1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
6 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
7 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
10 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
11 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
13 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
14 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
16 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
18 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
19 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
20 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
22 * Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
25 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
26 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
29 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
32 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
33 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
34 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
36 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
38 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
40 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
41 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
42 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
48 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
49 when debugging using remote targets.
51 set mem inaccessible-by-default
52 show mem inaccessible-by-default
53 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
54 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
55 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
56 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
57 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
59 set breakpoint auto-hw
60 show breakpoint auto-hw
61 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
62 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
63 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
64 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
65 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
66 including "next" and "finish".
69 catch exception unhandled
70 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
73 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
77 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
78 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
79 an alias to "set sysroot".
82 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
83 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
86 * New native configurations
88 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
93 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
94 not query the target for its built-in description.
98 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
99 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
100 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
105 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
106 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
109 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
114 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
115 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
119 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
128 i[34567]86-*-netware*
129 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
130 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
132 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
135 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
136 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
145 * Other removed features
152 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
159 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
164 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
165 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
170 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
171 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
173 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
175 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
176 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
177 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
178 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
182 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
183 in debugging information.
187 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
188 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
190 set mips stack-arg-size
191 set mips saved-gpreg-size
193 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
195 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
200 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
202 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
203 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
204 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
206 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
207 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
210 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
211 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
213 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
214 stub provides the required support.
216 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
217 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
222 unset substitute-path
224 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
225 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
226 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
227 between compilation and debugging.
231 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
232 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
233 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
237 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
239 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
240 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
242 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
247 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
248 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
249 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
250 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
254 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
255 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
257 qXfer:memory-map:read:
258 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
259 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
264 Erase and program a flash memory device.
266 * Removed remote packets
269 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
270 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
272 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
276 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
278 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
282 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
283 only if it doesn't already have a value.
285 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
287 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
289 restart <n> Return the program state to a
290 previously saved state.
292 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
294 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
296 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
297 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
299 info forks List forks of the user program that
300 are available to be debugged.
302 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
303 forks of the user program that are
304 available to be debugged.
306 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
307 that are available to be debugged (and
308 kill the forked process).
310 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
311 that are available to be debugged (and
312 allow the process to continue).
316 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
318 * Improved Windows host support
320 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
321 native console support, and remote communications using either
322 network sockets or serial ports.
324 * Improved Modula-2 language support
326 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
327 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
328 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
329 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
330 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
331 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
335 The ARM rdi-share module.
337 The Netware NLM debug server.
339 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
341 * New native configurations
343 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
344 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
348 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
350 * New command line options
352 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
353 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
354 the child (debugged) program exited with.
355 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
356 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
357 specified multiple times and in conjunction
358 with the --command (-x) option.
360 * Deprecated commands removed
362 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
366 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
367 othernames set arm disassembler
368 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
369 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
370 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
373 * New BSD user-level threads support
375 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
376 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
379 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
380 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
381 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
383 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
384 are not yet supported.
386 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
387 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
389 * REMOVED configurations and files
391 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
392 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
393 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
395 * New "set print array-indexes" command
397 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
398 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
401 * VAX floating point support
403 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
405 * User-defined command support
407 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
408 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
409 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
411 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
413 * New command line option
415 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
418 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
420 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
421 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
422 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
423 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
424 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
426 * Internationalization
428 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
429 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
430 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
434 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
435 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
436 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
438 * New native configurations
440 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
444 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
445 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
447 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
449 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
450 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
451 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
454 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
455 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
456 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
468 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
469 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
471 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
473 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
474 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
475 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
485 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
487 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
489 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
490 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
493 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
495 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
496 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
497 IRIX long double values).
501 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
502 command. This problem has been fixed.
504 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
506 * Fix for ``many threads''
508 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
509 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
512 ptrace: No such process.
513 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
515 This problem has been fixed.
517 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
519 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
522 * New ``start'' command.
524 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
526 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
528 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
529 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
530 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
532 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
533 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
534 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
535 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
536 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
537 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
538 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
539 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
540 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
542 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
544 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
545 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
546 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
547 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
548 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
550 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
551 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
552 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
554 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
556 * New native configurations
558 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
559 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
560 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
561 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
562 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
563 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
564 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
566 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
568 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
569 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
570 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
571 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
572 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
573 work, was also included.
