b72d64db313d0785edec19a9c4b441b854698e6a
[binutils-gdb.git] /
1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
3
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.7
5
6 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
7 with or without disassembly.
8
9 * Guile scripting
10
11 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
12 available is determined at configure time.
13 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
14 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
15
16 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
17
18 guile [code]
19 gu [code]
20 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
21
22 guile-repl
23 gr
24 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
25
26 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
27 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
28
29 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
30 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
31
32 * New options
33
34 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
35 show print symbol-loading
36 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
37 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
38 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
39 becomes less useful.
40
41 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
42 show guile print-stack
43 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
44
45 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
46 show auto-load guile-scripts
47 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
48
49 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
50 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
51 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
52 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
53 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
54 usage of this option.
55
56 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
57
58 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
59 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
60 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
61 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
62 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
63
64 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
65 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
66 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
67
68 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
69 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
70 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
71 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
72 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
73 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
74 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
75
76 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
77 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
78
79 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
80 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
81 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
82
83 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
84 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
85 memory or registers.
86
87 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
88
89 * New remote packets
90
91 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
92 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
93 branch trace incrementally.
94
95 * Python Scripting
96
97 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
98 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
99 available.
100
101 * New targets
102 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
103
104 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
105 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
106 its alias "share", instead.
107
108 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
109
110 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
111 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
112 recording has been added.
113
114 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
115
116 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
117 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
118
119 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
120 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
121 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
122 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
123 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
124 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
125 "void".
126
127 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
128
129 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
130
131 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
132 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
133 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
134 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
135
136 (gdb) p $rax
137 $1 = <not saved>
138
139 (gdb) info registers rax
140 rax <not saved>
141
142 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
143 "*value not available*".
144
145 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
146 to binaries.
147
148 * Python scripting
149
150 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
151 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
152 ** Line tables representation has been added.
153 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
154 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
155 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
156
157 * New targets
158
159 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
160 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
161 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
162
163 * Removed native configurations
164
165 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
166 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
167
168 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
169 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
170 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
171 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
172 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
173 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
174 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
175
176 * New commands:
177 catch rethrow
178 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
179 maint check-psymtabs
180 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
181 maint check-symtabs
182 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
183 maint expand-symtabs
184 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
185
186 show configuration
187 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
188
189 maint set|show per-command
190 maint set|show per-command space
191 maint set|show per-command time
192 maint set|show per-command symtab
193 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
194
195 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
196 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
197 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
198 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
199 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
200
201 info exceptions
202 info exceptions REGEXP
203 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
204 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
205 are listed.
206
207 * New options
208
209 set debug symfile off|on
210 show debug symfile
211 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
212 symbol tables within those files
213
214 set print raw frame-arguments
215 show print raw frame-arguments
216 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
217 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
218
219 set remote trace-status-packet
220 show remote trace-status-packet
221 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
222
223 set debug nios2
224 show debug nios2
225 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
226
227 set range-stepping
228 show range-stepping
229 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
230
231 set startup-with-shell
232 show startup-with-shell
233 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
234 directly.
235
236 set code-cache
237 show code-cache
238 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
239 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
240
241 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
242 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
243 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
244 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
245 "set height 0".
246
247 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
248 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
249 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
250
251 * New command-line options
252 --configuration
253 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
254
255 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
256 buffer in Common Trace Format.
257
258 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
259 GDB command gcore.
260
261 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
262
263 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
264 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
265
266 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
267 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
268
269 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
270 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
271 due to an uncaught signal.
272
273 * MI changes
274
275 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
276 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
277 command, which should contain "language-option".
278
279 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
280 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
281
282 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
283 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
284 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
285 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
286 "undefined-command-error-code".
287
288 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
289 Trace Format now.
290
291 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
292
293 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
294 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
295 are displayed.
296
297 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
298 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
299
300 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
301 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
302 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
303
304 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
305 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
306 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
307 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
308 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
309 "exec-run-start-option".
310
311 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
312 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
313
314 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
315 the new "info exceptions" command.
316
317 * New system-wide configuration scripts
318 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
319 configuration scripts for the following systems:
320 ** ElinOS
321 ** Wind River Linux
322
323 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
324 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
325 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
326 below.
327
328 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
329 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
330
331 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
332 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
333 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
334
335 * New remote packets
336
337 vCont;r
338
339 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
340 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
341 involvemement at each single-step.
342
343 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
344 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
345 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
346 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
347 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
348 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
349 speedup.
350
351 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
352
353 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
354 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
355
356 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
357 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
358 trace state variables.
359
360 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
361 target.
362
363 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
364 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
365
366 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
367
368 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
369 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
370 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
371 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
372
373 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
374
375 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
376 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
377 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
378 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
379
380 set|show record full insn-number-max
381 set|show record full stop-at-limit
382 set|show record full memory-query
383
384 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
385 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
386 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
387 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
388 This new recording method can be enabled using:
389
390 record btrace
391
392 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
393 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
394
395 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
396 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
397 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
398
399 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
400 instruction granularity
401
402 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
403 function granularity
404
405 * New native configurations
406
407 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
408 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
409 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
410 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
411
412 * New targets
413
414 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
415 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
416 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
417 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
418 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
419
420 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
421 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
422 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
423 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
424 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
425 --data-directory command-line option.
426
427 * New command line options:
428
429 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
430 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
431
432 * Removed command line options
433
434 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
435 Emacs.
436
437 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
438 type formatting.
439
440 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
441
442 * Python scripting
443
444 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
445
446 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
447
448 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
449
450 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
451
452 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
453 of architecture in the Python API.
454
455 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
456 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
457
458 * New Python-based convenience functions:
459
460 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
461 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
462 ** $_strlen(str)
463 ** $_regex(str, regex)
464
465 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
466 given an argument.
467
468 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
469 default for GCC since November 2000.
470
471 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
472
473 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
474 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
475
476 * New configure options
477
478 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
479 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
480 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
481 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
482 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
483 options allow the user to override that default.
484 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
485 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
486 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
487
488 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
489
490 catch signal
491 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
492 conditions to be attached.
493
494 maint info bfds
495 List the BFDs known to GDB.
496
497 python-interactive [command]
498 pi [command]
499 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
500 and print the result of expressions.
501
502 py [command]
503 "py" is a new alias for "python".
504
505 enable type-printer [name]...
506 disable type-printer [name]...
507 Enable or disable type printers.
508
509 * Removed commands
510
511 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
512 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
513 instead.
514
515 * New options
516
517 set print type methods (on|off)
518 show print type methods
519 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
520 The default is to show them.
521
522 set print type typedefs (on|off)
523 show print type typedefs
524 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
525 The default is to show them.
526
527 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
528 show filename-display
529 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
530 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
531
532 set trace-buffer-size
533 show trace-buffer-size
534 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
535
536 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
537 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
538 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
539
540 set debug aarch64
541 show debug aarch64
542 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
543 The default is off.
544
545 set debug coff-pe-read
546 show debug coff-pe-read
547 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
548 exported symbols.
549
550 set debug mach-o
551 show debug mach-o
552 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
553 processing.
554
555 set debug notification
556 show debug notification
557 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
558
559 * MI changes
560
561 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
562 "=cmd-param-changed".
563 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
564 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
565 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
566 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
567 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
568 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
569 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
570 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
571 "=memory-changed".
572 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
573 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
574 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
575 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
576 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
577 library load/unload events.
578 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
579 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
580 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
581 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
582 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
583 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
584 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
585 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
586
587 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
588 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
589 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
590 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
591
592 * New remote packets
593
594 QTBuffer:size
595 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
596 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
597
598 Qbtrace:bts
599 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
600 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
601 qSupported query.
602
603 Qbtrace:off
604 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
605 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
606
607 qXfer:btrace:read
608 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
609 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
610
611 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
612
613 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
614 for more x32 ABI info.
615
616 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
617
618 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
619
620 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
621 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
622 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
623 "info os files" lists file descriptors
624 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
625 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
626 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
627 "info os msg" lists message queues
628 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
629
630 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
631 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
632 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
633 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
634 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
635 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
636
637 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
638 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
639 record/replay support.
640
641 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
642
643 * Python scripting
644
645 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
646 "gdb.COMMAND_USER".
647
648 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
649
650 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
651 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
652
653 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
654
655 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
656 the source at which the symbol was defined.
657
658 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
659 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
660 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
661 symbol's value.
662
663 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
664 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
665
666 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
667 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
668 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
669
670 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
671 object associated with a PC value.
672
673 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
674 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
675
676 * Go language support.
677 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
678 language.
679
680 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
681 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
682
683 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
684 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
685
686 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
687 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
688 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
689 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
690 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
691 $1 = (ONE | TWO)
692
693 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
694 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
695 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
696 build/libcpp/expr.c.
697
698 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
699 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
700
701 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
702 since December 2007.
703
704 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
705 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
706 command does. For instance:
707
708 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
709
710 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
711 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
712 created, using the "condition" command.
713
714 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
715 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
716
717 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
718
719 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
720 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
721 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
722 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
723 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
724 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
725 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
726 files with older .gdb_index sections.
