
601 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
602
603 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
604 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
605 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
606 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
607
608 * Revised SPARC target
609
610 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
611 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
612 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
613 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
614 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
615
616 * New C++ demangler
617
618 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
619 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
620 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
621 programs.
622
623 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
624
625 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
626 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
627 encountered these.
628
629 * C++ nested types and namespaces
630
631 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
632 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
633 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
634 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
635 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
636 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
637 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
638 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
639 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
640
641 * New native configurations
642
643 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
644 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
645 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
646 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
647 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
648
649 * New debugging protocols
650
651 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
652
653 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
654
655 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
656 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
657 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
658
659 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
660
661 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
662 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
663 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
664 permanently REMOVED.
665
666 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
667 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
668 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
669 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
670 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
671 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
672 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
673 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
674 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
675 sonymips mips-sony-*
676 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
677
678 * REMOVED configurations and files
679
680 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
681 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
682 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
683 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
684 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
685 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
686 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
687 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
688 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
689 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
690 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
691 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
692 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
693 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
694 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
695 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
696 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
697
698 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
699
700 * Objective-C
701
702 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
703 integrated into GDB.
704
705 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
706
707 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
708 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
709 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
710 backtraces.
711
712 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
713 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
714 DWARF 2 CFI support.
715
716 * Hosted file I/O.
717
718 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
719 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
720 remote protocol documentation for details.
721
722 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
723
724 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
725 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
726 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
727 ppc32 on ppc64).
728
729 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
730
731 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
732 per-thread variables.
733
734 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
735
736 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
737 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
738
739 * Separate debug info.
740
741 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
742 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
743 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
744 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
745 and optional debug files.
746
747 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
748
749 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
750 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
751 debugger.
752
753 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
754 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
755
756 * Java
757
758 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
759 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
760 considered "useable".
761
762 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
763
764 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
765 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
766 kernel.
767
768 * GDB supports logging output to a file
769
770 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
771 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
772
773 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
774
775 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
776 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
777 command.
778
779 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
780
781 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
782 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
783
784 * Profiling support
785
786 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
787 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
788 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
789 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
790 data, for more informative profiling results.
791
792 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
793
794 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
795 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
796 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
797
798 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
799 removed.
800
801 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
802 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
803 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
804 in a subsequent -var-update.
805
806 * New native configurations.
807
808 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
809
810 * Multi-arched targets.
811
812 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
813 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
814
815 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
816
817 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
818 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
819 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
820 permanently REMOVED.
821
822 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
823 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
824 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
825 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
826 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
827 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
828 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
829 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
830 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
831 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
832 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
833 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
834
835 * REMOVED configurations and files
836
837 V850EA ISA
838 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
839 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
840 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
841 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
842 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
843 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
844 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
845 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
846 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
847 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
848 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
849 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
850 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
851
852 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
853
854 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
855 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
856 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
857 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
858 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
859
860 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
861
862 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
863
864 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
865 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
866 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
867 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
868 shared libs like mad''.
869
870 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
871
872 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
873 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
874 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
875 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
876
877 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
878
879 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
880 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
881 they expand.
882
883 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
884 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
885
886 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
887 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
888
889 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
890 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
891 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
892 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
893
894 * Multi-arched targets.
895
896 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
897 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
898 NEC V850 v850-*-*
899 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
900 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
901 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
902
903 * New targets.
904
905 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
906
907
908 * New native configurations
909
910 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
911 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
912 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
913 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
914
915 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
916
917 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
918 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
919 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
920 permanently REMOVED.
921
922 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
923 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
924 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
925 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
926 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
927 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
928 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
929 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
930 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
931 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
932 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
933 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
934 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
935
936 * OBSOLETE languages
937
938 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
939
940 * REMOVED configurations and files
941
942 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
943 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
944 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
945 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
946 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
947
948 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
949
950 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
951
952 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
953 commands. The default is 1024.
954
955 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
956
957 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
958
959 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
960
961 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
962 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
963 from a file into memory (restore).
964
965 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
966
967 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
968 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
969 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
970
971 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
972
973 * New targets.
