a8ae8c7b7a5ddce9b5779914dd1e6a87463d7d60
[binutils-gdb.git] /
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.6
5
6 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
7 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
8
9 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
10 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
11 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
12 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
13 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
14 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
15 "void".
16
17 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
18
19 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
20
21 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
22 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
23 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
24 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
25
26 (gdb) p $rax
27 $1 = <not saved>
28
29 (gdb) info registers rax
30 rax <not saved>
31
32 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
33 "*value not available*".
34
35 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
36 to binaries.
37
38 * Python scripting
39
40 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
41 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
42 ** Line tables representation has been added.
43
44 * New targets
45
46 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
47 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
48 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
49
50 * Removed native configurations
51
52 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
53 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
54
55 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
56 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
57 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
58 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
59 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
60 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
61 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
62
63 * New commands:
64 catch rethrow
65 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
66 maint check-psymtabs
67 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
68 maint check-symtabs
69 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
70 maint expand-symtabs
71 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
72
73 show configuration
74 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
75
76 maint set|show per-command
77 maint set|show per-command space
78 maint set|show per-command time
79 maint set|show per-command symtab
80 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
81
82 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
83 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
84 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
85 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
86 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
87
88 info exceptions
89 info exceptions REGEXP
90 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
91 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
92 are listed.
93
94 * New options
95
96 set debug symfile off|on
97 show debug symfile
98 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
99 symbol tables within those files
100
101 set print raw frame-arguments
102 show print raw frame-arguments
103 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
104 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
105
106 set remote trace-status-packet
107 show remote trace-status-packet
108 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
109
110 set debug nios2
111 show debug nios2
112 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
113
114 set range-stepping
115 show range-stepping
116 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
117
118 set startup-with-shell
119 show startup-with-shell
120 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
121 directly.
122
123 set code-cache
124 show code-cache
125 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
126 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
127
128 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
129 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
130 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
131 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
132 "set height 0".
133
134 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
135 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
136 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
137
138 * New command-line options
139 --configuration
140 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
141
142 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
143 buffer in Common Trace Format.
144
145 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
146 GDB command gcore.
147
148 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
149
150 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
151 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
152
153 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
154 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
155
156 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
157 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
158 due to an uncaught signal.
159
160 * MI changes
161
162 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
163 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
164 command, which should contain "language-option".
165
166 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
167 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
168
169 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
170 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
171 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
172 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
173 "undefined-command-error-code".
174
175 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
176 Trace Format now.
177
178 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
179
180 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
181 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
182 are displayed.
183
184 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
185 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
186
187 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
188 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
189 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
190
191 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
192 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
193 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
194 main subprogram.
195
196 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
197 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
198
199 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
200 the new "info exceptions" command.
201
202 * New system-wide configuration scripts
203 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
204 configuration scripts for the following systems:
205 ** ElinOS
206 ** Wind River Linux
207
208 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
209 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
210 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
211 below.
212
213 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
214 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
215
216 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
217 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
218 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
219
220 * New remote packets
221
222 vCont;r
223
224 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
225 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
226 involvemement at each single-step.
227
228 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
229 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
230 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
231 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
232 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
233 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
234 speedup.
235
236 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
237
238 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
239 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
240
241 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
242 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
243 trace state variables.
244
245 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
246 target.
247
248 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
249 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
250
251 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
252
253 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
254 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
255 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
256 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
257
258 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
259
260 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
261 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
262 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
263 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
264
265 set|show record full insn-number-max
266 set|show record full stop-at-limit
267 set|show record full memory-query
268
269 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
270 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
271 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
272 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
273 This new recording method can be enabled using:
274
275 record btrace
276
277 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
278 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
279
280 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
281 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
282 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
283
284 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
285 instruction granularity
286
287 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
288 function granularity
289
290 * New native configurations
291
292 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
293 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
294 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
295 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
296
297 * New targets
298
299 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
300 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
301 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
302 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
303 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
304
305 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
306 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
307 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
308 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
309 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
310 --data-directory command-line option.
311
312 * New command line options:
313
314 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
315 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
316
317 * Removed command line options
318
319 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
320 Emacs.
321
322 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
323 type formatting.
324
325 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
326
327 * Python scripting
328
329 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
330
331 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
332
333 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
334
335 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
336
337 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
338 of architecture in the Python API.
339
340 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
341 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
342
343 * New Python-based convenience functions:
344
345 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
346 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
347 ** $_strlen(str)
348 ** $_regex(str, regex)
349
350 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
351 given an argument.
352
353 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
354 default for GCC since November 2000.
355
356 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
357
358 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
359 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
360
361 * New configure options
362
363 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
364 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
365 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
366 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
367 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
368 options allow the user to override that default.
369 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
370 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
371 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
372
373 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
374
375 catch signal
376 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
377 conditions to be attached.
378
379 maint info bfds
380 List the BFDs known to GDB.
381
382 python-interactive [command]
383 pi [command]
384 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
385 and print the result of expressions.
386
387 py [command]
388 "py" is a new alias for "python".
389
390 enable type-printer [name]...
391 disable type-printer [name]...
392 Enable or disable type printers.
393
394 * Removed commands
395
396 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
397 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
398 instead.
399
400 * New options
401
402 set print type methods (on|off)
403 show print type methods
404 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
405 The default is to show them.
406
407 set print type typedefs (on|off)
408 show print type typedefs
409 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
410 The default is to show them.
411
412 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
413 show filename-display
414 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
415 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
416
417 set trace-buffer-size
418 show trace-buffer-size
419 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
420
421 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
422 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
423 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
424
425 set debug aarch64
426 show debug aarch64
427 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
428 The default is off.
429
430 set debug coff-pe-read
431 show debug coff-pe-read
432 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
433 exported symbols.
434
435 set debug mach-o
436 show debug mach-o
437 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
438 processing.
439
440 set debug notification
441 show debug notification
442 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
443
444 * MI changes
445
446 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
447 "=cmd-param-changed".
448 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
449 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
450 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
451 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
452 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
453 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
454 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
455 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
456 "=memory-changed".
457 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
458 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
459 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
460 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
461 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
462 library load/unload events.
463 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
464 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
465 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
466 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
467 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
468 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
469 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
470 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
471
472 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
473 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
474 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
475 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
476
477 * New remote packets
478
479 QTBuffer:size
480 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
481 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
482
483 Qbtrace:bts
484 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
485 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
486 qSupported query.
487
488 Qbtrace:off
489 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
490 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
491
492 qXfer:btrace:read
493 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
494 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
495
496 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
497
498 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
499 for more x32 ABI info.
500
501 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
502
503 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
504
505 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
506 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
507 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
508 "info os files" lists file descriptors
509 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
510 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
511 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
512 "info os msg" lists message queues
513 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
514
515 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
516 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
517 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
518 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
519 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
520 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
521
522 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
523 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
524 record/replay support.
525
526 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
527
528 * Python scripting
529
530 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
531 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
532
533 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
534
535 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
536 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
537
538 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
539
540 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
541 the source at which the symbol was defined.
542
543 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
544 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
545 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
546 symbol's value.
547
548 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
549 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
550
551 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
552 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
553 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
554
555 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
556 object associated with a PC value.
557
558 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
559 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
560
561 * Go language support.
562 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
563 language.
564
565 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
566 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
567
568 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
569 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
570
571 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
572 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
573 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
574 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
575 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
576 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
577
578 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
579 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
580 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
581 build/libcpp/expr.c.
582
583 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
584 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
585
586 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
587 since December 2007.
588
589 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
590 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
591 command does. For instance:
592
593 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
594
595 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
596 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
597 created, using the "condition" command.
598
599 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
600 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
601
602 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
603
604 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
605 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
606 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
607 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
608 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
609 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
610 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
611 files with older .gdb_index sections.
612
613 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
614 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
615 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
616 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
617 the .gdb_index section.
618
619 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
620
621 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
622 target.
623
624 * MI changes
625
626 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
627
628 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
629
630 * New commands
631
632 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
633 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
634 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
635
636 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
637 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
638
639 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
640 several hits.
641
642 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
643 C++ and Java objects.
644
645 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
646 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
647 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
648 configured with '--with-python'.
649
650 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
651 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
652 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
653 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
654 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
655 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
656 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
657
658 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
659 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
660 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
661 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
662
663 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
664 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
665 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
666 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
667
668 ** "set print symbol"
669 "show print symbol"
670 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
671 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
672 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
673
674 * Deprecated commands
675
676 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
677 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
678
679 * New targets
680
681 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
682 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
683
684 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
685 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
686 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
687 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
688 evaluates to true.
689
690 * New options
691
692 set mips compression
693 show mips compression
694 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
695 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
696 mips16
697 micromips
698 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
699
700 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
701 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
702 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
703 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
704 available mode.