727
728 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
729 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
730 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
731 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
732 the .gdb_index section.
733
734 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
735
736 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
737 target.
738
739 * MI changes
740
741 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
742
743 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
744
745 * New commands
746
747 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
748 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
749 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
750
751 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
752 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
753
754 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
755 several hits.
756
757 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
758 C++ and Java objects.
759
760 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
761 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
762 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
763 configured with '--with-python'.
764
765 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
766 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
767 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
768 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
769 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
770 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
771 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
772
773 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
774 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
775 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
776 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
777
778 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
779 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
780 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
781 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
782
783 ** "set print symbol"
784 "show print symbol"
785 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
786 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
787 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
788
789 * Deprecated commands
790
791 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
792 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
793
794 * New targets
795
796 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
797 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
798
799 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
800 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
801 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
802 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
803 evaluates to true.
804
805 * New options
806
807 set mips compression
808 show mips compression
809 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
810 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
811 mips16
812 micromips
813 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
814
815 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
816 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
817 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
818 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
819 available mode.
820 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
821 target.
822
823 set auto-load off
824 Disable auto-loading globally.
825
826 show auto-load
827 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
828
829 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
830 show auto-load gdb-scripts
831 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
832
833 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
834 show auto-load python-scripts
835 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
836
837 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
838 show auto-load local-gdbinit
839 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
840
841 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
842 show auto-load libthread-db
843 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
844
845 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
846 show auto-load scripts-directory
847 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
848 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
849 of the directories listed by this option.
850 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
851
852 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
853 show auto-load safe-path
854 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
855 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
856
857 set debug auto-load on|off
858 show debug auto-load
859 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
860
861 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
862 show dprintf-style
863 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
864 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
865 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
866 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
867
868 set dprintf-function <expr>
869 show dprintf-function
870 set dprintf-channel <expr>
871 show dprintf-channel
872 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
873 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
874
875 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
876 show disconnected-dprintf
877 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
878 after GDB disconnects.
879
880 * New configure options
881
882 --with-auto-load-dir
883 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
884 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
885 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
886 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
887 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
888
889 --with-auto-load-safe-path
890 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
891 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
892
893 --without-auto-load-safe-path
894 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
895 security feature.
896
897 * New remote packets
898
899 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
900
901 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
902 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
903 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
904 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
905
906 QProgramSignals:
907
908 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
909 program without GDB involvement.
910
911 * New command line options
912
913 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
914 before loading inferior.
915 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
916 execute it before loading inferior.
917
918 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
919
920 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
921 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
922 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
923 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
924 inferior changes.
925
926 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
927 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
928
929 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
930 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
931 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
932 target hardware watchpoint.
933
934 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
935 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
936 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
937 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
938
939 * Python scripting
940
941 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
942 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
943 existing one.
944
945 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
946 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
947 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
948 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
949 now "message", which just prints the error message without
950 the stack trace.
951
952 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
953 Python API.
954
955 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
956 modules library. This module provides functionality for
957 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
958 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
959 corresponding value.
960
961 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
962 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
963 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
964 on GDB start-up.
965
966 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
967 static_block will return the global and static blocks
968 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
969 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
970
971 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
972
973 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
974 "gdb.breakpoints".
975
976 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
977 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
978 available in the CLI.
979
980 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
981 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
982 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
983 "some_type.items()".
984
985 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
986 new object file.
987
988 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
989 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
990 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
991 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
992 any anonymous fields.
993
994 * MI changes
995
996 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
997 "solib-event".
998
999 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
1000 "=breakpoint-modified".
1001
1002 ** New command -ada-task-info.
1003
1004 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
1005 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
1006 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
1007 lives.
1008
1009 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1010 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1011 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1012 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1013 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1014
1015 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1016 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1017
1018 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1019 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1020 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1021 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1022 use this option to specify where to find it.
1023
1024 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1025 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1026 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1027 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1028 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1029 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1030 section in the user manual for more details.
1031
1032 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1033 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1034 become available after that.
1035
1036 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
1037
1038 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1039 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1040 gcc version 4.7.
1041
1042 * New commands
1043
1044 !SHELL COMMAND
1045 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1046 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1047
1048 * Changed commands
1049
1050 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1051 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1052 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1053
1054 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1055 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1056 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1057
1058 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1059 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1060 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1061 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1062 name starts with a hyphen.
1063
1064 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1065 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1066 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1067 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1068 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1069 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1070 number of bytes that will be collected.
1071
1072 tstart [NOTES]
1073 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1074 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1075 setting the variable trace-notes.
1076
1077 tstop [NOTES]
1078 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1079 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1080 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1081 trace-stop-notes.
1082
1083 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1084 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1085 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1086 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1087 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1088 is running.
1089
1090 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1091 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1092 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1093
1094 * New options
1095
1096 set debug dwarf2-read
1097 show debug dwarf2-read
1098 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1099 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1100
1101 set debug symtab-create
1102 show debug symtab-create
1103 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1104 creation. The default is off.
1105
1106 set extended-prompt
1107 show extended-prompt
1108 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1109 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1110 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1111 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1112 prompt is displayed.
1113
1114 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1115 show print entry-values
1116 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1117 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1118 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1119
1120 set debug entry-values
1121 show debug entry-values
1122 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1123 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1124
1125 set basenames-may-differ
1126 show basenames-may-differ
1127 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1128 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1129 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1130 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1131 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1132 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1133 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1134 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1135
1136 set trace-user
1137 show trace-user
1138 set trace-notes
1139 show trace-notes
1140 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1141 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1142 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1143 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1144
1145 set trace-stop-notes
1146 show trace-stop-notes
1147 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1148 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1149 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1150 started by someone else.
1151
1152 * New remote packets
1153
1154 QTEnable
1155
1156 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1157
1158 QTDisable
1159
1160 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1161
1162 QTNotes
1163
1164 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1165
1166 qTP
1167
1168 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1169
1170 qTMinFTPILen
1171
1172 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1173 be placed.
1174
1175 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1176 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1177
1178 * New targets
1179
1180 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1181
1182 * New Simulators
1183
1184 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1185
1186 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1187
1188 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1189
1190 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1191
1192 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1193 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1194 matches the given regular expression.
1195
1196 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1197
1198 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1199 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1200
1201 * New command line options
1202
1203 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1204 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1205
1206 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1207 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1208
1209 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1210 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1211 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1212
1213 * GDB now understands thread names.
1214
1215 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1216 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1217
1218 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1219 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1220
1221 * OpenCL C
1222 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1223 has been integrated into GDB.
1224
1225 * Python scripting
1226
1227 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1228 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1229 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1230
1231 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1232 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1233 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1234 and allows for more dynamic content.
1235
1236 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1237 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1238 have an is_valid method.
1239
1240 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1241 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1242 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1243
1244 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1245
1246 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1247 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1248 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1249 that function like so:
1250
1251 result = some_value (10,20)
1252
1253 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1254 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1255 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1256
1257 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1258 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1259 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1260 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1261 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1262
1263 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1264 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1265
1266 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1267
1268 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1269 selected thread.
1270
1271 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1272 holds the thread's name.
1273
1274 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1275 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1276 occurring in the process being debugged.
1277 The following events are currently supported:
1278 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1279 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1280 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1281
1282 * C++ Improvements:
1283
1284 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1285 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1286
1287 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1288
1289 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1290 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1291 was added to GCC 4.5.
1292
1293 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1294 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1295 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1296 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1297 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1298 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1299
1300 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1301 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1302 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1303 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1304 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1305
1306 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1307 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1308 execution to a label.
1309
1310 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1311 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1312 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1313 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1314
1315 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1316 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1317 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1318 of scope.
1319
1320 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1321
1322 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1323 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1324 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1325 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1326 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1327 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1328
1329 (gdb) info threads
1330 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1331
1332 While now you see this:
1333
1334 (gdb) info threads
1335 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1336
1337 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1338 dumps.
1339
1340 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1341 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1342 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1343 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1344
1345 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1346 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1347 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1348 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1349 section in the user manual for more details.
1350
1351 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1352
1353 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1354 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1355
1356 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1357
1358 * New native configurations
1359
1360 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1361
1362 * New targets:
1363
1364 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1365
1366 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1367 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1368 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1369 in the GDB user manual.
1370
1371 * Guile support was removed.
1372
1373 * New features in the GNU simulator
1374
1375 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1376
1377 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1378
1379 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1380
1381 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1382
1383 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1384 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1385 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1386 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1387 was always disabled for such configurations.
1388
1389 * C++ Improvements:
1390
1391 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1392
1393 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1394 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1395 For example:
1396 namespace A
1397 {
1398 class B { };
1399 void foo (B) { }
1400 }
1401 ...
1402 A::B b
1403 foo(b)
1404 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1405 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1406 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1407
1408 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1409
1410 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1411 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1412 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1413 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1414 entry.
1415 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1416 mentioned flavors of operators.
1417
1418 ** static const class members
1419
1420 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1421 class definition has been fixed.