974
975 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
976
977 * Bug fixes
978
979 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
980 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
981 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
982
983 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
984 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
985 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
986
987 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
988 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
989 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
990
991 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
992 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
993 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
994
995 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
996
997 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
998
999 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1000 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1001 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1002 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1003 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1004 (notably embedded) targets.
1005
1006 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1007
1008 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1009 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1010 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1011 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1012
1013 * New command line option
1014
1015 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1016
1017 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1018
1019 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1020 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1021 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1022 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1023 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1024 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1025 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1026 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1027 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1028 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1029
1030 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1031
1032 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1033 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1034
1035 * New native configurations
1036
1037 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1038 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1039 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1040 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1041
1042 * New targets
1043
1044 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1045
1046 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1047
1048 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1049 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1050 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1051 permanently REMOVED.
1052
1053 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1054 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1055 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1056 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1057 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1058
1059 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1060
1061 * REMOVED configurations and files
1062
1063 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1064 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1065 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1066 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1067 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1068 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1069 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1070 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1071 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1072 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1073 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1074 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1075 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1076
1077 * Changes to command line processing
1078
1079 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1080 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1081
1082 * Changes to key bindings
1083
1084 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1085
1086 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1087
1088 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1089
1090 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1091 corrupted.
1092
1093 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1094
1095 Numerous documentation fixes.
1096
1097 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1098
1099 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1100
1101 * New native configurations
1102
1103 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1104 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1105 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1106 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1107 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1108 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1109
1110 * New targets
1111
1112 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1113 CRIS cris-axis
1114 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1115
1116 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1117
1118 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1119 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1120 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1121 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1122 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1123 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1124 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1125 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1126 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1127 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1128 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1129 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1130 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1131 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1132
1133 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1134 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1135
1136 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1137 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1138 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1139 permanently REMOVED.
1140
1141 * REMOVED configurations and files
1142
1143 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1144 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1145 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1146 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1147 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
1148 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
1149
1150 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1151
1152 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1153 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1154 present.
1155
1156 * Other news:
1157
1158 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1159
1160 * The MI enabled by default.
1161
1162 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1163 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1164 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1165 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1166 which is now deprecated.
1167
1168 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1169
1170 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1171 main features are supported:
1172
1173 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1174
1175 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1176 extension;
1177
1178 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1179
1180 - a Pascal expression parser.
1181
1182 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1183
1184 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1185
1186 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1187
1188 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1189 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1190
1191 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1192
1193 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1194
1195 * Changes in completion.
1196
1197 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1198 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1199 users expect at the shell prompt.
1200
1201 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1202 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1203 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1204 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1205 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1206 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1207 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1208
1209 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1210
1211 * New platform-independent commands:
1212
1213 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1214 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1215 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1216
1217 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1218
1219 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1220 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1221 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1222
1223 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1224
1225 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1226 multi-threaded programs though.
1227
1228 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1229
1230 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1231
1232 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1233 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1234 supported.)
1235
1236 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1237
1238 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1239 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1240 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1241 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1242 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1243 registers.
1244
1245 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1246 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1247 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1248
1249 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1250
1251 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1252 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1253
1254 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1255 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1256 IDT.
1257
1258 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1259 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1260 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1261 a given linear address.
1262
1263 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1264 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1265 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1266
1267 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1268
1269 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1270
1271 * Changes in documentation.
1272
1273 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1274 Documentation License.
1275
1276 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1277 manual.
1278
1279 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1280
1281 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1282 manual.
1283
1284 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1285 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1286 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1287
1288 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1289
1290 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1291 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1292 contents of this file.
1293
1294 * gdba.el deleted
1295
1296 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1297
1298 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1299
1300 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1301
1302 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1303 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1304 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1305 greater level of detail.
1306
1307 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1308
1309 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1310 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1311 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1312 written.
1313
1314 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1315
1316 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1317 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1318 machines ``out of the box''.
1319
1320 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1321 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1322 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1323 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1324 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1325
1326 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1327 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1328 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1329 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1330 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1331
1332 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1333 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1334 also works.
1335
1336 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1337 GDB.