575 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
576 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
586 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
587 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
589 * REMOVED configurations and files
591 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
592 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
593 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
594 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
595 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
596 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
597 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
598 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
599 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
601 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
603 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
605 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
607 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
608 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
609 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
610 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
613 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
615 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
616 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
617 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
618 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
619 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
620 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
623 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
625 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
627 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
628 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
629 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
631 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
633 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
634 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
636 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
638 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
639 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
640 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
642 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
644 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
645 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
647 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
649 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
650 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
651 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
653 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
655 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
656 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
657 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
659 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
661 * Removed --with-mmalloc
663 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
664 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
666 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
668 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
669 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
670 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
671 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
673 * Revised SPARC target
675 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
676 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
677 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
678 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
679 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
683 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
684 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
685 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
688 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
690 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
691 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
694 * C++ nested types and namespaces
696 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
697 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
698 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
699 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
700 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
701 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
702 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
703 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
704 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
706 * New native configurations
708 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
709 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
710 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
711 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
712 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
714 * New debugging protocols
716 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
718 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
720 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
721 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
722 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
724 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
726 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
727 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
728 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
731 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
732 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
733 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
734 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
735 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
736 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
737 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
738 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
739 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
741 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
743 * REMOVED configurations and files
745 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
746 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
747 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
748 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
749 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
750 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
751 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
752 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
753 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
754 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
755 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
756 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
757 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
758 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
759 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
760 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
761 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
763 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
767 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
770 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
772 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
773 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
774 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
777 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
778 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
783 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
784 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
785 remote protocol documentation for details.
787 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
789 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
790 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
791 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
794 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
796 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
797 per-thread variables.
799 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
801 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
802 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
804 * Separate debug info.
806 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
807 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
808 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
809 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
810 and optional debug files.
812 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
814 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
815 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
818 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
819 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
823 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
824 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
825 considered "useable".
827 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
829 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
830 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
833 * GDB supports logging output to a file
835 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
836 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
838 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
840 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
841 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
844 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
846 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
847 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
851 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
852 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
853 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
854 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
855 data, for more informative profiling results.
857 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
859 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
860 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
861 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
863 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
866 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
867 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
868 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
869 in a subsequent -var-update.
871 * New native configurations.
873 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
875 * Multi-arched targets.
877 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
878 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
880 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
882 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
883 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
884 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
887 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
888 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
889 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
890 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
891 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
892 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
893 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
894 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
895 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
896 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
897 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
898 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
900 * REMOVED configurations and files
903 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
904 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
905 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
906 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
907 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
908 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
910 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
911 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
912 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
913 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
914 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
915 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
917 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
919 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
920 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
921 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
922 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
923 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
925 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
927 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
929 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
930 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
931 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
932 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
933 shared libs like mad''.
935 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
937 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
938 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
939 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
940 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
942 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
944 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
945 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
948 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
949 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
951 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
952 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
954 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
955 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
956 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
957 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
959 * Multi-arched targets.
961 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
962 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
964 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
965 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
966 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
970 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
973 * New native configurations
975 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
976 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
977 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
978 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
980 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
982 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
983 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
984 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
987 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
988 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
989 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
990 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
991 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
992 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
993 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
994 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
995 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
996 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
998 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
999 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1001 * OBSOLETE languages
1003 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1005 * REMOVED configurations and files
1007 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1008 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1009 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1010 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1011 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1013 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1015 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1017 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1018 commands. The default is 1024.
1020 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1022 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1024 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1026 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1027 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1028 from a file into memory (restore).
1030 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1032 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1033 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1034 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1036 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1044 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1045 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1046 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1048 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1049 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1050 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1052 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1053 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1054 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1056 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1057 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1058 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1060 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1062 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1064 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1065 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1066 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1067 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1068 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1069 (notably embedded) targets.