705 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
706 target.
707
708 set auto-load off
709 Disable auto-loading globally.
710
711 show auto-load
712 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
713
714 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
715 show auto-load gdb-scripts
716 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
717
718 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
719 show auto-load python-scripts
720 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
721
722 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
723 show auto-load local-gdbinit
724 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
725
726 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
727 show auto-load libthread-db
728 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
729
730 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
731 show auto-load scripts-directory
732 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
733 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
734 of the directories listed by this option.
735 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
736
737 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
738 show auto-load safe-path
739 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
740 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
741
742 set debug auto-load on|off
743 show debug auto-load
744 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
745
746 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
747 show dprintf-style
748 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
749 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
750 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
751 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
752
753 set dprintf-function <expr>
754 show dprintf-function
755 set dprintf-channel <expr>
756 show dprintf-channel
757 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
758 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
759
760 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
761 show disconnected-dprintf
762 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
763 after GDB disconnects.
764
765 * New configure options
766
767 --with-auto-load-dir
768 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
769 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
770 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
771 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
772 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
773
774 --with-auto-load-safe-path
775 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
776 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
777
778 --without-auto-load-safe-path
779 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
780 security feature.
781
782 * New remote packets
783
784 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
785
786 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
787 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
788 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
789 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
790
791 QProgramSignals:
792
793 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
794 program without GDB involvement.
795
796 * New command line options
797
798 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
799 before loading inferior.
800 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
801 execute it before loading inferior.
802
803 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
804
805 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
806 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
807 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
808 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
809 inferior changes.
810
811 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
812 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
813
814 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
815 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
816 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
817 target hardware watchpoint.
818
819 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
820 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
821 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
822 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
823
824 * Python scripting
825
826 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
827 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
828 existing one.
829
830 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
831 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
832 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
833 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
834 now "message", which just prints the error message without
835 the stack trace.
836
837 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
838 Python API.
839
840 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
841 modules library. This module provides functionality for
842 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
843 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
844 corresponding value.
845
846 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
847 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
848 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
849 on GDB start-up.
850
851 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
852 static_block will return the global and static blocks
853 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
854 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
855
856 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
857
858 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
859 "gdb.breakpoints".
860
861 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
862 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
863 available in the CLI.
864
865 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
866 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
867 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
868 "some_type.items()".
869
870 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
871 new object file.
872
873 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
874 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
875 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
876 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
877 any anonymous fields.
878
879 * MI changes
880
881 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
882 "solib-event".
883
884 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
885 "=breakpoint-modified".
886
887 ** New command -ada-task-info.
888
889 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
890 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
891 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
892 lives.
893
894 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
895 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
896 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
897 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
898 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
899
900 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
901 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
902
903 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
904 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
905 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
906 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
907 use this option to specify where to find it.
908
909 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
910 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
911 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
912 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
913 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
914 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
915 section in the user manual for more details.
916
917 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
918 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
919 become available after that.
920
921 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
922
923 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
924 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
925 gcc version 4.7.
926
927 * New commands
928
929 !SHELL COMMAND
930 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
931 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
932
933 * Changed commands
934
935 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
936 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
937 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
938
939 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
940 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
941 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
942
943 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
944 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
945 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
946 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
947 name starts with a hyphen.
948
949 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
950 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
951 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
952 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
953 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
954 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
955 number of bytes that will be collected.
956
957 tstart [NOTES]
958 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
959 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
960 setting the variable trace-notes.
961
962 tstop [NOTES]
963 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
964 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
965 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
966 trace-stop-notes.
967
968 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
969 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
970 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
971 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
972 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
973 is running.
974
975 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
976 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
977 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
978
979 * New options
980
981 set debug dwarf2-read
982 show debug dwarf2-read
983 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
984 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
985
986 set debug symtab-create
987 show debug symtab-create
988 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
989 creation. The default is off.
990
991 set extended-prompt
992 show extended-prompt
993 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
994 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
995 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
996 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
997 prompt is displayed.
998
999 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1000 show print entry-values
1001 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1002 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1003 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1004
1005 set debug entry-values
1006 show debug entry-values
1007 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1008 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1009
1010 set basenames-may-differ
1011 show basenames-may-differ
1012 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1013 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1014 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1015 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1016 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1017 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1018 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1019 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1020
1021 set trace-user
1022 show trace-user
1023 set trace-notes
1024 show trace-notes
1025 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1026 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1027 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1028 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1029
1030 set trace-stop-notes
1031 show trace-stop-notes
1032 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1033 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1034 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1035 started by someone else.
1036
1037 * New remote packets
1038
1039 QTEnable
1040
1041 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1042
1043 QTDisable
1044
1045 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1046
1047 QTNotes
1048
1049 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1050
1051 qTP
1052
1053 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1054
1055 qTMinFTPILen
1056
1057 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1058 be placed.
1059
1060 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1061 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1062
1063 * New targets
1064
1065 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1066
1067 * New Simulators
1068
1069 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1070
1071 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1072
1073 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1074
1075 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1076
1077 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1078 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1079 matches the given regular expression.
1080
1081 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1082
1083 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1084 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1085
1086 * New command line options
1087
1088 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1089 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1090
1091 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1092 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1093
1094 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1095 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1096 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1097
1098 * GDB now understands thread names.
1099
1100 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1101 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1102
1103 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1104 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1105
1106 * OpenCL C
1107 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1108 has been integrated into GDB.
1109
1110 * Python scripting
1111
1112 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1113 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1114 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1115
1116 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1117 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1118 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1119 and allows for more dynamic content.
1120
1121 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1122 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1123 have an is_valid method.
1124
1125 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1126 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1127 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1128
1129 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1130
1131 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1132 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1133 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1134 that function like so:
1135
1136 result = some_value (10,20)
1137
1138 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1139 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1140 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1141
1142 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1143 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1144 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1145 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1146 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1147
1148 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1149 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1150
1151 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1152
1153 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1154 selected thread.
1155
1156 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1157 holds the thread's name.
1158
1159 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1160 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1161 occurring in the process being debugged.
1162 The following events are currently supported:
1163 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1164 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1165 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1166
1167 * C++ Improvements:
1168
1169 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1170 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1171
1172 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1173
1174 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1175 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1176 was added to GCC 4.5.
1177
1178 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1179 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1180 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1181 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1182 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1183 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1184
1185 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1186 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1187 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1188 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1189 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1190
1191 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1192 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1193 execution to a label.
1194
1195 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1196 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1197 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1198 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1199
1200 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1201 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1202 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1203 of scope.
1204
1205 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1206
1207 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1208 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1209 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1210 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1211 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1212 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1213
1214 (gdb) info threads
1215 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1216
1217 While now you see this:
1218
1219 (gdb) info threads
1220 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1221
1222 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1223 dumps.
1224
1225 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1226 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1227 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1228 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1229
1230 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1231 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1232 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1233 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1234 section in the user manual for more details.
1235
1236 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1237
1238 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1239 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1240
1241 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1242
1243 * New native configurations
1244
1245 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1246
1247 * New targets:
1248
1249 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1250
1251 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1252 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1253 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1254 in the GDB user manual.
1255
1256 * Guile support was removed.
1257
1258 * New features in the GNU simulator
1259
1260 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1261
1262 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1263
1264 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1265
1266 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1267
1268 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1269 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1270 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1271 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1272 was always disabled for such configurations.
1273
1274 * C++ Improvements:
1275
1276 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1277
1278 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1279 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1280 For example:
1281 namespace A
1282 {
1283 class B { };
1284 void foo (B) { }
1285 }
1286 ...
1287 A::B b
1288 foo(b)
1289 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1290 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1291 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1292
1293 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1294
1295 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1296 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1297 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1298 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1299 entry.
1300 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1301 mentioned flavors of operators.
1302
1303 ** static const class members
1304
1305 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1306 class definition has been fixed.
1307
1308 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1309
1310 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1311 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1312 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1313 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1314 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1315 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1316
1317 * Static tracepoints
1318
1319 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1320 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1321 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1322 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1323 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1324 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1325 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1326 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1327 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1328 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1329 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1330 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1331 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1332 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1333 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1334 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1335 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1336 the "New remote packets" section below.
1337
1338 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1339
1340 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1341 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1342 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1343 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1344
1345 * Observer mode
1346
1347 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1348 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1349 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1350 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1351 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1352 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1353 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1354
1355 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1356 current thread.
1357
1358 * New remote packets
1359
1360 qGetTIBAddr
1361
1362 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1363
1364 qRelocInsn
1365
1366 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1367 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1368 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1369 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1370 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1371 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1372
1373 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1374
1375 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1376
1377 qTSTMat
1378
1379 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1380 program.
1381
1382 qXfer:statictrace:read
1383
1384 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1385 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1386 to gdb's qSupported query.