1338
1339 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1340 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1341 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1342 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1343
1344 * New native configurations
1345
1346 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1347 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1348
1349 * New targets
1350
1351 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1352 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1353 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1354 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1355
1356 * OBSOLETE configurations
1357
1358 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1359 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1360 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
1361 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1362 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
1363
1364 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1365 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1366 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1367 be permanently REMOVED.
1368
1369 * Gould support removed
1370
1371 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1372
1373 * New features for SVR4
1374
1375 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1376 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1377 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1378
1379 * Many C++ enhancements
1380
1381 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1382 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1383
1384 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1385
1386 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1387 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1388 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1389 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1390
1391 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1392 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1393
1394 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1395
1396 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1397 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1398 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1399
1400 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1401 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1402
1403 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1404
1405 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1406 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1407 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1408
1409 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1410
1411 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1412 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1413 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1414
1415 * ``apropos'' command added.
1416
1417 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1418 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1419 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1420
1421 * New MI interface
1422
1423 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1424 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1425 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1426 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1427 enabled by configuring with:
1428
1429 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1430
1431 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1432
1433 * New native configurations
1434
1435 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1436 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1437 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1438
1439 * New targets
1440
1441 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1442 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1443 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1444
1445 * OBSOLETE configurations
1446
1447 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1448
1449 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1450 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1451 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1452 be permanently REMOVED.
1453
1454 * ANSI/ISO C
1455
1456 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1457 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1458 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1459 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1460 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1461 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1462 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1463 already.
1464
1465 * Readline 2.2
1466
1467 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1468
1469 * set extension-language
1470
1471 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1472 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1473 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1474 set extension-language .c c++
1475 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1476 and their associated languages.
1477
1478 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1479
1480 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1481 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1482 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1483
1484 set processor NAME
1485
1486 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1487 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1488
1489 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1490 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1491 403 IBM PowerPC 403
1492 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1493 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1494 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1495 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1496 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1497 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1498 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1499 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1500
1501 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1502 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1503 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1504 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1505
1506 * HP-UX support
1507
1508 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1509 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1510 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1511 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1512 for xdb and dbx commands.
1513
1514 * Catchpoints
1515
1516 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1517 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1518 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1519
1520 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1521 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1522 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1523
1524 * Debugging across forks
1525
1526 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1527 in the inferior.
1528
1529 * TUI
1530
1531 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1532 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1533 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1534
1535 * GDB remote protocol additions
1536
1537 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1538 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1539 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1540 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1541
1542 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1543 full 64-bit address. The command
1544
1545 set remoteaddresssize 32
1546
1547 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1548 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1549 will be discarded.
1550
1551 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1552 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1553
1554 maint packet heythere
1555
1556 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1557 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1558 time.
1559
1560 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1561 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1562 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1563
1564 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1565
1566 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1567 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1568 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1569
1570 * mask-address variable for Mips
1571
1572 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1573 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1574 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1575
1576 * Higher serial baud rates
1577
1578 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1579 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1580 to achieve all of these rates.)
1581
1582 * i960 simulator
1583
1584 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1585 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1586
1587
1588 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1589
1590 * New native configurations
1591
1592 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1593 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1594 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1595 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1596 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1597 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1598 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1599
1600 * New targets
1601
1602 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1603 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1604 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1605 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1606 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1607 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1608 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1609 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1610 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1611 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1612 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1613
1614 * New debugging protocols
1615
1616 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1617 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1618 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1619 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1620 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1621 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1622
1623 * DWARF 2
1624
1625 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1626 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1627 information.
1628
1629 * Java frontend
1630
1631 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1632 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1633
1634 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1635
1636 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1637 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1638 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1639
1640 * Live range splitting
1641
1642 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1643 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1644 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1645
1646 * Hurd support
1647
1648 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1649 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1650
1651 * ARM Thumb support
1652
1653 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1654 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1655 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1656 accordingly.
1657
1658 * MIPS16 support
1659
1660 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1661 instruction set.
1662
1663 * Overlay support
1664
1665 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1666 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1667 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1668 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1669 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1670 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1671
1672 * info symbol
1673
1674 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1675 the symbol at the specified address.
