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