1071 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1073 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1074 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1075 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1076 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1078 * New command line option
1080 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1082 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1084 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1085 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1086 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1087 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1088 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1089 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1090 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1091 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1092 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1093 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1095 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1097 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1098 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1100 * New native configurations
1102 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1103 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1104 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1105 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1109 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1111 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1113 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1114 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1115 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1116 permanently REMOVED.
1118 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1119 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1120 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1121 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1122 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1124 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1126 * REMOVED configurations and files
1128 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1130 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1131 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1132 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1133 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1134 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1135 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1136 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1137 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1138 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1139 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1140 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1142 * Changes to command line processing
1144 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1145 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1147 * Changes to key bindings
1149 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1151 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1153 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1155 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1158 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1160 Numerous documentation fixes.
1162 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1164 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1166 * New native configurations
1168 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1169 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1170 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1171 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1172 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1173 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1177 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1179 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1181 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1183 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1184 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1185 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1186 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1187 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1189 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1190 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1191 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1192 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1193 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1194 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1195 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1196 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1198 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1199 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1201 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1202 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1203 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1204 permanently REMOVED.
1206 * REMOVED configurations and files
1208 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1209 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1211 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1215 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1217 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1218 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1223 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1225 * The MI enabled by default.
1227 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1228 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1229 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1230 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1231 which is now deprecated.
1233 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1235 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1236 main features are supported:
1238 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1240 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1243 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1245 - a Pascal expression parser.
1247 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1249 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1251 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1253 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1254 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1256 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1258 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1260 * Changes in completion.
1262 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1263 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1264 users expect at the shell prompt.
1266 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1267 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1268 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1269 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1270 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1271 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1272 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1274 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1276 * New platform-independent commands:
1278 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1279 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1280 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1282 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1284 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1285 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1286 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1288 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1290 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1291 multi-threaded programs though.
1293 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1295 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1297 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1298 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1301 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1303 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1304 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1305 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1306 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1307 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1310 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1311 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1312 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1314 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1316 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1317 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1319 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1320 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1323 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1324 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1325 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1326 a given linear address.
1328 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1329 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1330 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1332 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1334 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1336 * Changes in documentation.
1338 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1339 Documentation License.
1341 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1344 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1346 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1349 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1350 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1351 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1353 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1355 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1356 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1357 contents of this file.
1361 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1363 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1365 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1367 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1368 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1369 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1370 greater level of detail.
1372 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1374 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1375 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1376 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1379 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1381 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1382 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1383 machines ``out of the box''.
1385 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1386 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1387 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1388 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1389 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1391 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1392 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1393 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1394 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1395 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1397 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1398 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1401 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1404 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1405 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1406 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1407 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1409 * New native configurations
1411 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1412 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1416 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1417 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1418 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1419 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1421 * OBSOLETE configurations
1423 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1424 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1426 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1429 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1430 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1431 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1432 be permanently REMOVED.
1434 * Gould support removed
1436 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1438 * New features for SVR4
1440 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1441 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1442 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1444 * Many C++ enhancements
1446 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1447 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1449 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1451 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1452 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1453 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1454 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1456 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1457 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1459 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1461 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1462 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1463 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1465 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1466 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1468 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1470 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1471 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1472 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1474 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1476 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1477 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1478 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1480 * ``apropos'' command added.
1482 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1483 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1484 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1488 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1489 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1490 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1491 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1492 enabled by configuring with:
1494 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1496 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1498 * New native configurations
1500 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1501 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1502 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1506 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1507 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1508 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1510 * OBSOLETE configurations
1512 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1514 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1515 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1516 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1517 be permanently REMOVED.
1521 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1522 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1523 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1524 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1525 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1526 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1527 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1532 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1534 * set extension-language
1536 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1537 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1538 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1539 set extension-language .c c++
1540 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1541 and their associated languages.
1543 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1545 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1546 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1547 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1551 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1552 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1554 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1555 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1557 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1558 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1559 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1560 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1561 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1562 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1563 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1564 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1566 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1567 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1568 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1569 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1573 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1574 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1575 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1576 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1577 for xdb and dbx commands.