1676
1677 * Trace support
1678
1679 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1680 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1681 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1682 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1683 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1684
1685 * MIPS simulator
1686
1687 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1688 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1689 of most MIPS variants.
1690
1691 * Sparc simulator
1692
1693 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1694 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1695 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1696
1697 * set architecture
1698
1699 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1700 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1701 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1702 the possible architectures.
1703
1704 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1705
1706 * New native configurations
1707
1708 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1709 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1710 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1711 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1712 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1713 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1714
1715 * New targets
1716
1717 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1718 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1719 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1720 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1721 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1722 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
1723 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1724
1725 * PowerPC simulator
1726
1727 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1728 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1729 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1730 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1731 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1732
1733 * Solaris 2.5
1734
1735 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1736
1737 * Windows 95/NT native
1738
1739 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1740 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1741 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1742 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1743 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1744
1745 * dont-repeat command
1746
1747 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1748 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1749 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1750 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1751
1752 * Send break instead of ^C
1753
1754 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1755 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1756 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1757
1758 * Remote protocol timeout
1759
1760 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1761 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1762 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1763
1764 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1765
1766 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1767 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1768 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1769 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1770 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1771
1772 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1773 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1774 automatically on hpux10.
1775
1776 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1777
1778 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1779
1780 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1781
1782 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1783 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1784 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1785 every character. The default value is 1050.
1786
1787 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1788
1789 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1790 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1791 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1792 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1793 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1794 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1795
1796 * Speedups for remote debugging
1797
1798 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1799 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1800 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1801
1802 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1803
1804 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1805 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1806
1807 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1808
1809 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1810
1811 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1812 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1813
1814 * Remote targets use caching
1815
1816 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1817 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1818 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1819 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1820 off' turns the the data cache off.
1821
1822 * Remote targets may have threads
1823
1824 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1825 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1826 gdb/remote.c for details.
1827
1828 * NetROM support
1829
1830 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1831 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1832 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1833 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1834 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1835 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1836 sequence is something like
1837
1838 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1839 load <prog>
1840 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1841
1842 * Macintosh host
1843
1844 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1845 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1846 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1847 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1848 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1849 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1850 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1851 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1852
1853 * Autoconf
1854
1855 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1856 but does simplify configuration and building.
1857
1858 * hpux10
1859
1860 GDB now supports hpux10.
1861
1862 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1863
1864 * New native configurations
1865
1866 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1867 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1868 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1869 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1870
1871 * New targets
1872
1873 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1874 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1875 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1876 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1877 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
1878
1879 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1880
1881 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1882 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1883 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1884 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1885 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1886
1887 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1888
1889 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1890 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1891 trivial example:
1892 define adder
1893 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1894
1895 To execute the command use:
1896 adder 1 2 3
1897
1898 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1899 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1900 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1901
1902 * New `if' and `while' commands
1903
1904 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1905 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1906 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1907 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1908 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1909 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1910 if the expression is zero.
1911
1912 * Fortran source language mode
1913
1914 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1915 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1916 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1917 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1918 Fortran compilers.
1919
1920 * Better HPUX support
1921
1922 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1923 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1924 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1925 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1926 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1927
1928 adb -w a.out
1929 __dld_flags?W 0x5
1930 control-d
1931
1932 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1933 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1934
1935 adb -w a.out
1936 __dld_flags?W 0x4
1937 control-d
1938
1939 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1940 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1941 external linkage.
1942
1943 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1944 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1945
1946 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1947
1948 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1949 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1950 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1951 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1952 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1953 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1954
1955 * New DOS host serial code
1956
1957 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1958 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1959 a PC's serial port.
1960
1961 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1962
1963 * New "complete" command
1964
1965 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1966 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1967
1968 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1969
1970 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1971 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1972
1973 * Breakpoint hit counts
1974
1975 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1976 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1977 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1978 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1979 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1980 that breakpoint.