1387
1388 QAllow
1389
1390 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1391
1392 QTDPsrc
1393
1394 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1395 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1396
1397 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1398 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1399 a directory.
1400
1401 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1402
1403 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1404 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1405 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1406 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1407
1408 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1409 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1410 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1411 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1412 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1413 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1414 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1415
1416 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1417 for static tracepoints support.
1418
1419 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1420
1421 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1422 it understands register description.
1423
1424 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1425
1426 * X86 general purpose registers
1427
1428 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1429 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1430 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1431 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1432 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1433
1434 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1435 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1436 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1437 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1438 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1439 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1440
1441 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1442 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1443 in the specified file.
1444
1445 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1446 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1447 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1448 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1449 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1450 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1451 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1452 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1453 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1454 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1455
1456 * New commands
1457
1458 eval template, expressions...
1459 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1460 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1461
1462 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1463 show target-file-system-kind
1464 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1465 names.
1466
1467 save breakpoints <filename>
1468 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1469 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1470 definitions, use the `source' command.
1471
1472 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1473 is now deprecated.
1474
1475 info static-tracepoint-markers
1476 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1477
1478 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1479 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1480 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1481
1482 set observer on|off
1483 show observer
1484 Enable and disable observer mode.
1485
1486 set may-write-registers on|off
1487 set may-write-memory on|off
1488 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1489 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1490 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1491 set may-interrupt on|off
1492 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1493 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1494 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1495 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1496 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1497 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1498 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1499
1500 set record memory-query on|off
1501 show record memory-query
1502 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1503 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1504
1505 * Changed commands
1506
1507 disassemble
1508 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1509
1510 * Python scripting
1511
1512 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1513 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1514 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1515 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1516 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1517
1518 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1519 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1520 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1521 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1522
1523 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1524 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1525
1526 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1527
1528 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1529
1530 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1531
1532 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1533 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1534 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1535
1536 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1537 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1538 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1539 regular breakpoints.
1540
1541 * New targets
1542
1543 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1544
1545 * D language support.
1546 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1547 language.
1548
1549 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1550 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1551 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1552 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1553 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1554
1555 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1556 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1557 conditions of the form:
1558
1559 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1560
1561 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1562 interface mentioned above.
1563
1564 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1565
1566 * C++ Improvements
1567
1568 ** Namespace Support
1569
1570 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1571 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1572 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1573 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1574 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1575
1576 ** Bug Fixes
1577
1578 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1579 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1580 qualified name.
1581
1582 ** Cast Operators
1583
1584 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1585 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1586
1587 * New targets
1588
1589 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1590 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
1591
1592 * New Simulators
1593
1594 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1595 Renesas RX rx
1596
1597 * Multi-program debugging.
1598
1599 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1600 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1601 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1602 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1603 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1604 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1605 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1606 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1607
1608 * New tracing features
1609
1610 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1611
1612 ** Trace state variables
1613
1614 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1615 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1616 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1617 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1618 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1619 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1620 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1621 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1622 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1623 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1624
1625 ** Fast tracepoints
1626
1627 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1628 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1629 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1630 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1631 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1632 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1633 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1634 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1635 the regular trace command.
1636
1637 ** Disconnected tracing
1638
1639 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1640 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1641 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1642 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1643 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1644
1645 ** Trace files
1646
1647 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1648 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1649 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1650 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1651 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1652 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1653 <name>".
1654
1655 ** Circular trace buffer
1656
1657 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1658 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1659 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1660 not be available for all target agents.
1661
1662 * Changed commands
1663
1664 disassemble
1665 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1666 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1667
1668 info variables
1669 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1670 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1671
1672 source
1673 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1674 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1675 support.
1676
1677 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1678 "set script-extension" (see below).
1679
1680 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1681
1682 record save [<FILENAME>]
1683 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1684 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1685
1686 record restore <FILENAME>
1687 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1688 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1689
1690 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1691 Add a new inferior.
1692
1693 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1694 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1695 inferior has loaded.
1696
1697 remove-inferior ID
1698 Remove an inferior.
1699
1700 maint info program-spaces
1701 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1702
1703 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1704 show remote interrupt-sequence
1705 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1706 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1707 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1708 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1709 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1710
1711 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1712 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1713 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1714 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1715 Linux kernel.
1716
1717 set remotebreak [on | off]
1718 show remotebreak
1719 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1720
1721 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1722 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1723
1724 info tvariables
1725 List trace state variables and their values.
1726
1727 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1728 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1729
1730 teval EXPR, ...
1731 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1732 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1733
1734 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1735 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1736
1737 * New expression syntax
1738
1739 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1740 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1741
1742 * New options
1743
1744 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1745 show follow-exec-mode
1746 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1747 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1748 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1749
1750 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1751 show default-collect
1752 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1753 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1754 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1755
1756 set disconnected-tracing
1757 show disconnected-tracing
1758 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1759 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1760 upon disconnection.
1761
1762 set circular-trace-buffer
1763 show circular-trace-buffer
1764 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1765 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1766 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1767 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1768
1769 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1770 show script-extension
1771 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1772 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1773 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1774 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1775 evaluation failed.
1776 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1777
1778 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1779 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1780 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1781 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1782 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1783 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1784 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1785 is on.
1786
1787 * Python API Improvements
1788
1789 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1790 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1791 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1792
1793 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1794 `is_base_class' attribute.
1795
1796 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1797
1798 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1799 evaluate an expression.
1800
1801 * New remote packets
1802
1803 QTDV
1804 Define a trace state variable.
1805
1806 qTV
1807 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1808
1809 QTDisconnected
1810 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1811
1812 QTBuffer:circular
1813 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1814
1815 qTfP, qTsP
1816 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1817
1818 * Bug fixes
1819
1820 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1821
1822 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1823 much more reliable. In particular:
1824 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1825 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1826 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1827 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1828 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1829 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1830 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1831 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1832 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1833 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1834 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1835 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1836 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1837 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1838 non-threaded programs.
1839
1840 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1841 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1842 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1843 executable program.
1844
1845 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1846
1847 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1848 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1849 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1850 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1851 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1852
1853 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1854 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1855 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1856 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1857 for tracepoint actions.
1858
1859 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1860 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1861 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1862
1863 * Process record and replay
1864
1865 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1866 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1867 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1868 execute commands.
1869
1870 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1871 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1872 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1873 reverse execution.
1874
1875 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1876 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1877 2.6.28 or later.
1878
1879 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1880 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1881 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1882 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1883 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1884 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1885 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1886 the installation instructions for more information.
1887
1888 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1889 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1890 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1891 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1892
1893 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1894 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1895
1896 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1897 now complete on file names.
1898
1899 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1900 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1901 For instance, consider:
1902
1903 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1904 # struct example variable;
1905 (gdb) p variable.
1906
1907 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1908 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1909
1910 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1911 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1912
1913 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1914 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1915 macros.
1916
1917 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1918 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1919 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1920
1921 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1922 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1923 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1924 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1925
1926 * New remote packets
1927
1928 qSearch:memory:
1929 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1930
1931 QStartNoAckMode
1932 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1933 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1934 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1935
1936 vKill
1937 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1938 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1939
1940 qXfer:osdata:read
1941 Obtains additional operating system information
1942
1943 qXfer:siginfo:read
1944 qXfer:siginfo:write
1945 Read or write additional signal information.
1946
1947 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1948
1949 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1950 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1951 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1952
1953 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1954 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1955
1956 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1957 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1958 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1959
1960 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1961 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1962
1963 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1964
1965 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1966
1967 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1968 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1969
1970 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1971 list of section offsets.
1972
1973 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1974 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1975 have also been fixed.
1976
1977 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1978 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1979 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1980
1981 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1982 example, given:
1983
1984 template<typename T> class C { };
1985 C<char const *> c;
1986
1987 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1988
1989 ptype C<char const *>
1990 ptype C<char const*>
1991 ptype C<const char *>
1992 ptype C<const char*>
1993
1994 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1995
1996 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1997 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1998
1999 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2000 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2001 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2002
2003 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2004 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2005
2006 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2007 gdbserver.
2008
2009 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2010 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2011
2012 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2013 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2014 as appropriate.
2015
2016 * Python scripting
2017
2018 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2019 available is determined at configure time.
2020
2021 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2022
2023 * Ada tasking support
2024
2025 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2026 been introduced:
2027
2028 info tasks
2029 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2030 info task N
2031 Print detailed information about task number N.
2032 task
2033 Print the task number of the current task.
2034 task N
2035 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2036
2037 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2038 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2039
2040 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2041
2042 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2043 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2044 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2045 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2046 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2047 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2048 below.
2049
2050 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2051 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2052 information.
2053
2054 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2055 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2056 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2057 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2058 more information.