1581 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1582 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1583 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1585 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1586 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1587 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1589 * Debugging across forks
1591 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1596 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1597 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1598 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1600 * GDB remote protocol additions
1602 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1603 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1604 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1605 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1607 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1608 full 64-bit address. The command
1610 set remoteaddresssize 32
1612 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1613 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1616 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1617 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1619 maint packet heythere
1621 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1622 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1625 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1626 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1627 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1629 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1631 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1632 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1633 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1635 * mask-address variable for Mips
1637 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1638 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1639 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1641 * Higher serial baud rates
1643 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1644 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1645 to achieve all of these rates.)
1649 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1650 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1653 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1655 * New native configurations
1657 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1658 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1659 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1660 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1661 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1662 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1663 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1667 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1668 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1669 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1670 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1671 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1672 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1673 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1674 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1675 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1676 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1677 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1679 * New debugging protocols
1681 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1682 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1683 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1684 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1685 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1686 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1690 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1691 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1696 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1697 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1699 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1701 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1702 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1703 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1705 * Live range splitting
1707 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1708 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1709 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1713 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1714 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1718 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1719 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1720 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1725 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1730 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1731 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1732 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1733 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1734 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1735 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1739 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1740 the symbol at the specified address.
1744 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1745 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1746 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1747 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1748 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1752 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1753 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1754 of most MIPS variants.
1758 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1759 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1760 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1764 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1765 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1766 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1767 the possible architectures.
1769 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1771 * New native configurations
1773 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1774 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1775 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1776 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1777 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1778 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1782 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1783 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1784 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1785 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1786 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1788 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1792 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1793 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1794 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1795 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1796 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1800 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1802 * Windows 95/NT native
1804 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1805 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1806 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1807 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1808 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1810 * dont-repeat command
1812 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1813 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1814 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1815 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1817 * Send break instead of ^C
1819 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1820 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1821 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1823 * Remote protocol timeout
1825 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1826 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1827 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1829 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1831 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1832 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1833 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1834 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1835 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1837 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1838 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1839 automatically on hpux10.
1841 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1843 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1845 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1847 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1848 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1849 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1850 every character. The default value is 1050.
1852 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1854 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1855 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1856 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1857 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1858 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1859 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1861 * Speedups for remote debugging
1863 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1864 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1865 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1867 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1869 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1870 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1872 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1874 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1876 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1877 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1879 * Remote targets use caching
1881 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1882 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1883 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1884 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1885 off' turns the the data cache off.
1887 * Remote targets may have threads
1889 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1890 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1891 gdb/remote.c for details.
1895 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1896 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1897 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1898 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1899 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1900 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1901 sequence is something like
1903 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1905 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1909 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1910 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1911 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1912 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1913 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1914 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1915 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1916 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1920 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1921 but does simplify configuration and building.
1925 GDB now supports hpux10.
1927 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1929 * New native configurations
1931 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1932 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1933 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1934 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1938 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1939 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1940 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1941 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1944 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1946 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1947 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1948 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1949 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1950 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1952 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1954 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1955 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1958 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1960 To execute the command use:
1963 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1964 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1965 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1967 * New `if' and `while' commands
1969 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1970 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1971 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1972 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1973 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1974 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1975 if the expression is zero.
1977 * Fortran source language mode
1979 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1980 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1981 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1982 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1985 * Better HPUX support
1987 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1988 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1989 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1990 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1991 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1997 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1998 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2004 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2005 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2008 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2009 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2011 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2013 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2014 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2015 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2016 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2017 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2018 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2020 * New DOS host serial code
2022 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2023 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2026 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2028 * New "complete" command
2030 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2031 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2033 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2035 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2036 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2038 * Breakpoint hit counts
2040 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2041 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2042 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2043 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2044 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2047 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2049 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2050 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2051 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2053 * Shared library breakpoints
2055 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2056 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2058 * Hardware watchpoints
2060 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2061 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2063 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2067 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2068 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2070 * Improved Irix 5 support
2072 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2074 * Improved HPPA support
2076 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2078 * New native configurations
2080 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2081 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2082 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2083 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2087 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2088 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2091 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2093 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2094 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2098 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2099 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2101 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2103 * Irix 5 is now supported
2107 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2108 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2109 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2110 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2111 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2114 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2116 * User visible changes:
2120 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2121 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2122 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2123 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2124 debugging info for the mips target).