1422
1423 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1424
1425 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1426 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1427 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1428 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1429 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1430 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1431
1432 * Static tracepoints
1433
1434 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1435 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1436 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1437 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1438 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1439 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1440 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1441 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1442 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1443 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1444 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1445 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1446 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1447 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1448 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1449 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1450 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1451 the "New remote packets" section below.
1452
1453 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1454
1455 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1456 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1457 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1458 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1459
1460 * Observer mode
1461
1462 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1463 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1464 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1465 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1466 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1467 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1468 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1469
1470 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1471 current thread.
1472
1473 * New remote packets
1474
1475 qGetTIBAddr
1476
1477 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1478
1479 qRelocInsn
1480
1481 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1482 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1483 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1484 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1485 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1486 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1487
1488 qTfSTM, qTsSTM
1489
1490 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1491
1492 qTSTMat
1493
1494 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1495 program.
1496
1497 qXfer:statictrace:read
1498
1499 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1500 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1501 to gdb's qSupported query.
1502
1503 QAllow
1504
1505 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1506
1507 QTDPsrc
1508
1509 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1510 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1511
1512 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1513 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1514 a directory.
1515
1516 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1517
1518 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1519 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1520 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1521 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1522
1523 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1524 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1525 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1526 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1527 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1528 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1529 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1530
1531 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1532 for static tracepoints support.
1533
1534 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1535
1536 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1537 it understands register description.
1538
1539 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1540
1541 * X86 general purpose registers
1542
1543 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1544 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1545 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1546 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1547 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1548
1549 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1550 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1551 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1552 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1553 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1554 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1555
1556 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1557 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1558 in the specified file.
1559
1560 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1561 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1562 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1563 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1564 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1565 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1566 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1567 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1568 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1569 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1570
1571 * New commands
1572
1573 eval template, expressions...
1574 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1575 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1576
1577 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1578 show target-file-system-kind
1579 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1580 names.
1581
1582 save breakpoints <filename>
1583 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1584 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1585 definitions, use the `source' command.
1586
1587 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1588 is now deprecated.
1589
1590 info static-tracepoint-markers
1591 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1592
1593 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1594 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1595 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1596
1597 set observer on|off
1598 show observer
1599 Enable and disable observer mode.
1600
1601 set may-write-registers on|off
1602 set may-write-memory on|off
1603 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1604 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1605 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1606 set may-interrupt on|off
1607 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1608 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1609 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1610 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1611 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1612 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1613 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1614
1615 set record memory-query on|off
1616 show record memory-query
1617 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1618 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1619
1620 * Changed commands
1621
1622 disassemble
1623 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1624
1625 * Python scripting
1626
1627 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1628 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1629 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1630 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1631 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1632
1633 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1634 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1635 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1636 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1637
1638 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1639 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1640
1641 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1642
1643 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1644
1645 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1646
1647 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1648 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1649 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1650
1651 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1652 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1653 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1654 regular breakpoints.
1655
1656 * New targets
1657
1658 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1659
1660 * D language support.
1661 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1662 language.
1663
1664 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1665 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1666 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1667 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1668 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1669
1670 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1671 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1672 conditions of the form:
1673
1674 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1675
1676 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1677 interface mentioned above.
1678
1679 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1680
1681 * C++ Improvements
1682
1683 ** Namespace Support
1684
1685 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1686 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1687 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1688 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1689 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1690
1691 ** Bug Fixes
1692
1693 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1694 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1695 qualified name.
1696
1697 ** Cast Operators
1698
1699 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1700 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1701
1702 * New targets
1703
1704 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1705 Renesas RX rx-*-elf
1706
1707 * New Simulators
1708
1709 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1710 Renesas RX rx
1711
1712 * Multi-program debugging.
1713
1714 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1715 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1716 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1717 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1718 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1719 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1720 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1721 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1722
1723 * New tracing features
1724
1725 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1726
1727 ** Trace state variables
1728
1729 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1730 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1731 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1732 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1733 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1734 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1735 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1736 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1737 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1738 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1739
1740 ** Fast tracepoints
1741
1742 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1743 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1744 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1745 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1746 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1747 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1748 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1749 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1750 the regular trace command.
1751
1752 ** Disconnected tracing
1753
1754 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1755 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1756 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1757 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1758 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1759
1760 ** Trace files
1761
1762 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1763 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1764 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1765 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1766 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1767 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1768 <name>".
1769
1770 ** Circular trace buffer
1771
1772 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1773 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1774 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1775 not be available for all target agents.
1776
1777 * Changed commands
1778
1779 disassemble
1780 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1781 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1782
1783 info variables
1784 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1785 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1786
1787 source
1788 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1789 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1790 support.
1791
1792 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1793 "set script-extension" (see below).
1794
1795 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1796
1797 record save [<FILENAME>]
1798 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1799 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1800
1801 record restore <FILENAME>
1802 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1803 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1804
1805 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1806 Add a new inferior.
1807
1808 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1809 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1810 inferior has loaded.
1811
1812 remove-inferior ID
1813 Remove an inferior.
1814
1815 maint info program-spaces
1816 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1817
1818 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1819 show remote interrupt-sequence
1820 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1821 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1822 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1823 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1824 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1825
1826 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1827 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1828 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1829 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1830 Linux kernel.
1831
1832 set remotebreak [on | off]
1833 show remotebreak
1834 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1835
1836 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1837 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1838
1839 info tvariables
1840 List trace state variables and their values.
1841
1842 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1843 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1844
1845 teval EXPR, ...
1846 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1847 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1848
1849 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1850 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1851
1852 * New expression syntax
1853
1854 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1855 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1856
1857 * New options
1858
1859 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1860 show follow-exec-mode
1861 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1862 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1863 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1864
1865 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1866 show default-collect
1867 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1868 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1869 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1870
1871 set disconnected-tracing
1872 show disconnected-tracing
1873 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1874 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1875 upon disconnection.
1876
1877 set circular-trace-buffer
1878 show circular-trace-buffer
1879 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1880 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1881 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1882 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1883
1884 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1885 show script-extension
1886 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1887 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1888 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1889 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1890 evaluation failed.
1891 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1892
1893 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1894 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1895 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1896 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1897 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1898 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1899 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1900 is on.
1901
1902 * Python API Improvements
1903
1904 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1905 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1906 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1907
1908 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1909 `is_base_class' attribute.
1910
1911 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1912
1913 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1914 evaluate an expression.
1915
1916 * New remote packets
1917
1918 QTDV
1919 Define a trace state variable.
1920
1921 qTV
1922 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1923
1924 QTDisconnected
1925 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1926
1927 QTBuffer:circular
1928 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1929
1930 qTfP, qTsP
1931 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1932
1933 * Bug fixes
1934
1935 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1936
1937 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1938 much more reliable. In particular:
1939 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1940 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1941 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1942 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1943 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1944 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1945 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1946 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1947 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1948 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1949 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1950 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1951 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1952 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1953 non-threaded programs.
1954
1955 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1956 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1957 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1958 executable program.
1959
1960 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1961
1962 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1963 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1964 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1965 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1966 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1967
1968 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1969 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1970 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1971 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1972 for tracepoint actions.
1973
1974 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1975 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1976 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1977
1978 * Process record and replay
1979
1980 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1981 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1982 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1983 execute commands.
1984
1985 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1986 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1987 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1988 reverse execution.
1989
1990 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1991 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1992 2.6.28 or later.
1993
1994 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1995 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1996 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1997 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1998 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1999 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
2000 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
2001 the installation instructions for more information.
2002
2003 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
2004 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
2005 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
2006 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
2007
2008 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
2009 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2010
2011 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2012 now complete on file names.
2013
2014 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2015 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2016 For instance, consider:
2017
2018 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2019 # struct example variable;
2020 (gdb) p variable.
2021
2022 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2023 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2024
2025 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2026 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2027
2028 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2029 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2030 macros.
2031
2032 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
2033 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2034 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2035
2036 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2037 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2038 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2039 and simulator targets may also provide them.
2040
2041 * New remote packets
2042
2043 qSearch:memory:
2044 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2045
2046 QStartNoAckMode
2047 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2048 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2049 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2050
2051 vKill
2052 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2053 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2054
2055 qXfer:osdata:read
2056 Obtains additional operating system information
2057
2058 qXfer:siginfo:read
2059 qXfer:siginfo:write
2060 Read or write additional signal information.
2061
2062 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2063
2064 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2065 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2066 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2067
2068 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
2069 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
2070
2071 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
2072 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2073 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
2074
2075 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2076 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2077
2078 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2079
2080 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2081
2082 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2083 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2084
2085 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
2086 list of section offsets.
2087
2088 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2089 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2090 have also been fixed.
2091
2092 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
2093 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2094 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
2095
2096 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2097 example, given:
2098
2099 template<typename T> class C { };
2100 C<char const *> c;
2101
2102 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2103
2104 ptype C<char const *>
2105 ptype C<char const*>
2106 ptype C<const char *>
2107 ptype C<const char*>
2108
2109 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2110
2111 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2112 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2113
2114 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2115 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2116 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2117
2118 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2119 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2120
2121 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2122 gdbserver.