2059
2060 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2061
2062 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2063 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2064 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2065 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2066 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2067
2068 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2069 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2070 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2071 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2072 --enable-targets configure option.
2073
2074 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2075
2076 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2077 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2078 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2079 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2080 section in the user manual for more information.
2081
2082 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2083 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2084 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2085 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2086 extensions on linux targets.
2087
2088 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2089
2090 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2091 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2092 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2093 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2094 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2095 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2096 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2097 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2098 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2099
2100 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2101 val1 [, val2, ...]
2102 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2103
2104 maint set python print-stack
2105 maint show python print-stack
2106 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2107
2108 python [CODE]
2109 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2110
2111 macro define
2112 macro list
2113 macro undef
2114 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2115 interactively.
2116
2117 info os processes
2118 Show operating system information about processes.
2119
2120 info inferiors
2121 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2122
2123 inferior NUM
2124 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2125
2126 detach inferior NUM
2127 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2128
2129 kill inferior NUM
2130 Kill inferior number NUM.
2131
2132 * New options
2133
2134 set spu stop-on-load
2135 show spu stop-on-load
2136 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2137
2138 set spu auto-flush-cache
2139 show spu auto-flush-cache
2140 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2141 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2142
2143 set sh calling-convention
2144 show sh calling-convention
2145 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2146
2147 set debug timestamp
2148 show debug timestamp
2149 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2150
2151 set disassemble-next-line
2152 show disassemble-next-line
2153 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2154 the debuggee stops.
2155
2156 set remote noack-packet
2157 show remote noack-packet
2158 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2159 under "New remote packets."
2160
2161 set remote query-attached-packet
2162 show remote query-attached-packet
2163 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2164
2165 set remote read-siginfo-object
2166 show remote read-siginfo-object
2167 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2168 packet.
2169
2170 set remote write-siginfo-object
2171 show remote write-siginfo-object
2172 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2173 packet.
2174
2175 set remote reverse-continue
2176 show remote reverse-continue
2177 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2178
2179 set remote reverse-step
2180 show remote reverse-step
2181 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2182
2183 set displaced-stepping
2184 show displaced-stepping
2185 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2186 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2187 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2188
2189 set debug displaced
2190 show debug displaced
2191 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2192
2193 maint set internal-error
2194 maint show internal-error
2195 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2196
2197 maint set internal-warning
2198 maint show internal-warning
2199 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2200
2201 set exec-wrapper
2202 show exec-wrapper
2203 unset exec-wrapper
2204 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2205
2206 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2207 show multiple-symbols
2208 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2209 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2210 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2211
2212 set breakpoint always-inserted
2213 show breakpoint always-inserted
2214 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2215 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2216 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2217
2218 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2219 show arm fallback-mode
2220 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2221 show arm force-mode
2222 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2223 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2224 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2225 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2226
2227 set disable-randomization
2228 show disable-randomization
2229 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2230 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2231 multiple debugging sessions.
2232
2233 set non-stop
2234 show non-stop
2235 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2236 a breakpoint.
2237
2238 set target-async
2239 show target-async
2240 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2241 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2242 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2243 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2244
2245 set target-wide-charset
2246 show target-wide-charset
2247 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2248 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2249
2250 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2251 show tcp auto-retry
2252 set tcp connect-timeout
2253 show tcp connect-timeout
2254 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2255 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2256 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2257
2258 set libthread-db-search-path
2259 show libthread-db-search-path
2260 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2261 libthread_db.
2262
2263 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2264 show schedule-multiple
2265 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2266 the current process.
2267
2268 set stack-cache
2269 show stack-cache
2270 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2271 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2272 affecting correctness.
2273
2274 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2275 show interactive-mode
2276 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2277 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2278 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2279 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2280 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2281
2282 * Removed commands
2283
2284 info forks
2285 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2286 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2287 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2288 command.
2289
2290 fork NUM
2291 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2292 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2293 alias for the `fork' command.
2294
2295 process PID
2296 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2297 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2298 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2299
2300 delete fork NUM
2301 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2302 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2303 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2304 fork' command.
2305
2306 detach fork NUM
2307 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2308 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2309 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2310 fork' command.
2311
2312 * New native configurations
2313
2314 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2315
2316 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2317
2318 * New targets
2319
2320 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2321 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2322 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2323 S+core 3 score-*-*
2324
2325 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2326 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2327
2328 * Removed commands
2329
2330 catch load
2331 catch unload
2332 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2333
2334 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2335
2336 * New native configurations
2337
2338 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2339 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2340
2341 * New targets
2342
2343 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2344 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2345
2346 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2347
2348 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2349 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2350 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2351 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2352
2353 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2354 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2355
2356 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2357 is resolved.
2358
2359 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2360 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2361 and in inlined functions.
2362
2363 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2364 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2365 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2366
2367 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2368
2369 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2370 registers on PowerPC targets.
2371
2372 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2373 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2374
2375 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2376 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2377
2378 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2379 extended-remote mode.
2380
2381 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2382 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2383 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2384 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2385
2386 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2387 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2388 target architectures.
2389
2390 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2391 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2392 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2393 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2394
2395 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2396 breakpoints now.
2397
2398 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2399 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2400 include:
2401 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2402 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2403 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2404 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2405 of an assignment
2406 - Improved command completion in Ada
2407 - Several bug fixes
2408
2409 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2410 process.
2411
2412 * New commands
2413
2414 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2415 show print frame-arguments
2416 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2417 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2418
2419 remote put
2420 remote get
2421 remote delete
2422 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2423
2424 * New MI commands
2425
2426 -target-file-put
2427 -target-file-get
2428 -target-file-delete
2429 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2430
2431 * New remote packets
2432
2433 vFile:open:
2434 vFile:close:
2435 vFile:pread:
2436 vFile:pwrite:
2437 vFile:unlink:
2438 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2439
2440 vAttach
2441 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2442 mode.
2443
2444 vRun
2445 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2446
2447 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2448
2449 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2450 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2451 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2452
2453 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2454 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2455 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2456
2457 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2458 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2459 is not supported.
2460
2461 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2462 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2463
2464 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2465 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2466
2467 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2468
2469 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2470 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2471 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2472
2473 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2474 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2475
2476 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2477 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2478 as strings.
2479
2480 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2481 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2482 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2483
2484 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2485 iWMMXt coprocessor.
2486
2487 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2488 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2489 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2490
2491 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2492
2493 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2494
2495 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2496 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2497 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2498
2499 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2500 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2501
2502 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2503 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2504 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2505 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2506 Windows and SymbianOS).
2507
2508 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2509 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2510
2511 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2512 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2513
2514 * New commands
2515
2516 set remoteflow
2517 show remoteflow
2518 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2519 when debugging using remote targets.
2520
2521 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2522 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2523 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2524 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2525 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2526 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2527 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2528
2529 set breakpoint auto-hw
2530 show breakpoint auto-hw
2531 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2532 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2533 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2534 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2535 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2536 including "next" and "finish".
2537
2538 catch exception
2539 catch exception unhandled
2540 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2541
2542 catch assert
2543 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2544
2545 set sysroot
2546 show sysroot
2547 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2548 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2549 an alias to "set sysroot".
2550
2551 info spu
2552 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2553 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2554 architecture.
2555
2556 * New native configurations
2557
2558 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2559
2560 set tdesc filename
2561 unset tdesc filename
2562 show tdesc filename
2563 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2564 not query the target for its built-in description.
2565
2566 * New targets
2567
2568 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2569 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2570 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2571
2572 * New remote packets
2573
2574 QPassSignals:
2575 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2576 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2577
2578 qXfer:features:read:
2579 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2580 features.
2581
2582 qXfer:spu:read:
2583 qXfer:spu:write:
2584 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2585 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2586
2587 qXfer:libraries:read:
2588 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2589 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2590 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2591 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2592
2593 * Removed targets
2594
2595 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2596
2597 alpha*-*-osf1*
2598 alpha*-*-osf2*
2599 d10v-*-*
2600 hppa*-*-hiux*
2601 i[34567]86-ncr-*
2602 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2603 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2604 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2605 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2606 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2607 i[34567]86-*-sco*
2608 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2609 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2610 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2611 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2612 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2613 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2614 i[34567]86-*-isc*
2615 m68*-cisco*-*
2616 m68*-tandem-*
2617 mips*-*-pe
2618 rs6000-*-lynxos*
2619 sh*-*-pe
2620
2621 * Other removed features
2622
2623 target abug
2624 target cpu32bug
2625 target est
2626 target rom68k
2627
2628 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2629
2630 target hms
2631 target e7000
2632 target sh3
2633 target sh3e
2634
2635 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2636 H8/300.
2637
2638 target ocd
2639
2640 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2641 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2642 interfaces.