2126 * DEC Alpha native support
2128 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2129 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2130 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2131 Alpha-specific notes.
2133 * Preliminary thread implementation
2135 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2137 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2139 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2140 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2143 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2145 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2146 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2147 call methods, ...etc.
2149 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2151 * User visible changes:
2153 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2154 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2155 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2156 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2158 Filename completion now works.
2160 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2161 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2162 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2164 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2165 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2166 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2167 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2168 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2172 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2173 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2176 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2180 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2181 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2182 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2186 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2187 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2188 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2189 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2190 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2194 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2195 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2196 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2198 * New targets supported
2200 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2201 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2202 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2203 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2204 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2206 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2207 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2208 GO32 memory extender.
2210 * New remote protocols
2212 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2214 * New source languages supported
2216 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2217 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2218 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2221 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2223 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2225 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2226 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2227 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2228 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2229 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2230 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2232 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2234 * Faster and better demangling
2236 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2237 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2238 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2239 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2240 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2241 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2244 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2245 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2246 compiler does not actually implement.
2248 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2250 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2251 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2252 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2253 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2254 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2255 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2258 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2259 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2261 * Improved configure script
2263 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2264 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2265 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2266 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2268 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2269 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2270 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2271 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2272 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2273 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2275 * Documentation improvements
2277 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2278 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2279 before submitting changes.
2281 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2282 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2283 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2284 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2285 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2287 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2288 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2289 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2290 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2291 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2292 around this problem.
2296 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2297 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2298 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2301 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2302 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2304 * New native hosts supported
2306 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2307 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2309 * New targets supported
2311 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2313 * New file formats supported
2315 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2316 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2320 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2322 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2323 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2325 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2326 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2327 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2329 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2330 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2332 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2333 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2334 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2337 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2338 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2339 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2340 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2341 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2343 * Internal improvements
2345 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2346 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2348 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2349 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2350 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2351 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2352 shared code that handles any of them.
2354 * New command line options
2356 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2360 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2361 General Public License.
2363 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2365 * Host/native/target split
2367 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2368 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2369 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2370 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2371 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2373 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2374 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2375 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2376 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2377 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2378 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2379 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2381 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2382 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2383 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2385 * New hosts supported
2387 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2388 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2389 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2391 * New targets supported
2393 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2394 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2396 * New native hosts supported
2398 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2399 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2400 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2402 * New file formats supported
2404 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2405 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2406 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2410 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2411 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2412 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2414 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2416 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2417 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2418 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2419 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2423 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2424 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2425 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2427 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2431 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2432 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2435 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2436 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2438 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2439 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2440 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2441 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2442 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2443 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2445 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2446 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2447 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2448 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2452 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2453 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2454 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2455 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2456 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2458 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2459 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2460 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2461 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2465 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2466 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2467 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2468 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2469 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2470 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2471 each instruction being stepped through.
2473 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2474 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2476 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2477 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2478 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2479 processor with a serial port.
2483 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2484 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2485 supported, and what files each one uses.
2489 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2490 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2491 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2492 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2494 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2495 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2496 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2497 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2501 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2502 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2503 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2504 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2505 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2506 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2508 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2511 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2513 * Better support for C++ function names
2515 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2516 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2517 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2518 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2519 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2521 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2522 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2523 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2524 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2525 for the list of formats.
2527 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2529 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2530 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2531 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2532 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2533 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2534 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2537 * New 'maintenance' command
2539 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2540 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2541 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2543 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2544 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2545 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2546 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2547 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2548 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2550 The following commands are new:
2552 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2553 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2554 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2556 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2558 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2559 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2560 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2561 read after argv processing.
2563 * New hosts supported
2565 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2567 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2569 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2570 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2571 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2572 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2573 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2576 * New targets supported
2578 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2580 * More smarts about finding #include files
2582 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2583 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2584 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2585 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2586 the one that contains your sources.