2123
2124 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2125 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2126
2127 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2128 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2129 as appropriate.
2130
2131 * Python scripting
2132
2133 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2134 available is determined at configure time.
2135
2136 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2137
2138 * Ada tasking support
2139
2140 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2141 been introduced:
2142
2143 info tasks
2144 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2145 info task N
2146 Print detailed information about task number N.
2147 task
2148 Print the task number of the current task.
2149 task N
2150 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2151
2152 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2153 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2154
2155 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2156
2157 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2158 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2159 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2160 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2161 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2162 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2163 below.
2164
2165 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2166 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2167 information.
2168
2169 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2170 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2171 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2172 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2173 more information.
2174
2175 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2176
2177 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2178 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2179 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2180 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2181 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2182
2183 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2184 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2185 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2186 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2187 --enable-targets configure option.
2188
2189 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2190
2191 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2192 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2193 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2194 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2195 section in the user manual for more information.
2196
2197 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2198 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2199 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2200 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2201 extensions on linux targets.
2202
2203 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2204
2205 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2206 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2207 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2208 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2209 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2210 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2211 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2212 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2213 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2214
2215 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2216 val1 [, val2, ...]
2217 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2218
2219 maint set python print-stack
2220 maint show python print-stack
2221 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2222
2223 python [CODE]
2224 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2225
2226 macro define
2227 macro list
2228 macro undef
2229 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2230 interactively.
2231
2232 info os processes
2233 Show operating system information about processes.
2234
2235 info inferiors
2236 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2237
2238 inferior NUM
2239 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2240
2241 detach inferior NUM
2242 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2243
2244 kill inferior NUM
2245 Kill inferior number NUM.
2246
2247 * New options
2248
2249 set spu stop-on-load
2250 show spu stop-on-load
2251 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2252
2253 set spu auto-flush-cache
2254 show spu auto-flush-cache
2255 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2256 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2257
2258 set sh calling-convention
2259 show sh calling-convention
2260 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2261
2262 set debug timestamp
2263 show debug timestamp
2264 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2265
2266 set disassemble-next-line
2267 show disassemble-next-line
2268 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2269 the debuggee stops.
2270
2271 set remote noack-packet
2272 show remote noack-packet
2273 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2274 under "New remote packets."
2275
2276 set remote query-attached-packet
2277 show remote query-attached-packet
2278 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2279
2280 set remote read-siginfo-object
2281 show remote read-siginfo-object
2282 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2283 packet.
2284
2285 set remote write-siginfo-object
2286 show remote write-siginfo-object
2287 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2288 packet.
2289
2290 set remote reverse-continue
2291 show remote reverse-continue
2292 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2293
2294 set remote reverse-step
2295 show remote reverse-step
2296 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2297
2298 set displaced-stepping
2299 show displaced-stepping
2300 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2301 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2302 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2303
2304 set debug displaced
2305 show debug displaced
2306 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2307
2308 maint set internal-error
2309 maint show internal-error
2310 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2311
2312 maint set internal-warning
2313 maint show internal-warning
2314 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2315
2316 set exec-wrapper
2317 show exec-wrapper
2318 unset exec-wrapper
2319 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2320
2321 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2322 show multiple-symbols
2323 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2324 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2325 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2326
2327 set breakpoint always-inserted
2328 show breakpoint always-inserted
2329 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2330 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2331 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2332
2333 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2334 show arm fallback-mode
2335 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2336 show arm force-mode
2337 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2338 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2339 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2340 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2341
2342 set disable-randomization
2343 show disable-randomization
2344 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2345 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2346 multiple debugging sessions.
2347
2348 set non-stop
2349 show non-stop
2350 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2351 a breakpoint.
2352
2353 set target-async
2354 show target-async
2355 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2356 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2357 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2358 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2359
2360 set target-wide-charset
2361 show target-wide-charset
2362 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2363 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2364
2365 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2366 show tcp auto-retry
2367 set tcp connect-timeout
2368 show tcp connect-timeout
2369 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2370 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2371 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2372
2373 set libthread-db-search-path
2374 show libthread-db-search-path
2375 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2376 libthread_db.
2377
2378 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2379 show schedule-multiple
2380 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2381 the current process.
2382
2383 set stack-cache
2384 show stack-cache
2385 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2386 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2387 affecting correctness.
2388
2389 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2390 show interactive-mode
2391 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2392 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2393 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2394 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2395 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2396
2397 * Removed commands
2398
2399 info forks
2400 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2401 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2402 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2403 command.
2404
2405 fork NUM
2406 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2407 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2408 alias for the `fork' command.
2409
2410 process PID
2411 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2412 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2413 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2414
2415 delete fork NUM
2416 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2417 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2418 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2419 fork' command.
2420
2421 detach fork NUM
2422 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2423 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2424 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2425 fork' command.
2426
2427 * New native configurations
2428
2429 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2430
2431 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2432
2433 * New targets
2434
2435 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2436 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2437 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2438 S+core 3 score-*-*
2439
2440 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2441 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2442
2443 * Removed commands
2444
2445 catch load
2446 catch unload
2447 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2448
2449 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2450
2451 * New native configurations
2452
2453 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2454 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2455
2456 * New targets
2457
2458 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2459 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2460
2461 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2462
2463 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2464 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2465 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2466 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2467
2468 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2469 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2470
2471 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2472 is resolved.
2473
2474 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2475 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2476 and in inlined functions.
2477
2478 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2479 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2480 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2481
2482 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2483
2484 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2485 registers on PowerPC targets.
2486
2487 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2488 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2489
2490 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2491 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2492
2493 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2494 extended-remote mode.
2495
2496 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2497 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2498 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2499 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2500
2501 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2502 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2503 target architectures.
2504
2505 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2506 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2507 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2508 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2509
2510 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2511 breakpoints now.
2512
2513 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2514 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2515 include:
2516 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2517 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2518 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2519 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2520 of an assignment
2521 - Improved command completion in Ada
2522 - Several bug fixes
2523
2524 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2525 process.
2526
2527 * New commands
2528
2529 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2530 show print frame-arguments
2531 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2532 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2533
2534 remote put
2535 remote get
2536 remote delete
2537 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2538
2539 * New MI commands
2540
2541 -target-file-put
2542 -target-file-get
2543 -target-file-delete
2544 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2545
2546 * New remote packets
2547
2548 vFile:open:
2549 vFile:close:
2550 vFile:pread:
2551 vFile:pwrite:
2552 vFile:unlink:
2553 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2554
2555 vAttach
2556 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2557 mode.
2558
2559 vRun
2560 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2561
2562 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2563
2564 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2565 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2566 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2567
2568 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2569 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2570 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2571
2572 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2573 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2574 is not supported.
2575
2576 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2577 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2578
2579 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2580 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2581
2582 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2583
2584 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2585 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2586 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2587
2588 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2589 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2590
2591 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2592 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2593 as strings.
2594
2595 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2596 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2597 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2598
2599 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2600 iWMMXt coprocessor.
2601
2602 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2603 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2604 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2605
2606 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2607
2608 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2609
2610 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2611 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2612 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2613
2614 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2615 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2616
2617 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2618 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2619 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2620 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2621 Windows and SymbianOS).
2622
2623 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2624 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2625
2626 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2627 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2628
2629 * New commands
2630
2631 set remoteflow
2632 show remoteflow
2633 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2634 when debugging using remote targets.
2635
2636 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2637 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2638 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2639 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2640 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2641 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2642 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2643
2644 set breakpoint auto-hw
2645 show breakpoint auto-hw
2646 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2647 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2648 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2649 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2650 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2651 including "next" and "finish".
2652
2653 catch exception
2654 catch exception unhandled
2655 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2656
2657 catch assert
2658 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2659
2660 set sysroot
2661 show sysroot
2662 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2663 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2664 an alias to "set sysroot".
2665
2666 info spu
2667 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2668 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2669 architecture.
2670
2671 * New native configurations
2672
2673 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2674
2675 set tdesc filename
2676 unset tdesc filename
2677 show tdesc filename
2678 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2679 not query the target for its built-in description.
2680
2681 * New targets
2682
2683 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2684 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2685 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2686
2687 * New remote packets
2688
2689 QPassSignals:
2690 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2691 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2692
2693 qXfer:features:read:
2694 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2695 features.
2696
2697 qXfer:spu:read:
2698 qXfer:spu:write:
2699 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2700 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2701
2702 qXfer:libraries:read:
2703 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2704 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2705 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2706 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2707
2708 * Removed targets
2709
2710 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2711
2712 alpha*-*-osf1*
2713 alpha*-*-osf2*
2714 d10v-*-*
2715 hppa*-*-hiux*
2716 i[34567]86-ncr-*
2717 i[34567]86-*-dgux*
2718 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2719 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2720 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2721 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2722 i[34567]86-*-sco*
2723 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2724 i[34567]86-*-sysv4*
2725 i[34567]86-*-sysv5*
2726 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2727 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2728 i[34567]86-*-sysv*
2729 i[34567]86-*-isc*
2730 m68*-cisco*-*
2731 m68*-tandem-*
2732 mips*-*-pe
2733 rs6000-*-lynxos*
2734 sh*-*-pe
2735
2736 * Other removed features
2737
2738 target abug
2739 target cpu32bug
2740 target est
2741 target rom68k
2742
2743 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2744
2745 target hms
2746 target e7000
2747 target sh3
2748 target sh3e
2749
2750 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2751 H8/300.