2643
2644 DWARF 1 support
2645
2646 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2647 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2648
2649 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2650
2651 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2652 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2653 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2654 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2655
2656 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2657
2658 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2659 in debugging information.
2660
2661 Scheme support
2662
2663 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2664 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2665
2666 set mips stack-arg-size
2667 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2668
2669 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2670
2671 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2672
2673 * New targets
2674
2675 Xtensa xtensa-elf
2676 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2677
2678 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2679 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2680 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2681
2682 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2683 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2684 supported.
2685
2686 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2687 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2688
2689 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2690 stub provides the required support.
2691
2692 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2693 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2694
2695 * New commands
2696
2697 set substitute-path
2698 unset substitute-path
2699 show substitute-path
2700 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2701 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2702 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2703 between compilation and debugging.
2704
2705 set trace-commands
2706 show trace-commands
2707 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2708 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2709 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2710
2711 * REMOVED features
2712
2713 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2714
2715 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2716 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2717
2718 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2719
2720 * New remote packets
2721
2722 qSupported:
2723 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2724 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2725 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2726 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2727 target.
2728
2729 qXfer:auxv:read:
2730 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2731 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2732
2733 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2734 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2735 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2736
2737 vFlashErase:
2738 vFlashWrite:
2739 vFlashDone:
2740 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2741
2742 * Removed remote packets
2743
2744 qPart:auxv:read:
2745 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2746 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2747
2748 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2749
2750 * New targets
2751
2752 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2753
2754 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2755
2756 * New commands
2757
2758 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2759 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2760
2761 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2762
2763 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2764
2765 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2766 previously saved state.
2767
2768 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2769
2770 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2771
2772 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2773 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2774
2775 info forks List forks of the user program that
2776 are available to be debugged.
2777
2778 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2779 forks of the user program that are
2780 available to be debugged.
2781
2782 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2783 that are available to be debugged (and
2784 kill the forked process).
2785
2786 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2787 that are available to be debugged (and
2788 allow the process to continue).
2789
2790 * New architecture
2791
2792 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2793
2794 * Improved Windows host support
2795
2796 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2797 native console support, and remote communications using either
2798 network sockets or serial ports.
2799
2800 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2801
2802 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2803 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2804 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2805 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2806 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2807 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2808
2809 * REMOVED features
2810
2811 The ARM rdi-share module.
2812
2813 The Netware NLM debug server.
2814
2815 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2816
2817 * New native configurations
2818
2819 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2820 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2821
2822 * New targets
2823
2824 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2825
2826 * New command line options
2827
2828 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2829 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2830 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2831 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2832 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2833 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2834 with the --command (-x) option.
2835
2836 * Deprecated commands removed
2837
2838 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2839 removed:
2840
2841 Command Replacement
2842 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2843 othernames set arm disassembler
2844 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2845 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2846 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2847 regs info registers
2848
2849 * New BSD user-level threads support
2850
2851 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2852 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2853 configurations are:
2854
2855 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2856 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2857 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2858
2859 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2860 are not yet supported.
2861
2862 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2863 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2864
2865 * REMOVED configurations and files
2866
2867 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2868 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2869 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2870
2871 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2872
2873 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2874 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2875 behavior.
2876
2877 * VAX floating point support
2878
2879 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2880
2881 * User-defined command support
2882
2883 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2884 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2885 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2886
2887 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2888
2889 * New command line option
2890
2891 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2892 debugging.
2893
2894 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2895
2896 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2897 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2898 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2899 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2900 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2901
2902 * Internationalization
2903
2904 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2905 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2906 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2907
2908 * Ada
2909
2910 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2911 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2912 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2913
2914 * New native configurations
2915
2916 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2917
2918 * Remote 'p' packet
2919
2920 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2921 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2922
2923 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2924
2925 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2926 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2927 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2928 i386 application).
2929
2930 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2931 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2932 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2933 configurations:
2934
2935 hppa-*-hpux
2936 ia64-*-aix
2937 mips-*-irix*
2938 *-*-lynx
2939 mips-*-linux-gnu
2940 sds protocol
2941 xdr protocol
2942 powerpc bdm protocol
2943
2944 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2945 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2946
2947 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2948
2949 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2950 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2951 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2952 permanently REMOVED.
2953
2954 h8300-*-*
2955 mcore-*-*
2956 mn10300-*-*
2957 ns32k-*-*
2958 sh64-*-*
2959 v850-*-*
2960
2961 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2962
2963 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2964
2965 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2966 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2967 been fixed.
2968
2969 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2970
2971 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2972 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2973 IRIX long double values).
2974
2975 * VAX and "next"
2976
2977 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2978 command. This problem has been fixed.
2979
2980 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2981
2982 * Fix for ``many threads''
2983
2984 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2985 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2986 error message:
2987
2988 ptrace: No such process.
2989 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2990
2991 This problem has been fixed.
2992
2993 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2994
2995 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2996 GDB to dump core).
2997
2998 * New ``start'' command.
2999
3000 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3001
3002 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3003
3004 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3005 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3006 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3007
3008 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3009 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3010 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3011 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3012 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3013 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3014 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3015 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3016 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3017
3018 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3019
3020 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3021 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3022 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3023 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3024 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3025
3026 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3027 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3028 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3029
3030 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3031
3032 * New native configurations
3033
3034 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3035 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3036 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3037 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3038 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3039 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3040 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3041
3042 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3043
3044 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3045 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3046 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3047 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3048 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3049 work, was also included.
3050
3051 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3052 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3053
3054 h8300-*-*
3055 mcore-*-*
3056 mn10300-*-*
3057 ns32k-*-*
3058 sh64-*-*
3059 v850-*-*
3060 xstormy16-*-*
3061
3062 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3063 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3064
3065 * REMOVED configurations and files
3066
3067 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3068 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3069 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3070 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3071 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3072 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3073 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3074 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3075 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3076 sonymips mips-sony-*
3077 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3078
3079 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3080
3081 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3082
3083 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3084 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3085 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3086 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3087 with GDB".
3088
3089 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3090
3091 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3092 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3093 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3094 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3095 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3096 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3097 are created.
3098
3099 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3100
3101 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3102
3103 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3104 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3105 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3106
3107 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3108
3109 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3110 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3111
3112 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3113
3114 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3115 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3116 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3117
3118 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3119
3120 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3121 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3122
3123 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3124
3125 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3126 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3127 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3128
3129 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3130
3131 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3132 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3133 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3134
3135 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3136
3137 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3138
3139 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3140 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3141
3142 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3143
3144 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3145 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3146 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3147 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3148
3149 * Revised SPARC target
3150
3151 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3152 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3153 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3154 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3155 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3156
3157 * New C++ demangler
3158
3159 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3160 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3161 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3162 programs.
3163
3164 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3165
3166 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3167 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3168 encountered these.
3169
3170 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3171
3172 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3173 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3174 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3175 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3176 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3177 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3178 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3179 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3180 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3181
3182 * New native configurations
3183
3184 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3185 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3186 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3187 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3188 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3189
3190 * New debugging protocols
3191
3192 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3193
3194 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3195
3196 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3197 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3198 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3199
3200 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3201
3202 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3203 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3204 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3205 permanently REMOVED.
3206
3207 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3208 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3209 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3210 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3211 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3212 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3213 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3214 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3215 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3216 sonymips mips-sony-*
3217 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3218
3219 * REMOVED configurations and files
3220
3221 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3222 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3223 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3224 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3225 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3226 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3227 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3228 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3229 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3230 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3231 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3232 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3233 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3234 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3235 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3236 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3237 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3238
3239 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3240
3241 * Objective-C
3242
3243 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3244 integrated into GDB.
3245
3246 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3247
3248 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3249 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3250 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3251 backtraces.
3252
3253 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3254 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3255 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3256
3257 * Hosted file I/O.
3258
3259 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3260 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3261 remote protocol documentation for details.
3262
3263 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3264
3265 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3266 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3267 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3268 ppc32 on ppc64).
3269
3270 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3271
3272 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3273 per-thread variables.
3274
3275 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3276
3277 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3278 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3279
3280 * Separate debug info.
3281
3282 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3283 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3284 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3285 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3286 and optional debug files.
3287
3288 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3289
3290 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3291 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3292 debugger.
3293
3294 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3295 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3296
3297 * Java
3298
3299 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3300 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3301 considered "useable".
3302
3303 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3304
3305 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3306 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3307 kernel.
3308
3309 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3310
3311 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3312 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3313
3314 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3315
3316 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3317 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3318 command.
3319
3320 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3321
3322 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3323 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3324
3325 * Profiling support
3326
3327 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3328 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3329 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3330 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3331 data, for more informative profiling results.
3332
3333 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3334
3335 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3336 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3337 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3338
3339 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3340 removed.
3341
3342 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3343 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3344 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3345 in a subsequent -var-update.