1981
1982 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1983
1984 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1985 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1986 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1987
1988 * Shared library breakpoints
1989
1990 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1991 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1992
1993 * Hardware watchpoints
1994
1995 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1996 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1997
1998 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1999
2000 * Annotations
2001
2002 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2003 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2004
2005 * Improved Irix 5 support
2006
2007 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2008
2009 * Improved HPPA support
2010
2011 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2012
2013 * New native configurations
2014
2015 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2016 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2017 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2018 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2019
2020 * New targets
2021
2022 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2023 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2024 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
2025
2026 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2027
2028 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2029 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2030
2031 * Fixes
2032
2033 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2034 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2035
2036 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2037
2038 * Irix 5 is now supported
2039
2040 * HPPA support
2041
2042 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2043 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2044 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2045 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2046 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2047
2048
2049 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2050
2051 * User visible changes:
2052
2053 * Remote Debugging
2054
2055 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2056 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2057 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2058 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2059 debugging info for the mips target).
2060
2061 * DEC Alpha native support
2062
2063 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2064 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2065 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2066 Alpha-specific notes.
2067
2068 * Preliminary thread implementation
2069
2070 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2071
2072 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2073
2074 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2075 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2076 for details).
2077
2078 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2079
2080 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2081 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2082 call methods, ...etc.
2083
2084 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2085
2086 * User visible changes:
2087
2088 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2089 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2090 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2091 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2092
2093 Filename completion now works.
2094
2095 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2096 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2097 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2098
2099 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2100 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2101 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2102 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2103 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2104
2105 * DEC alpha support
2106
2107 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2108 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2109
2110
2111 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2112
2113 * Testsuite
2114
2115 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2116 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2117 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2118
2119 * C++ demangling
2120
2121 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2122 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2123 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2124 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2125 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2126
2127 * Simulators
2128
2129 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2130 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2131 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2132
2133 * New targets supported
2134
2135 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2136 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2137 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2138 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2139 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2140
2141 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2142 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2143 GO32 memory extender.
2144
2145 * New remote protocols
2146
2147 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2148
2149 * New source languages supported
2150
2151 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2152 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2153 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2154
2155
2156 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2157
2158 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2159
2160 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2161 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2162 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2163 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2164 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2165 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2166
2167 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2168
2169 * Faster and better demangling
2170
2171 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2172 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2173 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2174 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2175 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2176 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2177 symbol lookups.
2178
2179 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2180 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2181 compiler does not actually implement.
2182
2183 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2184
2185 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2186 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2187 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2188 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2189 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2190 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2191 fix.
2192
2193 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2194 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2195
2196 * Improved configure script
2197
2198 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2199 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2200 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2201 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2202
2203 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2204 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2205 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2206 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2207 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2208 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2209
2210 * Documentation improvements
2211
2212 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2213 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2214 before submitting changes.
2215
2216 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2217 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2218 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2219 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2220 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2221
2222 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2223 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2224 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2225 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2226 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2227 around this problem.
2228
2229 * New features
2230
2231 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2232 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2233 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2234 the target program.
2235
2236 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2237 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2238
2239 * New native hosts supported
2240
2241 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2242 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2243
2244 * New targets supported
2245
2246 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2247
2248 * New file formats supported
2249
2250 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2251 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2252
2253 * Major bug fixes
2254
2255 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2256
2257 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2258 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2259
2260 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2261 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2262 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2263
2264 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2265 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2266
2267 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2268 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2269 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2270 libraries.
2271
2272 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2273 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2274 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2275 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2276 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2277
2278 * Internal improvements
2279
2280 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2281 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2282
2283 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2284 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2285 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2286 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2287 shared code that handles any of them.
2288
2289 * New command line options
2290
2291 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2292
2293 * Mmalloc licensing
2294
2295 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2296 General Public License.
2297
2298 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2299
2300 * Host/native/target split
2301
2302 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2303 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2304 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2305 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2306 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2307
2308 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2309 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2310 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2311 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2312 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2313 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2314 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2315
2316 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2317 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2318 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2319
2320 * New hosts supported
2321
2322 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2323 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2324 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2325
2326 * New targets supported
2327
2328 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2329 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2330
2331 * New native hosts supported
2332
2333 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2334 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2335 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2336
2337 * New file formats supported
2338
2339 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2340 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2341 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2342
2343 * New commands
2344
2345 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2346 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2347 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2348
2349 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2350
2351 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2352 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2353 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2354 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2355
2356 * C++ improvements
2357
2358 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2359 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2360 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2361
2362 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2363
2364 * Major bug fixes
2365
2366 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2367 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2368 by the compiler.