2752
2753 target ocd
2754
2755 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2756 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2757 interfaces.
2758
2759 DWARF 1 support
2760
2761 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2762 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2763
2764 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2765
2766 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2767 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2768 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2769 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2770
2771 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2772
2773 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2774 in debugging information.
2775
2776 Scheme support
2777
2778 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2779 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2780
2781 set mips stack-arg-size
2782 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2783
2784 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2785
2786 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2787
2788 * New targets
2789
2790 Xtensa xtensa-elf
2791 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2792
2793 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2794 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2795 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2796
2797 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2798 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2799 supported.
2800
2801 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2802 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2803
2804 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2805 stub provides the required support.
2806
2807 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2808 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2809
2810 * New commands
2811
2812 set substitute-path
2813 unset substitute-path
2814 show substitute-path
2815 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2816 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2817 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2818 between compilation and debugging.
2819
2820 set trace-commands
2821 show trace-commands
2822 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2823 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2824 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2825
2826 * REMOVED features
2827
2828 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2829
2830 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2831 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2832
2833 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2834
2835 * New remote packets
2836
2837 qSupported:
2838 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2839 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2840 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2841 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2842 target.
2843
2844 qXfer:auxv:read:
2845 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2846 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2847
2848 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2849 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2850 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2851
2852 vFlashErase:
2853 vFlashWrite:
2854 vFlashDone:
2855 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2856
2857 * Removed remote packets
2858
2859 qPart:auxv:read:
2860 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2861 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2862
2863 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2864
2865 * New targets
2866
2867 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2868
2869 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2870
2871 * New commands
2872
2873 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2874 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2875
2876 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2877
2878 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2879
2880 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2881 previously saved state.
2882
2883 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2884
2885 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2886
2887 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2888 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2889
2890 info forks List forks of the user program that
2891 are available to be debugged.
2892
2893 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2894 forks of the user program that are
2895 available to be debugged.
2896
2897 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2898 that are available to be debugged (and
2899 kill the forked process).
2900
2901 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2902 that are available to be debugged (and
2903 allow the process to continue).
2904
2905 * New architecture
2906
2907 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2908
2909 * Improved Windows host support
2910
2911 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2912 native console support, and remote communications using either
2913 network sockets or serial ports.
2914
2915 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2916
2917 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2918 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2919 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2920 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2921 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2922 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2923
2924 * REMOVED features
2925
2926 The ARM rdi-share module.
2927
2928 The Netware NLM debug server.
2929
2930 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2931
2932 * New native configurations
2933
2934 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2935 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2936
2937 * New targets
2938
2939 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2940
2941 * New command line options
2942
2943 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2944 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2945 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2946 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2947 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2948 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2949 with the --command (-x) option.
2950
2951 * Deprecated commands removed
2952
2953 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2954 removed:
2955
2956 Command Replacement
2957 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2958 othernames set arm disassembler
2959 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2960 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2961 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2962 regs info registers
2963
2964 * New BSD user-level threads support
2965
2966 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2967 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2968 configurations are:
2969
2970 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2971 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2972 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2973
2974 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2975 are not yet supported.
2976
2977 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2978 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2979
2980 * REMOVED configurations and files
2981
2982 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2983 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2984 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2985
2986 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2987
2988 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2989 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2990 behavior.
2991
2992 * VAX floating point support
2993
2994 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2995
2996 * User-defined command support
2997
2998 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2999 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
3000 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
3001
3002 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
3003
3004 * New command line option
3005
3006 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
3007 debugging.
3008
3009 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3010
3011 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3012 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3013 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3014 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3015 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3016
3017 * Internationalization
3018
3019 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3020 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3021 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3022
3023 * Ada
3024
3025 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3026 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3027 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3028
3029 * New native configurations
3030
3031 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3032
3033 * Remote 'p' packet
3034
3035 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3036 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3037
3038 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3039
3040 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3041 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3042 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3043 i386 application).
3044
3045 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3046 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3047 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3048 configurations:
3049
3050 hppa-*-hpux
3051 ia64-*-aix
3052 mips-*-irix*
3053 *-*-lynx
3054 mips-*-linux-gnu
3055 sds protocol
3056 xdr protocol
3057 powerpc bdm protocol
3058
3059 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3060 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3061
3062 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3063
3064 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3065 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3066 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3067 permanently REMOVED.
3068
3069 h8300-*-*
3070 mcore-*-*
3071 mn10300-*-*
3072 ns32k-*-*
3073 sh64-*-*
3074 v850-*-*
3075
3076 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3077
3078 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3079
3080 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3081 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3082 been fixed.
3083
3084 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3085
3086 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3087 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3088 IRIX long double values).
3089
3090 * VAX and "next"
3091
3092 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3093 command. This problem has been fixed.
3094
3095 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
3096
3097 * Fix for ``many threads''
3098
3099 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3100 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3101 error message:
3102
3103 ptrace: No such process.
3104 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3105
3106 This problem has been fixed.
3107
3108 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3109
3110 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3111 GDB to dump core).
3112
3113 * New ``start'' command.
3114
3115 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3116
3117 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3118
3119 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3120 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3121 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3122
3123 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3124 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3125 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3126 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3127 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3128 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3129 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3130 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3131 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3132
3133 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3134
3135 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3136 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3137 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3138 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3139 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3140
3141 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3142 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3143 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3144
3145 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3146
3147 * New native configurations
3148
3149 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3150 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3151 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3152 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3153 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3154 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3155 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3156
3157 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3158
3159 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3160 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3161 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3162 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3163 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3164 work, was also included.
3165
3166 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3167 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3168
3169 h8300-*-*
3170 mcore-*-*
3171 mn10300-*-*
3172 ns32k-*-*
3173 sh64-*-*
3174 v850-*-*
3175 xstormy16-*-*
3176
3177 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3178 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3179
3180 * REMOVED configurations and files
3181
3182 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3183 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3184 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3185 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3186 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3187 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3188 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3189 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3190 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3191 sonymips mips-sony-*
3192 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3193
3194 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3195
3196 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3197
3198 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3199 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3200 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3201 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3202 with GDB".
3203
3204 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3205
3206 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3207 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3208 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3209 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3210 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3211 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3212 are created.
3213
3214 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3215
3216 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3217
3218 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3219 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3220 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3221
3222 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3223
3224 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3225 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3226
3227 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3228
3229 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3230 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3231 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3232
3233 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3234
3235 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3236 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3237
3238 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3239
3240 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3241 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3242 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3243
3244 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3245
3246 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3247 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3248 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3249
3250 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3251
3252 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3253
3254 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3255 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3256
3257 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3258
3259 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3260 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3261 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3262 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3263
3264 * Revised SPARC target
3265
3266 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3267 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3268 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3269 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3270 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3271
3272 * New C++ demangler
3273
3274 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3275 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3276 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3277 programs.
3278
3279 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3280
3281 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3282 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3283 encountered these.
3284
3285 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3286
3287 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3288 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3289 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3290 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3291 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3292 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3293 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3294 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3295 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3296
3297 * New native configurations
3298
3299 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3300 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3301 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3302 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3303 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3304
3305 * New debugging protocols
3306
3307 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3308
3309 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3310
3311 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3312 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3313 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3314
3315 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3316
3317 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3318 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3319 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3320 permanently REMOVED.
3321
3322 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3323 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3324 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3325 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3326 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3327 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3328 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3329 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3330 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3331 sonymips mips-sony-*
3332 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3333
3334 * REMOVED configurations and files
3335
3336 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3337 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3338 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3339 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3340 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3341 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3342 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3343 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3344 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3345 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3346 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3347 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3348 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3349 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3350 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3351 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3352 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3353
3354 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3355
3356 * Objective-C
3357
3358 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3359 integrated into GDB.
3360
3361 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3362
3363 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3364 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3365 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3366 backtraces.
3367
3368 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3369 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3370 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3371
3372 * Hosted file I/O.
3373
3374 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3375 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3376 remote protocol documentation for details.
3377
3378 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3379
3380 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3381 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3382 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3383 ppc32 on ppc64).
3384
3385 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3386
3387 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3388 per-thread variables.
3389
3390 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3391
3392 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3393 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3394
3395 * Separate debug info.
3396
3397 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3398 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3399 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3400 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3401 and optional debug files.
3402
3403 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3404
3405 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3406 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3407 debugger.
3408
3409 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3410 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3411
3412 * Java
3413
3414 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3415 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3416 considered "useable".
3417
3418 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3419
3420 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3421 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3422 kernel.