3346
3347 * New native configurations.
3348
3349 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3350
3351 * Multi-arched targets.
3352
3353 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3354 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3355
3356 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3357
3358 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3359 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3360 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3361 permanently REMOVED.
3362
3363 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3364 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3365 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3366 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3367 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3368 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3369 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3370 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3371 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3372 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3373 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3374 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3375
3376 * REMOVED configurations and files
3377
3378 V850EA ISA
3379 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3380 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3381 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3382 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3383 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3384 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3385 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3386 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3387 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3388 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3389 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3390 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3391 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3392
3393 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3394
3395 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3396 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3397 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3398 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3399 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3400
3401 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3402
3403 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3404
3405 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3406 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3407 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3408 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3409 shared libs like mad''.
3410
3411 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3412
3413 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3414 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3415 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3416 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3417
3418 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3419
3420 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3421 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3422 they expand.
3423
3424 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3425 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3426
3427 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3428 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3429
3430 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3431 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3432 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3433 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3434
3435 * Multi-arched targets.
3436
3437 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3438 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3439 NEC V850 v850-*-*
3440 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3441 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3442 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3443
3444 * New targets.
3445
3446 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3447
3448
3449 * New native configurations
3450
3451 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3452 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3453 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3454 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3455
3456 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3457
3458 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3459 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3460 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3461 permanently REMOVED.
3462
3463 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3464 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3465 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3466 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3467 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3468 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3469 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3470 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3471 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3472 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3473 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3474 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3475 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3476
3477 * OBSOLETE languages
3478
3479 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3480
3481 * REMOVED configurations and files
3482
3483 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3484 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3485 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3486 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3487 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3488
3489 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3490
3491 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3492
3493 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3494 commands. The default is 1024.
3495
3496 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3497
3498 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3499
3500 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3501
3502 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3503 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3504 from a file into memory (restore).
3505
3506 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3507
3508 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3509 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3510 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3511
3512 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3513
3514 * New targets.
3515
3516 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3517
3518 * Bug fixes
3519
3520 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3521 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3522 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3523
3524 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3525 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3526 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3527
3528 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3529 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3530 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3531
3532 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3533 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3534 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3535
3536 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3537
3538 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3539
3540 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3541 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3542 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3543 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3544 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3545 (notably embedded) targets.
3546
3547 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3548
3549 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3550 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3551 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3552 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3553
3554 * New command line option
3555
3556 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3557
3558 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3559
3560 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3561 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3562 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3563 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3564 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3565 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3566 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3567 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3568 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3569 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3570
3571 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3572
3573 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3574 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3575
3576 * New native configurations
3577
3578 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3579 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3580 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3581 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3582
3583 * New targets
3584
3585 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3586
3587 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3588
3589 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3590 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3591 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3592 permanently REMOVED.
3593
3594 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3595 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3596 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3597 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3598 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3599
3600 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3601
3602 * REMOVED configurations and files
3603
3604 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3605 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3606 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3607 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3608 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3609 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3610 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3611 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3612 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3613 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3614 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3615 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3616 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3617
3618 * Changes to command line processing
3619
3620 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3621 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3622
3623 * Changes to key bindings
3624
3625 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3626
3627 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3628
3629 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3630
3631 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3632 corrupted.
3633
3634 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3635
3636 Numerous documentation fixes.
3637
3638 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3639
3640 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3641
3642 * New native configurations
3643
3644 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3645 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3646 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3647 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3648 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3649 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3650
3651 * New targets
3652
3653 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3654 CRIS cris-axis
3655 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3656
3657 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3658
3659 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3660 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3661 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3662 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3663 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3664 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3665 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3666 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3667 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3668 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3669 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3670 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3671 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3672 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3673
3674 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3675 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3676
3677 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3678 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3679 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3680 permanently REMOVED.
3681
3682 * REMOVED configurations and files
3683
3684 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3685 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3686 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3687 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3688 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3689 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
3690
3691 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3692
3693 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3694 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3695 present.
3696
3697 * Other news:
3698
3699 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3700
3701 * The MI enabled by default.
3702
3703 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3704 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3705 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3706 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3707 which is now deprecated.
3708
3709 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3710
3711 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3712 main features are supported:
3713
3714 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3715
3716 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3717 extension;
3718
3719 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3720
3721 - a Pascal expression parser.
3722
3723 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3724
3725 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3726
3727 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3728
3729 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3730 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3731
3732 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3733
3734 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3735
3736 * Changes in completion.
3737
3738 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3739 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3740 users expect at the shell prompt.
3741
3742 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3743 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3744 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3745 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3746 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3747 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3748 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3749
3750 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3751
3752 * New platform-independent commands:
3753
3754 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3755 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3756 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3757
3758 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3759
3760 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3761 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3762 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3763
3764 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3765
3766 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3767 multi-threaded programs though.
3768
3769 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3770
3771 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3772
3773 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3774 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3775 supported.)
3776
3777 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3778
3779 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3780 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3781 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3782 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3783 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3784 registers.
3785
3786 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3787 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3788 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3789
3790 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3791
3792 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3793 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3794
3795 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3796 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3797 IDT.
3798
3799 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3800 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3801 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3802 a given linear address.
3803
3804 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3805 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3806 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3807
3808 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3809
3810 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3811
3812 * Changes in documentation.
3813
3814 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3815 Documentation License.
3816
3817 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3818 manual.
3819
3820 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3821
3822 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3823 manual.
3824
3825 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3826 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3827 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3828
3829 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3830
3831 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3832 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3833 contents of this file.
3834
3835 * gdba.el deleted
3836
3837 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3838
3839 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3840
3841 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3842
3843 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3844 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3845 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3846 greater level of detail.
3847
3848 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3849
3850 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3851 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3852 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3853 written.
3854
3855 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3856
3857 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3858 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3859 machines ``out of the box''.
3860
3861 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3862 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3863 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3864 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3865 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3866
3867 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3868 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3869 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3870 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3871 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3872
3873 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3874 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3875 also works.
3876
3877 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3878 GDB.
3879
3880 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3881 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3882 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3883 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3884
3885 * New native configurations
3886
3887 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3888 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3889
3890 * New targets
3891
3892 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3893 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3894 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3895 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3896
3897 * OBSOLETE configurations
3898
3899 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3900 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3901 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3902 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3903 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3904
3905 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3906 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3907 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3908 be permanently REMOVED.
3909
3910 * Gould support removed
3911
3912 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3913
3914 * New features for SVR4
3915
3916 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3917 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3918 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3919
3920 * Many C++ enhancements
3921
3922 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3923 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3924
3925 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3926
3927 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3928 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3929 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3930 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3931
3932 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3933 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3934
3935 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3936
3937 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3938 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3939 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3940
3941 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3942 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3943
3944 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3945
3946 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3947 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3948 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3949
3950 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3951
3952 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3953 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3954 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3955
3956 * ``apropos'' command added.
3957
3958 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3959 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3960 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3961
3962 * New MI interface
3963
3964 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3965 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3966 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3967 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3968 enabled by configuring with:
3969
3970 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3971
3972 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3973
3974 * New native configurations
3975
3976 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3977 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3978 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3979
3980 * New targets
3981
3982 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3983 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3984 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3985
3986 * OBSOLETE configurations
3987
3988 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3989
3990 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3991 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3992 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3993 be permanently REMOVED.
3994
3995 * ANSI/ISO C
3996
3997 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3998 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3999 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4000 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4001 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4002 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4003 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4004 already.
4005
4006 * Readline 2.2
4007
4008 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4009
4010 * set extension-language
4011
4012 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4013 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4014 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4015 set extension-language .c c++
4016 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4017 and their associated languages.
4018
4019 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4020
4021 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4022 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4023 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4024
4025 set processor NAME
4026
4027 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4028 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4029
4030 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4031 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4032 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4033 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4034 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4035 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4036 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4037 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4038 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4039 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4040 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4041
4042 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4043 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4044 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4045 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4046
4047 * HP-UX support
4048
4049 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4050 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4051 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4052 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4053 for xdb and dbx commands.
4054
4055 * Catchpoints
4056
4057 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4058 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4059 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4060
4061 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4062 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4063 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4064
4065 * Debugging across forks
4066
4067 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4068 in the inferior.
4069
4070 * TUI
4071
4072 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4073 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4074 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4075
4076 * GDB remote protocol additions
4077
4078 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4079 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4080 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4081 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4082
4083 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4084 full 64-bit address. The command
4085
4086 set remoteaddresssize 32
4087
4088 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4089 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4090 will be discarded.
4091
4092 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4093 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4094
4095 maint packet heythere
4096
4097 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4098 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4099 time.
