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