3423
3424 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3425
3426 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3427 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3428
3429 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3430
3431 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3432 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3433 command.
3434
3435 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3436
3437 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3438 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3439
3440 * Profiling support
3441
3442 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3443 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3444 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3445 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3446 data, for more informative profiling results.
3447
3448 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3449
3450 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3451 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3452 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3453
3454 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3455 removed.
3456
3457 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3458 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3459 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3460 in a subsequent -var-update.
3461
3462 * New native configurations.
3463
3464 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3465
3466 * Multi-arched targets.
3467
3468 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3469 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3470
3471 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3472
3473 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3474 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3475 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3476 permanently REMOVED.
3477
3478 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3479 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3480 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3481 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3482 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3483 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3484 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3485 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3486 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3487 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3488 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3489 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3490
3491 * REMOVED configurations and files
3492
3493 V850EA ISA
3494 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3495 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3496 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3497 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3498 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3499 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3500 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3501 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3502 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3503 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3504 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3505 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3506 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3507
3508 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3509
3510 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3511 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3512 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3513 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3514 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3515
3516 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3517
3518 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3519
3520 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3521 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3522 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3523 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3524 shared libs like mad''.
3525
3526 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3527
3528 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3529 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3530 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3531 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3532
3533 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3534
3535 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3536 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3537 they expand.
3538
3539 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3540 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3541
3542 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3543 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3544
3545 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3546 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3547 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3548 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3549
3550 * Multi-arched targets.
3551
3552 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3553 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3554 NEC V850 v850-*-*
3555 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3556 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3557 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3558
3559 * New targets.
3560
3561 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3562
3563
3564 * New native configurations
3565
3566 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3567 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3568 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3569 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3570
3571 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3572
3573 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3574 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3575 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3576 permanently REMOVED.
3577
3578 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3579 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3580 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3581 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3582 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3583 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3584 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3585 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3586 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3587 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3588 m68*-apollo*-bsd*,
3589 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3590 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3591
3592 * OBSOLETE languages
3593
3594 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3595
3596 * REMOVED configurations and files
3597
3598 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3599 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3600 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3601 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3602 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3603
3604 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3605
3606 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3607
3608 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3609 commands. The default is 1024.
3610
3611 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3612
3613 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3614
3615 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3616
3617 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3618 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3619 from a file into memory (restore).
3620
3621 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3622
3623 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3624 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3625 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3626
3627 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3628
3629 * New targets.
3630
3631 Atmel AVR avr*-*-*
3632
3633 * Bug fixes
3634
3635 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3636 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3637 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3638
3639 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3640 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3641 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3642
3643 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3644 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3645 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3646
3647 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3648 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3649 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3650
3651 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3652
3653 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3654
3655 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3656 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3657 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3658 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3659 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3660 (notably embedded) targets.
3661
3662 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3663
3664 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3665 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3666 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3667 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3668
3669 * New command line option
3670
3671 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3672
3673 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3674
3675 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3676 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3677 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3678 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3679 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3680 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3681 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3682 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3683 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3684 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3685
3686 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3687
3688 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3689 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3690
3691 * New native configurations
3692
3693 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3694 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3695 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3696 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3697
3698 * New targets
3699
3700 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3701
3702 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3703
3704 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3705 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3706 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3707 permanently REMOVED.
3708
3709 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3710 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3711 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3712 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3713 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3714
3715 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3716
3717 * REMOVED configurations and files
3718
3719 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3720 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3721 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3722 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3723 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3724 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3725 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3726 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3727 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3728 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3729 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3730 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3731 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3732
3733 * Changes to command line processing
3734
3735 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3736 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3737
3738 * Changes to key bindings
3739
3740 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3741
3742 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3743
3744 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3745
3746 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3747 corrupted.
3748
3749 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3750
3751 Numerous documentation fixes.
3752
3753 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3754
3755 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3756
3757 * New native configurations
3758
3759 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3760 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3761 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3762 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3763 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3764 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3765
3766 * New targets
3767
3768 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3769 CRIS cris-axis
3770 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3771
3772 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3773
3774 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3775 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3776 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3777 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3778 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3779 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
3780 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3781 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3782 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3783 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3784 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3785 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3786 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3787 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3788
3789 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3790 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3791
3792 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3793 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3794 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3795 permanently REMOVED.
3796
3797 * REMOVED configurations and files
3798
3799 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3800 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3801 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
3802 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3803 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
3804 ser-ocd.c *-*-*
3805
3806 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3807
3808 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3809 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3810 present.
3811
3812 * Other news:
3813
3814 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3815
3816 * The MI enabled by default.
3817
3818 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3819 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3820 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3821 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3822 which is now deprecated.
3823
3824 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3825
3826 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3827 main features are supported:
3828
3829 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3830
3831 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3832 extension;
3833
3834 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3835
3836 - a Pascal expression parser.
3837
3838 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3839
3840 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3841
3842 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3843
3844 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3845 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3846
3847 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3848
3849 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3850
3851 * Changes in completion.
3852
3853 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3854 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3855 users expect at the shell prompt.
3856
3857 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3858 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3859 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3860 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3861 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3862 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3863 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3864
3865 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3866
3867 * New platform-independent commands:
3868
3869 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3870 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3871 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3872
3873 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3874
3875 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3876 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3877 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3878
3879 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3880
3881 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3882 multi-threaded programs though.
3883
3884 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3885
3886 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3887
3888 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3889 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3890 supported.)
3891
3892 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3893
3894 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3895 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3896 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3897 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3898 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3899 registers.
3900
3901 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3902 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3903 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3904
3905 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3906
3907 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3908 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3909
3910 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3911 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3912 IDT.
3913
3914 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3915 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3916 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3917 a given linear address.
3918
3919 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3920 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3921 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3922
3923 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3924
3925 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3926
3927 * Changes in documentation.
3928
3929 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3930 Documentation License.
3931
3932 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3933 manual.
3934
3935 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3936
3937 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3938 manual.
3939
3940 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3941 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3942 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3943
3944 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3945
3946 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3947 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3948 contents of this file.
3949
3950 * gdba.el deleted
3951
3952 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3953
3954 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3955
3956 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3957
3958 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3959 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3960 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3961 greater level of detail.
3962
3963 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3964
3965 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3966 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3967 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3968 written.
3969
3970 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3971
3972 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3973 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3974 machines ``out of the box''.
3975
3976 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3977 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3978 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3979 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3980 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3981
3982 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3983 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3984 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3985 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3986 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3987
3988 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3989 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3990 also works.
3991
3992 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3993 GDB.
3994
3995 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3996 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3997 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3998 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3999
4000 * New native configurations
4001
4002 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
4003 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4004
4005 * New targets
4006
4007 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
4008 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
4009 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4010 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4011
4012 * OBSOLETE configurations
4013
4014 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4015 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4016 Pyramid pyramid-*-*
4017 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4018 Tahoe tahoe-*-*
4019
4020 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4021 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4022 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4023 be permanently REMOVED.
4024
4025 * Gould support removed
4026
4027 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4028
4029 * New features for SVR4
4030
4031 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4032 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4033 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4034
4035 * Many C++ enhancements
4036
4037 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4038 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4039
4040 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4041
4042 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4043 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4044 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4045 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4046
4047 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4048 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4049
4050 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
4051
4052 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4053 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4054 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4055
4056 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4057 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4058
4059 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4060
4061 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4062 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4063 include ``set remote P-packet''.
4064
4065 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4066
4067 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4068 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4069 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4070
4071 * ``apropos'' command added.
4072
4073 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4074 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4075 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4076
4077 * New MI interface
4078
4079 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4080 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
4081 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4082 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4083 enabled by configuring with:
4084
4085 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4086
4087 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4088
4089 * New native configurations
4090
4091 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4092 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
4093 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
4094
4095 * New targets
4096
4097 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4098 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4099 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4100
4101 * OBSOLETE configurations
4102
4103 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4104
4105 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4106 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4107 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4108 be permanently REMOVED.
4109
4110 * ANSI/ISO C
4111
4112 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4113 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4114 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4115 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4116 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4117 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4118 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4119 already.
4120
4121 * Readline 2.2
4122
4123 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4124
4125 * set extension-language
4126
4127 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4128 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4129 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4130 set extension-language .c c++
4131 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4132 and their associated languages.
4133
4134 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4135
4136 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4137 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4138 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4139
4140 set processor NAME
4141
4142 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4143 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4144
4145 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4146 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4147 403 IBM PowerPC 403
4148 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4149 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4150 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4151 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4152 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4153 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4154 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4155 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4156
4157 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4158 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4159 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4160 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4161
4162 * HP-UX support
4163
4164 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4165 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4166 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4167 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4168 for xdb and dbx commands.
4169
4170 * Catchpoints
4171
4172 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4173 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4174 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4175
4176 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4177 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4178 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4179
4180 * Debugging across forks
4181
4182 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4183 in the inferior.
4184
4185 * TUI
4186
4187 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4188 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4189 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4190
4191 * GDB remote protocol additions
4192
4193 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4194 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4195 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4196 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4197
4198 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4199 full 64-bit address. The command
4200
4201 set remoteaddresssize 32
4202
4203 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4204 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4205 will be discarded.