4100
4101 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4102 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4103 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4104
4105 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4106
4107 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4108 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4109 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4110
4111 * mask-address variable for Mips
4112
4113 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4114 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4115 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4116
4117 * Higher serial baud rates
4118
4119 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4120 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4121 to achieve all of these rates.)
4122
4123 * i960 simulator
4124
4125 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4126 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4127
4128
4129 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4130
4131 * New native configurations
4132
4133 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4134 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4135 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4136 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4137 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4138 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4139 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4140
4141 * New targets
4142
4143 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4144 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4145 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4146 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4147 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4148 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4149 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4150 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4151 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4152 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4153 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4154
4155 * New debugging protocols
4156
4157 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4158 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4159 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4160 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4161 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4162 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4163
4164 * DWARF 2
4165
4166 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4167 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4168 information.
4169
4170 * Java frontend
4171
4172 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4173 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4174
4175 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4176
4177 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4178 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4179 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4180
4181 * Live range splitting
4182
4183 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4184 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4185 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4186
4187 * Hurd support
4188
4189 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4190 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4191
4192 * ARM Thumb support
4193
4194 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4195 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4196 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4197 accordingly.
4198
4199 * MIPS16 support
4200
4201 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4202 instruction set.
4203
4204 * Overlay support
4205
4206 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4207 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4208 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4209 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4210 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4211 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4212
4213 * info symbol
4214
4215 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4216 the symbol at the specified address.
4217
4218 * Trace support
4219
4220 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4221 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4222 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4223 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4224 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4225
4226 * MIPS simulator
4227
4228 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4229 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4230 of most MIPS variants.
4231
4232 * Sparc simulator
4233
4234 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4235 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4236 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4237
4238 * set architecture
4239
4240 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4241 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4242 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4243 the possible architectures.
4244
4245 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4246
4247 * New native configurations
4248
4249 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4250 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4251 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4252 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4253 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4254 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4255
4256 * New targets
4257
4258 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4259 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4260 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4261 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4262 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4263 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4264 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4265
4266 * PowerPC simulator
4267
4268 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4269 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4270 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4271 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4272 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4273
4274 * Solaris 2.5
4275
4276 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4277
4278 * Windows 95/NT native
4279
4280 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4281 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4282 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4283 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4284 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4285
4286 * dont-repeat command
4287
4288 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4289 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4290 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4291 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4292
4293 * Send break instead of ^C
4294
4295 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4296 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4297 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4298
4299 * Remote protocol timeout
4300
4301 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4302 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4303 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4304
4305 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4306
4307 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4308 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4309 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4310 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4311 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4312
4313 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4314 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4315 automatically on hpux10.
4316
4317 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4318
4319 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4320
4321 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4322
4323 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4324 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4325 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4326 every character. The default value is 1050.
4327
4328 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4329
4330 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4331 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4332 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4333 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4334 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4335 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4336
4337 * Speedups for remote debugging
4338
4339 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4340 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4341 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4342
4343 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4344
4345 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4346 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4347
4348 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4349
4350 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4351
4352 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4353 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4354
4355 * Remote targets use caching
4356
4357 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4358 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4359 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4360 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4361 off' turns the the data cache off.
4362
4363 * Remote targets may have threads
4364
4365 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4366 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4367 gdb/remote.c for details.
4368
4369 * NetROM support
4370
4371 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4372 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4373 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4374 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4375 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4376 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4377 sequence is something like
4378
4379 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4380 load <prog>
4381 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4382
4383 * Macintosh host
4384
4385 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4386 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4387 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4388 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4389 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4390 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4391 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4392 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4393
4394 * Autoconf
4395
4396 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4397 but does simplify configuration and building.
4398
4399 * hpux10
4400
4401 GDB now supports hpux10.
4402
4403 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4404
4405 * New native configurations
4406
4407 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4408 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4409 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4410 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4411
4412 * New targets
4413
4414 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4415 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4416 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4417 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4418 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4419
4420 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4421
4422 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4423 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4424 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4425 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4426 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4427
4428 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4429
4430 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4431 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4432 trivial example:
4433 define adder
4434 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4435
4436 To execute the command use:
4437 adder 1 2 3
4438
4439 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4440 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4441 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4442
4443 * New `if' and `while' commands
4444
4445 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4446 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4447 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4448 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4449 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4450 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4451 if the expression is zero.
4452
4453 * Fortran source language mode
4454
4455 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4456 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4457 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4458 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4459 Fortran compilers.
4460
4461 * Better HPUX support
4462
4463 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4464 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4465 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4466 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4467 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4468
4469 adb -w a.out
4470 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4471 control-d
4472
4473 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4474 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4475
4476 adb -w a.out
4477 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4478 control-d
4479
4480 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4481 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4482 external linkage.
4483
4484 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4485 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4486
4487 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4488
4489 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4490 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4491 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4492 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4493 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4494 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4495
4496 * New DOS host serial code
4497
4498 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4499 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4500 a PC's serial port.
4501
4502 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4503
4504 * New "complete" command
4505
4506 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4507 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4508
4509 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4510
4511 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4512 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4513
4514 * Breakpoint hit counts
4515
4516 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4517 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4518 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4519 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4520 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4521 that breakpoint.
4522
4523 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4524
4525 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4526 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4527 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4528
4529 * Shared library breakpoints
4530
4531 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4532 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4533
4534 * Hardware watchpoints
4535
4536 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4537 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4538
4539 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4540
4541 * Annotations
4542
4543 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4544 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4545
4546 * Improved Irix 5 support
4547
4548 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4549
4550 * Improved HPPA support
4551
4552 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4553
4554 * New native configurations
4555
4556 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4557 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4558 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4559 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4560
4561 * New targets
4562
4563 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4564 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4565 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4566
4567 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4568
4569 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4570 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4571
4572 * Fixes
4573
4574 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4575 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4576
4577 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4578
4579 * Irix 5 is now supported
4580
4581 * HPPA support
4582
4583 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4584 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4585 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4586 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4587 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4588
4589
4590 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4591
4592 * User visible changes:
4593
4594 * Remote Debugging
4595
4596 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4597 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4598 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4599 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4600 debugging info for the mips target).
4601
4602 * DEC Alpha native support
4603
4604 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4605 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4606 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4607 Alpha-specific notes.
4608
4609 * Preliminary thread implementation
4610
4611 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4612
4613 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4614
4615 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4616 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4617 for details).
4618
4619 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4620
4621 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4622 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4623 call methods, ...etc.
4624
4625 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4626
4627 * User visible changes:
4628
4629 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4630 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4631 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4632 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4633
4634 Filename completion now works.
4635
4636 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4637 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4638 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4639
4640 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4641 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4642 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4643 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4644 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4645
4646 * DEC alpha support
4647
4648 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4649 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4650
4651
4652 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4653
4654 * Testsuite
4655
4656 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4657 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4658 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4659
4660 * C++ demangling
4661
4662 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4663 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4664 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4665 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4666 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4667
4668 * Simulators
4669
4670 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4671 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4672 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4673
4674 * New targets supported
4675
4676 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4677 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4678 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4679 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4680 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4681
4682 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4683 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4684 GO32 memory extender.
4685
4686 * New remote protocols
4687
4688 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4689
4690 * New source languages supported
4691
4692 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4693 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4694 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4695
4696
4697 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4698
4699 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4700
4701 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4702 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4703 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4704 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4705 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4706 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4707
4708 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4709
4710 * Faster and better demangling
4711
4712 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4713 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4714 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4715 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4716 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4717 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4718 symbol lookups.
4719
4720 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4721 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4722 compiler does not actually implement.
4723
4724 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4725
4726 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4727 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4728 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4729 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4730 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4731 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4732 fix.
4733
4734 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4735 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4736
4737 * Improved configure script
4738
4739 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4740 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4741 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4742 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4743
4744 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4745 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4746 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4747 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4748 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4749 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4750
4751 * Documentation improvements
4752
4753 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4754 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4755 before submitting changes.
4756
4757 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4758 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4759 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4760 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4761 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4762
4763 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4764 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4765 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4766 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4767 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4768 around this problem.
4769
4770 * New features
4771
4772 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4773 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4774 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4775 the target program.
4776
4777 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4778 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4779
4780 * New native hosts supported
4781
4782 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4783 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4784
4785 * New targets supported
4786
4787 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4788
4789 * New file formats supported
4790
4791 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4792 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4793
4794 * Major bug fixes
4795
4796 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4797
4798 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4799 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4800
4801 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4802 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4803 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4804
4805 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4806 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4807
4808 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4809 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4810 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4811 libraries.
4812
4813 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4814 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4815 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4816 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4817 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4818
4819 * Internal improvements
4820
4821 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4822 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4823
4824 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4825 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4826 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4827 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4828 shared code that handles any of them.
4829
4830 * New command line options
4831
4832 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4833
4834 * Mmalloc licensing
4835
4836 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4837 General Public License.