2369
2370 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2371 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2372
2373 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2374 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2375 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2376 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2377 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2378 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2379
2380 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2381 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2382 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2383 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2384
2385 * AMD 29k support
2386
2387 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2388 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2389 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2390 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2391 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2392
2393 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2394 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2395 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2396 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2397
2398 * Remote interfaces
2399
2400 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2401 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2402 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2403 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2404 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2405 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2406 each instruction being stepped through.
2407
2408 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2409 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2410
2411 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2412 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2413 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2414 processor with a serial port.
2415
2416 * Configuration
2417
2418 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2419 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2420 supported, and what files each one uses.
2421
2422 * Library changes
2423
2424 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2425 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2426 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2427 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2428
2429 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2430 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2431 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2432 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2433
2434 * Documentation
2435
2436 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2437 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2438 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2439 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2440 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2441 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2442
2443 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2444
2445
2446 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2447
2448 * Better support for C++ function names
2449
2450 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2451 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2452 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2453 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2454 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2455
2456 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2457 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2458 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2459 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2460 for the list of formats.
2461
2462 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2463
2464 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2465 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2466 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2467 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2468 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2469 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2470 this problem.)
2471
2472 * New 'maintenance' command
2473
2474 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2475 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2476 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2477
2478 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2479 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2480 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2481 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2482 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2483 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2484
2485 The following commands are new:
2486
2487 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2488 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2489 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2490
2491 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2492
2493 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2494 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2495 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2496 read after argv processing.
2497
2498 * New hosts supported
2499
2500 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2501
2502 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2503
2504 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2505 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2506 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2507 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2508 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2509 It costs extra.
2510
2511 * New targets supported
2512
2513 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2514
2515 * More smarts about finding #include files
2516
2517 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2518 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2519 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2520 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2521 the one that contains your sources.
2522
2523 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2524 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2525 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2526
2527 * Interesting infernals change
2528
2529 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2530 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2531 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2532 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2533
2534 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2535
2536 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2537 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2538 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2539
2540 See the ChangeLog for details.
2541
2542 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2543
2544 * New machines supported (host and target)
2545
2546 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2547
2548 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2549
2550 * New malloc package
2551
2552 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2553 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2554 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2555 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2556 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2557 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2558
2559 * info proc
2560
2561 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2562 'help info proc' for details.
2563
2564 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2565
2566 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2567 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2568 possible.
2569
2570 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2571
2572 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2573 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2574 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2575 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2576 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2577 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2578
2579 * Cross byte order fixes
2580
2581 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2582 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2583
2584 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2585
2586 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2587 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2588 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2589 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2590 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2591 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2592 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2593 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2594 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2595 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2596
2597 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2598 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2599 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2600 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2601
2602 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2603 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2604 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2605 use is:
2606
2607 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2608
2609 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2610 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2611 shared across multiple host platforms.
2612
2613 * longjmp() handling
2614
2615 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2616 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2617 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2618 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2619
2620 * Solaris 2.0
2621
2622 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2623 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2624 reading symbols.
2625
2626 * Bug fixes
2627
2628 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2629 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2630 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2631
2632 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2633
2634 * New machines supported (host and target)
2635
2636 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2637 (except core files)
2638 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2639 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2640
2641 * New machines supported (target)
2642
2643 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2644
2645 * C++ support
2646
2647 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2648 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2649 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2650
2651 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2652 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2653 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2654 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2655 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2656 released.
2657
2658 * New features for SVR4
2659
2660 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2661 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2662 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2663
2664 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2665 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2666 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2667
2668 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2669 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2670
2671 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2672
2673 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2674 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2675 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2676 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2677 same code linked statically.
2678
2679 * New Getopt
2680
2681 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2682 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2683 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2684 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2685 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2686 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2687
2688 * Bugs fixed
2689
2690 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2691 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2692 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2693
2694
2695 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2696
2697 * New machines supported (host and target)
2698
2699 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2700 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2701 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2702
2703 * Almost SCO Unix support
2704
2705 We had hoped to support:
2706 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2707 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2708 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2709 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2710
2711 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2712
2713 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2714 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2715 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2716 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2717 reqired (if any).