4206
4207 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4208 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4209
4210 maint packet heythere
4211
4212 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4213 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4214 time.
4215
4216 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4217 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4218 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4219
4220 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4221
4222 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4223 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4224 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4225
4226 * mask-address variable for Mips
4227
4228 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4229 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4230 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4231
4232 * Higher serial baud rates
4233
4234 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4235 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4236 to achieve all of these rates.)
4237
4238 * i960 simulator
4239
4240 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4241 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4242
4243
4244 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4245
4246 * New native configurations
4247
4248 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4249 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4250 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4251 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4252 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4253 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4254 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4255
4256 * New targets
4257
4258 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4259 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4260 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4261 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4262 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4263 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4264 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4265 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4266 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4267 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4268 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4269
4270 * New debugging protocols
4271
4272 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4273 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4274 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4275 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4276 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4277 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4278
4279 * DWARF 2
4280
4281 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4282 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4283 information.
4284
4285 * Java frontend
4286
4287 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4288 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4289
4290 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4291
4292 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4293 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4294 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4295
4296 * Live range splitting
4297
4298 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4299 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4300 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4301
4302 * Hurd support
4303
4304 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4305 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4306
4307 * ARM Thumb support
4308
4309 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4310 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4311 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4312 accordingly.
4313
4314 * MIPS16 support
4315
4316 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4317 instruction set.
4318
4319 * Overlay support
4320
4321 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4322 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4323 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4324 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4325 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4326 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4327
4328 * info symbol
4329
4330 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4331 the symbol at the specified address.
4332
4333 * Trace support
4334
4335 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4336 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4337 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4338 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4339 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4340
4341 * MIPS simulator
4342
4343 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4344 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4345 of most MIPS variants.
4346
4347 * Sparc simulator
4348
4349 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4350 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4351 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4352
4353 * set architecture
4354
4355 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4356 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4357 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4358 the possible architectures.
4359
4360 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4361
4362 * New native configurations
4363
4364 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4365 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4366 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4367 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4368 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4369 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4370
4371 * New targets
4372
4373 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4374 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4375 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4376 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4377 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4378 Hitachi SH3 sh-*-*
4379 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4380
4381 * PowerPC simulator
4382
4383 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4384 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4385 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4386 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4387 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4388
4389 * Solaris 2.5
4390
4391 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4392
4393 * Windows 95/NT native
4394
4395 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4396 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4397 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4398 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4399 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4400
4401 * dont-repeat command
4402
4403 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4404 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4405 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4406 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4407
4408 * Send break instead of ^C
4409
4410 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4411 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4412 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4413
4414 * Remote protocol timeout
4415
4416 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4417 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4418 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4419
4420 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4421
4422 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4423 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4424 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4425 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4426 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4427
4428 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4429 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4430 automatically on hpux10.
4431
4432 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4433
4434 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4435
4436 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4437
4438 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4439 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4440 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4441 every character. The default value is 1050.
4442
4443 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4444
4445 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4446 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4447 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4448 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4449 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4450 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4451
4452 * Speedups for remote debugging
4453
4454 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4455 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4456 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4457
4458 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4459
4460 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4461 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4462
4463 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4464
4465 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4466
4467 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4468 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4469
4470 * Remote targets use caching
4471
4472 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4473 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4474 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4475 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4476 off' turns the the data cache off.
4477
4478 * Remote targets may have threads
4479
4480 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4481 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4482 gdb/remote.c for details.
4483
4484 * NetROM support
4485
4486 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4487 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4488 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4489 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4490 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4491 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4492 sequence is something like
4493
4494 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4495 load <prog>
4496 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4497
4498 * Macintosh host
4499
4500 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4501 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4502 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4503 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4504 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4505 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4506 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4507 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4508
4509 * Autoconf
4510
4511 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4512 but does simplify configuration and building.
4513
4514 * hpux10
4515
4516 GDB now supports hpux10.
4517
4518 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4519
4520 * New native configurations
4521
4522 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4523 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4524 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4525 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4526
4527 * New targets
4528
4529 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4530 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4531 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4532 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4533 WDC 65816 w65-*-*
4534
4535 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4536
4537 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4538 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4539 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4540 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4541 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4542
4543 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4544
4545 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4546 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4547 trivial example:
4548 define adder
4549 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4550
4551 To execute the command use:
4552 adder 1 2 3
4553
4554 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4555 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4556 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4557
4558 * New `if' and `while' commands
4559
4560 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4561 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4562 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4563 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4564 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4565 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4566 if the expression is zero.
4567
4568 * Fortran source language mode
4569
4570 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4571 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4572 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4573 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4574 Fortran compilers.
4575
4576 * Better HPUX support
4577
4578 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4579 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4580 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4581 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4582 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4583
4584 adb -w a.out
4585 __dld_flags?W 0x5
4586 control-d
4587
4588 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4589 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4590
4591 adb -w a.out
4592 __dld_flags?W 0x4
4593 control-d
4594
4595 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4596 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4597 external linkage.
4598
4599 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4600 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4601
4602 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4603
4604 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4605 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4606 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4607 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4608 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4609 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4610
4611 * New DOS host serial code
4612
4613 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4614 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4615 a PC's serial port.
4616
4617 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4618
4619 * New "complete" command
4620
4621 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4622 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4623
4624 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4625
4626 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4627 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4628
4629 * Breakpoint hit counts
4630
4631 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4632 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4633 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4634 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4635 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4636 that breakpoint.
4637
4638 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4639
4640 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4641 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4642 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4643
4644 * Shared library breakpoints
4645
4646 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4647 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4648
4649 * Hardware watchpoints
4650
4651 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4652 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4653
4654 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4655
4656 * Annotations
4657
4658 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4659 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4660
4661 * Improved Irix 5 support
4662
4663 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4664
4665 * Improved HPPA support
4666
4667 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4668
4669 * New native configurations
4670
4671 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4672 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4673 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4674 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4675
4676 * New targets
4677
4678 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4679 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4680 Sparc64 sparc64-*-*
4681
4682 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4683
4684 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4685 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4686
4687 * Fixes
4688
4689 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4690 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4691
4692 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4693
4694 * Irix 5 is now supported
4695
4696 * HPPA support
4697
4698 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4699 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4700 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4701 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4702 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4703
4704
4705 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4706
4707 * User visible changes:
4708
4709 * Remote Debugging
4710
4711 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4712 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4713 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4714 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4715 debugging info for the mips target).
4716
4717 * DEC Alpha native support
4718
4719 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4720 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4721 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4722 Alpha-specific notes.
4723
4724 * Preliminary thread implementation
4725
4726 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4727
4728 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4729
4730 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4731 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4732 for details).
4733
4734 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4735
4736 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4737 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4738 call methods, ...etc.
4739
4740 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4741
4742 * User visible changes:
4743
4744 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4745 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4746 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4747 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4748
4749 Filename completion now works.
4750
4751 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4752 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4753 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4754
4755 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4756 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4757 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4758 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4759 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4760
4761 * DEC alpha support
4762
4763 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4764 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4765
4766
4767 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4768
4769 * Testsuite
4770
4771 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4772 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4773 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4774
4775 * C++ demangling
4776
4777 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4778 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4779 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4780 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4781 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4782
4783 * Simulators
4784
4785 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4786 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4787 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4788
4789 * New targets supported
4790
4791 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4792 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4793 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4794 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4795 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4796
4797 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4798 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4799 GO32 memory extender.
4800
4801 * New remote protocols
4802
4803 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4804
4805 * New source languages supported
4806
4807 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4808 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4809 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4810
4811
4812 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4813
4814 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4815
4816 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4817 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4818 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4819 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4820 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4821 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4822
4823 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4824
4825 * Faster and better demangling
4826
4827 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4828 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4829 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4830 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4831 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4832 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4833 symbol lookups.
4834
4835 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4836 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4837 compiler does not actually implement.
4838
4839 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4840
4841 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4842 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4843 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4844 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4845 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4846 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4847 fix.
4848
4849 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4850 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4851
4852 * Improved configure script
4853
4854 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4855 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4856 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4857 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4858
4859 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4860 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4861 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4862 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4863 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4864 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4865
4866 * Documentation improvements
4867
4868 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4869 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4870 before submitting changes.
4871
4872 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4873 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4874 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4875 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4876 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4877
4878 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4879 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4880 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4881 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4882 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4883 around this problem.
4884
4885 * New features
4886
4887 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4888 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4889 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4890 the target program.
4891
4892 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4893 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4894
4895 * New native hosts supported
4896
4897 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4898 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4899
4900 * New targets supported
4901
4902 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4903
4904 * New file formats supported
4905
4906 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4907 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4908
4909 * Major bug fixes
4910
4911 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4912
4913 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4914 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4915
4916 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4917 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4918 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4919
4920 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4921 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4922
4923 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4924 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4925 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4926 libraries.