4838
4839 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4840
4841 * Host/native/target split
4842
4843 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4844 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4845 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4846 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4847 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4848
4849 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4850 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4851 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4852 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4853 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4854 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4855 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4856
4857 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4858 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4859 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4860
4861 * New hosts supported
4862
4863 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4864 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4865 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4866
4867 * New targets supported
4868
4869 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4870 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4871
4872 * New native hosts supported
4873
4874 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4875 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4876 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4877
4878 * New file formats supported
4879
4880 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4881 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4882 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4883
4884 * New commands
4885
4886 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4887 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4888 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4889
4890 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4891
4892 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4893 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4894 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4895 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4896
4897 * C++ improvements
4898
4899 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4900 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4901 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4902
4903 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4904
4905 * Major bug fixes
4906
4907 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4908 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4909 by the compiler.
4910
4911 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4912 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4913
4914 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4915 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4916 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4917 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4918 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4919 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4920
4921 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4922 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4923 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4924 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4925
4926 * AMD 29k support
4927
4928 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4929 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4930 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4931 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4932 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4933
4934 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4935 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4936 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4937 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4938
4939 * Remote interfaces
4940
4941 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4942 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4943 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4944 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4945 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4946 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4947 each instruction being stepped through.
4948
4949 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4950 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4951
4952 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4953 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4954 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4955 processor with a serial port.
4956
4957 * Configuration
4958
4959 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4960 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4961 supported, and what files each one uses.
4962
4963 * Library changes
4964
4965 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4966 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4967 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4968 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4969
4970 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4971 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4972 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4973 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4974
4975 * Documentation
4976
4977 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4978 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4979 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4980 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4981 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4982 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4983
4984 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4985
4986
4987 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4988
4989 * Better support for C++ function names
4990
4991 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4992 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4993 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4994 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4995 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4996
4997 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4998 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4999 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5000 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5001 for the list of formats.
5002
5003 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5004
5005 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5006 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5007 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5008 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5009 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5010 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5011 this problem.)
5012
5013 * New 'maintenance' command
5014
5015 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5016 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5017 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5018
5019 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5020 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5021 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5022 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5023 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5024 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5025
5026 The following commands are new:
5027
5028 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5029 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5030 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5031
5032 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5033
5034 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5035 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5036 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5037 read after argv processing.
5038
5039 * New hosts supported
5040
5041 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5042
5043 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5044
5045 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5046 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5047 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5048 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5049 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5050 It costs extra.
5051
5052 * New targets supported
5053
5054 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5055
5056 * More smarts about finding #include files
5057
5058 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5059 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5060 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5061 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5062 the one that contains your sources.
5063
5064 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5065 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5066 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5067
5068 * Interesting infernals change
5069
5070 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5071 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5072 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5073 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5074
5075 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5076
5077 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5078 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5079 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5080
5081 See the ChangeLog for details.
5082
5083 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5084
5085 * New machines supported (host and target)
5086
5087 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5088
5089 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5090
5091 * New malloc package
5092
5093 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5094 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5095 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5096 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5097 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5098 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5099
5100 * info proc
5101
5102 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5103 'help info proc' for details.
5104
5105 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5106
5107 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5108 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5109 possible.
5110
5111 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5112
5113 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5114 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5115 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5116 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5117 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5118 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5119
5120 * Cross byte order fixes
5121
5122 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5123 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5124
5125 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5126
5127 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5128 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5129 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5130 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5131 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5132 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5133 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5134 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5135 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5136 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5137
5138 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5139 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5140 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5141 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5142
5143 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5144 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5145 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5146 use is:
5147
5148 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5149
5150 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5151 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5152 shared across multiple host platforms.
5153
5154 * longjmp() handling
5155
5156 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5157 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5158 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5159 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5160
5161 * Solaris 2.0
5162
5163 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5164 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5165 reading symbols.
5166
5167 * Bug fixes
5168
5169 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5170 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5171 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5172
5173 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5174
5175 * New machines supported (host and target)
5176
5177 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5178 (except core files)
5179 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5180 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5181
5182 * New machines supported (target)
5183
5184 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5185
5186 * C++ support
5187
5188 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5189 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5190 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5191
5192 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5193 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5194 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5195 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5196 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5197 released.
5198
5199 * New features for SVR4
5200
5201 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5202 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5203 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5204
5205 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5206 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5207 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5208
5209 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5210 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5211
5212 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5213
5214 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5215 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5216 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5217 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5218 same code linked statically.
5219
5220 * New Getopt
5221
5222 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5223 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5224 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5225 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5226 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5227 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5228
5229 * Bugs fixed
5230
5231 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5232 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5233 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5234
5235
5236 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5237
5238 * New machines supported (host and target)
5239
5240 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5241 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5242 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5243
5244 * Almost SCO Unix support
5245
5246 We had hoped to support:
5247 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5248 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5249 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5250 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5251
5252 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5253
5254 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5255 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5256 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5257 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5258 reqired (if any).
5259
5260 * New Readline
5261
5262 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5263 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5264 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5265
5266 * Bugs fixed
5267
5268 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5269 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5270 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5271
5272 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5273
5274 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5275 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5276 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5277
5278 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5279 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5280 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5281 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5282 version 2.
5283
5284 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5285 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5286 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5287 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5288 situation somewhat.
5289
5290 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5291 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5292 methods.
5293
5294 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5295 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5296 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5297
5298
5299 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5300
5301 * Improved configuration
5302
5303 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5304 Porting BFD is simpler.
5305
5306 * Stepping improved
5307
5308 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5309 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5310 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5311 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5312
5313 * Bug fixing
5314
5315 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5316
5317 * New host supported (not target)
5318
5319 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5320
5321
5322 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5323
5324 * Multiple source language support
5325
5326 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5327 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5328 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5329 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5330 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5331 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5332
5333 * GDB and Modula-2
5334
5335 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5336 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5337 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5338 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5339
5340 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5341 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5342 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5343
5344 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5345 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5346
5347 * set write on/off
5348
5349 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5350 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5351 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5352 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5353 effect immediately.
5354
5355 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5356
5357 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5358 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5359 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5360 examining core files.
5361
5362 * set listsize
5363
5364 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5365 The default is 10.
5366
5367 * New machines supported (host and target)
5368
5369 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5370 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5371 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5372
5373 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5374
5375 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5376
5377 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5378
5379 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5380 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5381 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5382
5383 * New remote interfaces
5384
5385 AMD 29000 Adapt
5386 AMD 29000 Minimon
5387
5388
5389 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5390
5391 * New Facilities
5392
5393 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5394
5395 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5396 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5397 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5398 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5399 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5400 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5401 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5402 stub on the target system.
5403
5404 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5405
5406 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5407 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5408 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5409
5410 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5411 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5412
5413
5414 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5415
5416 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5417 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5418
5419 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5420 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5421 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5422
5423 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5424 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5425 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5426 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5427
5428 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5429 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5430 it is already running. Default is ON.
5431
5432 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5433 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5434 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5435 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5436 Default is ON.
5437
5438 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5439 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5440 or the value of the environment variable
5441 GDBHISTFILE.
5442
5443 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5444 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5445 HISTSIZE.
5446
5447 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5448 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5449 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5450
5451 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5452 history expansion will be performed on
5453 command line input. The default is OFF.
5454
5455 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5456 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5457 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5458
5459 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5460 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5461 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5462 variable TERM.
5463
5464 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5465 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5466 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5467 variable TERM.
5468
5469 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5470 ``set width'' instead.
5471
5472 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5473 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5474 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5475 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5476
5477 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5478 is OFF.
5479
5480 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5481 "raw" form if off.
5482
5483 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5484 like instructions.
5485
5486 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5487
5488
5489 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5490
5491 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5492 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5493 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5494 window.
5495
5496
5497 * Support for Shared Libraries
5498
5499 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5500 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5501 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5502 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5503 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5504 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5505 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5506 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5507
5508 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5509 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5510 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5511
5512 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5513
5514
5515 * Watchpoints
5516
5517 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5518 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5519 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5520 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5521 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5522 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5523
5524 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5525
5526 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5527
5528 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5529 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5530 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5531
5532
5533 * C++ multiple inheritance
5534
5535 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5536 for C++ programs.
5537
5538 * C++ exception handling
5539
5540 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5541 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5542 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5543 handler's context).
5544
5545 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5546 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5547 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5548
5549 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5550 current stack frame.
5551
5552
5553 * Minor command changes
5554
5555 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5556 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5557 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5558
5559 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5560 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5561 frames without printing.
5562
5563 * New directory command
5564
5565 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5566 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5567 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5568 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5569 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5570
5571 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5572
5573 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5574 for more details.
5575
5576 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5577 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5578 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5579 where the program that you are debugging will run.