2718
2719 * New Readline
2720
2721 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2722 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2723 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2724
2725 * Bugs fixed
2726
2727 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2728 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2729 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2730
2731 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2732
2733 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2734 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2735 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2736
2737 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2738 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2739 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2740 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2741 version 2.
2742
2743 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2744 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2745 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2746 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2747 situation somewhat.
2748
2749 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2750 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2751 methods.
2752
2753 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2754 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2755 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2756
2757
2758 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2759
2760 * Improved configuration
2761
2762 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2763 Porting BFD is simpler.
2764
2765 * Stepping improved
2766
2767 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2768 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2769 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2770 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2771
2772 * Bug fixing
2773
2774 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2775
2776 * New host supported (not target)
2777
2778 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2779
2780
2781 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2782
2783 * Multiple source language support
2784
2785 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2786 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2787 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2788 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2789 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2790 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2791
2792 * GDB and Modula-2
2793
2794 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2795 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2796 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2797 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2798
2799 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2800 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2801 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2802
2803 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2804 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2805
2806 * set write on/off
2807
2808 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2809 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2810 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2811 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2812 effect immediately.
2813
2814 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2815
2816 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2817 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2818 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2819 examining core files.
2820
2821 * set listsize
2822
2823 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2824 The default is 10.
2825
2826 * New machines supported (host and target)
2827
2828 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2829 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2830 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2831
2832 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2833
2834 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2835
2836 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2837
2838 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2839 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2840 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2841
2842 * New remote interfaces
2843
2844 AMD 29000 Adapt
2845 AMD 29000 Minimon
2846
2847
2848 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2849
2850 * New Facilities
2851
2852 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2853
2854 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2855 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2856 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2857 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2858 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2859 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2860 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2861 stub on the target system.
2862
2863 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2864
2865 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2866 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2867 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2868
2869 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2870 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2871
2872
2873 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2874
2875 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2876 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2877
2878 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2879 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2880 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2881
2882 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2883 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2884 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2885 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2886
2887 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2888 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2889 it is already running. Default is ON.
2890
2891 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2892 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2893 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2894 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2895 Default is ON.
2896
2897 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2898 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2899 or the value of the environment variable
2900 GDBHISTFILE.
2901
2902 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2903 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2904 HISTSIZE.
2905
2906 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2907 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2908 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2909
2910 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2911 history expansion will be performed on
2912 command line input. The default is OFF.
2913
2914 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2915 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2916 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2917
2918 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2919 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2920 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2921 variable TERM.
2922
2923 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2924 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2925 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2926 variable TERM.
2927
2928 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2929 ``set width'' instead.
2930
2931 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2932 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2933 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2934 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2935
2936 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2937 is OFF.
2938
2939 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2940 "raw" form if off.
2941
2942 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2943 like instructions.
2944
2945 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2946
2947
2948 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2949
2950 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2951 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2952 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2953 window.
2954
2955
2956 * Support for Shared Libraries
2957
2958 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2959 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2960 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2961 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2962 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2963 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2964 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2965 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2966
2967 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2968 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2969 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2970
2971 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2972
2973
2974 * Watchpoints
2975
2976 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2977 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2978 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2979 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2980 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2981 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2982
2983 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2984
2985 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2986
2987 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2988 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2989 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2990
2991
2992 * C++ multiple inheritance
2993
2994 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2995 for C++ programs.
2996
2997 * C++ exception handling
2998
2999 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3000 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3001 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3002 handler's context).
3003
3004 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3005 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3006 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3007
3008 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3009 current stack frame.
3010
3011
3012 * Minor command changes
3013
3014 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3015 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3016 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3017
3018 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3019 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3020 frames without printing.
3021
3022 * New directory command
3023
3024 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3025 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3026 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3027 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3028 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3029
3030 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3031
3032 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3033 for more details.
3034
3035 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3036 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3037 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3038 where the program that you are debugging will run.