4927
4928 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4929 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4930 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4931 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4932 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4933
4934 * Internal improvements
4935
4936 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4937 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4938
4939 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4940 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4941 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4942 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4943 shared code that handles any of them.
4944
4945 * New command line options
4946
4947 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4948
4949 * Mmalloc licensing
4950
4951 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4952 General Public License.
4953
4954 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4955
4956 * Host/native/target split
4957
4958 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4959 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4960 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4961 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4962 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4963
4964 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4965 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4966 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4967 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4968 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4969 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4970 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4971
4972 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4973 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4974 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4975
4976 * New hosts supported
4977
4978 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4979 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4980 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4981
4982 * New targets supported
4983
4984 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4985 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4986
4987 * New native hosts supported
4988
4989 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4990 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4991 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4992
4993 * New file formats supported
4994
4995 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4996 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4997 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4998
4999 * New commands
5000
5001 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
5002 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
5003 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
5004
5005 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
5006
5007 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
5008 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
5009 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5010 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5011
5012 * C++ improvements
5013
5014 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5015 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5016 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5017
5018 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5019
5020 * Major bug fixes
5021
5022 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5023 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5024 by the compiler.
5025
5026 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5027 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5028
5029 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5030 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5031 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5032 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5033 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5034 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5035
5036 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5037 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5038 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5039 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5040
5041 * AMD 29k support
5042
5043 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5044 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5045 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5046 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5047 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5048
5049 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5050 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5051 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5052 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5053
5054 * Remote interfaces
5055
5056 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5057 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5058 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5059 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5060 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5061 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5062 each instruction being stepped through.
5063
5064 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5065 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5066
5067 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5068 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5069 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5070 processor with a serial port.
5071
5072 * Configuration
5073
5074 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5075 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5076 supported, and what files each one uses.
5077
5078 * Library changes
5079
5080 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5081 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5082 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5083 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5084
5085 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5086 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5087 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5088 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5089
5090 * Documentation
5091
5092 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5093 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5094 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5095 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5096 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5097 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5098
5099 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5100
5101
5102 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5103
5104 * Better support for C++ function names
5105
5106 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5107 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5108 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5109 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5110 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5111
5112 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5113 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5114 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5115 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5116 for the list of formats.
5117
5118 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5119
5120 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5121 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5122 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5123 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5124 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5125 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5126 this problem.)
5127
5128 * New 'maintenance' command
5129
5130 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5131 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5132 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5133
5134 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5135 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5136 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5137 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5138 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5139 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5140
5141 The following commands are new:
5142
5143 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5144 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5145 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5146
5147 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5148
5149 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5150 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5151 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5152 read after argv processing.
5153
5154 * New hosts supported
5155
5156 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5157
5158 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5159
5160 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5161 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5162 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5163 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5164 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5165 It costs extra.
5166
5167 * New targets supported
5168
5169 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5170
5171 * More smarts about finding #include files
5172
5173 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5174 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5175 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5176 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5177 the one that contains your sources.
5178
5179 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5180 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5181 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5182
5183 * Interesting infernals change
5184
5185 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5186 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5187 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5188 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5189
5190 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5191
5192 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5193 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5194 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5195
5196 See the ChangeLog for details.
5197
5198 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5199
5200 * New machines supported (host and target)
5201
5202 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5203
5204 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5205
5206 * New malloc package
5207
5208 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5209 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5210 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5211 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5212 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5213 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5214
5215 * info proc
5216
5217 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5218 'help info proc' for details.
5219
5220 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5221
5222 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5223 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5224 possible.
5225
5226 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5227
5228 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5229 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5230 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5231 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5232 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5233 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5234
5235 * Cross byte order fixes
5236
5237 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5238 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5239
5240 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5241
5242 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5243 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5244 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5245 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5246 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5247 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5248 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5249 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5250 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5251 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5252
5253 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5254 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5255 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5256 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5257
5258 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5259 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5260 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5261 use is:
5262
5263 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5264
5265 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5266 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5267 shared across multiple host platforms.
5268
5269 * longjmp() handling
5270
5271 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5272 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5273 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5274 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5275
5276 * Solaris 2.0
5277
5278 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5279 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5280 reading symbols.
5281
5282 * Bug fixes
5283
5284 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5285 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5286 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5287
5288 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5289
5290 * New machines supported (host and target)
5291
5292 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5293 (except core files)
5294 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5295 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5296
5297 * New machines supported (target)
5298
5299 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5300
5301 * C++ support
5302
5303 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5304 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5305 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5306
5307 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5308 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5309 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5310 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5311 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5312 released.
5313
5314 * New features for SVR4
5315
5316 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5317 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5318 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5319
5320 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5321 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5322 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5323
5324 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5325 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5326
5327 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5328
5329 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5330 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5331 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5332 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5333 same code linked statically.
5334
5335 * New Getopt
5336
5337 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5338 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5339 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5340 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5341 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5342 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5343
5344 * Bugs fixed
5345
5346 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5347 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5348 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5349
5350
5351 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5352
5353 * New machines supported (host and target)
5354
5355 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5356 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5357 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5358
5359 * Almost SCO Unix support
5360
5361 We had hoped to support:
5362 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5363 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5364 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5365 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5366
5367 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5368
5369 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5370 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5371 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5372 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5373 reqired (if any).
5374
5375 * New Readline
5376
5377 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5378 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5379 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5380
5381 * Bugs fixed
5382
5383 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5384 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5385 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5386
5387 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5388
5389 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5390 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5391 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5392
5393 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5394 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5395 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5396 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5397 version 2.
5398
5399 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5400 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5401 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5402 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5403 situation somewhat.
5404
5405 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5406 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5407 methods.
5408
5409 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5410 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5411 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5412
5413
5414 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5415
5416 * Improved configuration
5417
5418 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5419 Porting BFD is simpler.
5420
5421 * Stepping improved
5422
5423 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5424 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5425 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5426 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5427
5428 * Bug fixing
5429
5430 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5431
5432 * New host supported (not target)
5433
5434 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5435
5436
5437 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5438
5439 * Multiple source language support
5440
5441 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5442 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5443 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5444 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5445 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5446 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5447
5448 * GDB and Modula-2
5449
5450 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5451 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5452 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5453 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5454
5455 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5456 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5457 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5458
5459 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5460 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5461
5462 * set write on/off
5463
5464 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5465 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5466 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5467 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5468 effect immediately.
5469
5470 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5471
5472 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5473 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5474 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5475 examining core files.
5476
5477 * set listsize
5478
5479 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5480 The default is 10.
5481
5482 * New machines supported (host and target)
5483
5484 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5485 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5486 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5487
5488 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5489
5490 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5491
5492 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5493
5494 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5495 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5496 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5497
5498 * New remote interfaces
5499
5500 AMD 29000 Adapt
5501 AMD 29000 Minimon
5502
5503
5504 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5505
5506 * New Facilities
5507
5508 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5509
5510 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5511 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5512 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5513 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5514 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5515 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5516 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5517 stub on the target system.
5518
5519 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5520
5521 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5522 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5523 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5524
5525 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5526 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5527
5528
5529 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5530
5531 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5532 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5533
5534 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5535 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5536 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5537
5538 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5539 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5540 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5541 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5542
5543 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5544 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5545 it is already running. Default is ON.
5546
5547 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5548 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5549 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5550 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5551 Default is ON.
5552
5553 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5554 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5555 or the value of the environment variable
5556 GDBHISTFILE.
5557
5558 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5559 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5560 HISTSIZE.
5561
5562 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5563 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5564 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5565
5566 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5567 history expansion will be performed on
5568 command line input. The default is OFF.
5569
5570 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5571 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5572 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5573
5574 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5575 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5576 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5577 variable TERM.
5578
5579 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5580 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5581 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5582 variable TERM.
5583
5584 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5585 ``set width'' instead.
5586
5587 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5588 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5589 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5590 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5591
5592 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5593 is OFF.
5594
5595 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5596 "raw" form if off.
5597
5598 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5599 like instructions.
5600
5601 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5602
5603
5604 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5605
5606 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5607 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5608 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5609 window.
5610
5611
5612 * Support for Shared Libraries
5613
5614 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5615 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5616 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5617 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5618 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5619 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5620 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5621 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5622
5623 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5624 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5625 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5626
5627 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5628
5629
5630 * Watchpoints
5631
5632 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5633 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5634 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5635 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5636 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5637 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5638
5639 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5640
5641 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5642
5643 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5644 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5645 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5646
5647
5648 * C++ multiple inheritance
5649
5650 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5651 for C++ programs.
5652
5653 * C++ exception handling
5654
5655 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5656 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5657 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5658 handler's context).
5659
5660 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5661 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5662 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5663
5664 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5665 current stack frame.
5666
5667
5668 * Minor command changes
5669
5670 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5671 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5672 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5673
5674 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5675 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5676 frames without printing.
5677
5678 * New directory command
5679
5680 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5681 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5682 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5683 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5684 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5685
5686 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5687
5688 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5689 for more details.
5690
5691 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5692 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5693 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5694 where the program that you are debugging will run.
5695
5696 * GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.