2588 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2589 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2590 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2592 * Interesting infernals change
2594 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2595 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2596 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2597 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2599 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2601 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2602 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2603 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2605 See the ChangeLog for details.
2607 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2609 * New machines supported (host and target)
2611 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2613 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2615 * New malloc package
2617 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2618 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2619 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2620 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2621 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2622 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2626 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2627 'help info proc' for details.
2629 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2631 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2632 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2635 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2637 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2638 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2639 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2640 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2641 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2642 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2644 * Cross byte order fixes
2646 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2647 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2649 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2651 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2652 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2653 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2654 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2655 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2656 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2657 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2658 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2659 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2660 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2662 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2663 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2664 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2665 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2667 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2668 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2669 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2672 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2674 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2675 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2676 shared across multiple host platforms.
2678 * longjmp() handling
2680 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2681 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2682 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2683 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2687 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2688 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2693 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2694 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2695 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2697 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2699 * New machines supported (host and target)
2701 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2703 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2704 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2706 * New machines supported (target)
2708 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2712 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2713 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2714 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2716 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2717 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2718 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2719 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2720 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2723 * New features for SVR4
2725 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2726 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2727 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2729 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2730 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2731 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2733 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2734 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2736 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2738 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2739 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2740 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2741 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2742 same code linked statically.
2746 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2747 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2748 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2749 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2750 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2751 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2755 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2756 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2757 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2760 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2762 * New machines supported (host and target)
2764 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2765 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2766 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2768 * Almost SCO Unix support
2770 We had hoped to support:
2771 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2772 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2773 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2774 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2776 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2778 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2779 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2780 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2781 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2786 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2787 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2788 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2792 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2793 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2794 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2796 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2798 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2799 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2800 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2802 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2803 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2804 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2805 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2808 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2809 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2810 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2811 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2814 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2815 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2818 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2819 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2820 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2823 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2825 * Improved configuration
2827 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2828 Porting BFD is simpler.
2832 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2833 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2834 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2835 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2839 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2841 * New host supported (not target)
2843 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2846 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2848 * Multiple source language support
2850 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2851 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2852 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2853 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2854 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2855 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2859 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2860 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2861 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2862 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2864 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2865 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2866 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2868 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2869 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2873 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2874 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2875 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2876 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2879 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2881 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2882 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2883 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2884 examining core files.
2888 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2891 * New machines supported (host and target)
2893 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2894 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2895 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2897 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2899 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2901 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2903 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2904 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2905 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2907 * New remote interfaces
2913 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2917 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2919 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2920 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2921 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2922 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2923 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2924 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2925 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2926 stub on the target system.
2928 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2930 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2931 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2932 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2934 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2935 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2938 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2940 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2941 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2943 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2944 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2945 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2947 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2948 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2949 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2950 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2952 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2953 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2954 it is already running. Default is ON.
2956 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2957 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2958 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2959 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2962 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2963 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2964 or the value of the environment variable
2967 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2968 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2971 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2972 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2973 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2975 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2976 history expansion will be performed on
2977 command line input. The default is OFF.
2979 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2980 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2981 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2983 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2984 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2985 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2988 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2989 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2990 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2993 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2994 ``set width'' instead.
2996 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2997 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2998 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2999 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3001 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3004 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3007 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3010 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3013 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3015 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3016 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3017 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3021 * Support for Shared Libraries
3023 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3024 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3025 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3026 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3027 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3028 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3029 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3030 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3032 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3033 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3034 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3036 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3041 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3042 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3043 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3044 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3045 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3046 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3048 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3050 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3052 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3053 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3054 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3057 * C++ multiple inheritance
3059 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3062 * C++ exception handling
3064 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3065 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3066 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3069 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3070 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3071 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3073 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3074 current stack frame.
3077 * Minor command changes
3079 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3080 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3081 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3083 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3084 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3085 frames without printing.
3087 * New directory command
3089 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3090 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3091 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3092 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3093 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3095 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3097 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3100 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3101 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3102 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3103 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob