1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.7
6 * New native configurations
8 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
9 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
13 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
14 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
16 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
18 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
19 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
20 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
21 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
23 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
24 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
26 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
29 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
30 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
31 and in inlined functions.
33 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
34 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
35 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
37 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
39 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
40 registers on PowerPC targets.
42 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
43 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
45 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
46 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
48 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
51 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
52 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
53 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
54 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
56 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
57 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
60 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
61 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
62 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
63 stored in two consecutive float registers.
65 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
68 * Improved support for debugging Ada
69 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
71 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
72 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
73 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
74 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
76 - Improved command completion in Ada
81 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
82 show print frame-arguments
83 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
84 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
89 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
96 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
105 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
107 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
111 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
115 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
117 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
119 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
120 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
121 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
123 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
124 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
125 -Bsymbolic linker option.
127 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
128 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
131 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
132 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
134 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
135 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
137 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
139 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
140 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
141 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
143 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
144 automatically displayed as character or string data.
146 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
147 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
150 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
151 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
152 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
154 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
157 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
158 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
159 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
161 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
163 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
165 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
166 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
167 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
169 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
170 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
172 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
173 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
174 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
175 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
176 Windows and SymbianOS).
178 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
179 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
181 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
182 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
188 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
189 when debugging using remote targets.
191 set mem inaccessible-by-default
192 show mem inaccessible-by-default
193 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
194 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
195 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
196 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
197 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
199 set breakpoint auto-hw
200 show breakpoint auto-hw
201 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
202 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
203 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
204 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
205 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
206 including "next" and "finish".
209 catch exception unhandled
210 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
213 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
217 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
218 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
219 an alias to "set sysroot".
222 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
223 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
226 * New native configurations
228 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
233 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
234 not query the target for its built-in description.
238 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
239 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
240 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
245 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
246 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
249 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
254 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
255 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
257 qXfer:libraries:read:
258 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
259 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
260 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
261 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
265 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
274 i[34567]86-*-netware*
275 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
276 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
278 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
281 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
282 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
291 * Other removed features
298 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
305 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
310 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
311 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
316 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
317 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
319 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
321 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
322 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
323 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
324 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
328 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
329 in debugging information.
333 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
334 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
336 set mips stack-arg-size
337 set mips saved-gpreg-size
339 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
341 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
346 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
348 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
349 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
350 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
352 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
353 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
356 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
357 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
359 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
360 stub provides the required support.
362 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
363 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
368 unset substitute-path
370 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
371 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
372 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
373 between compilation and debugging.
377 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
378 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
379 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
383 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
385 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
386 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
388 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
393 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
394 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
395 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
396 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
400 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
401 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
403 qXfer:memory-map:read:
404 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
405 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
410 Erase and program a flash memory device.
412 * Removed remote packets
415 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
416 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
418 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
422 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
424 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
428 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
429 only if it doesn't already have a value.
431 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
433 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
435 restart <n> Return the program state to a
436 previously saved state.
438 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
440 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
442 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
443 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
445 info forks List forks of the user program that
446 are available to be debugged.
448 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
449 forks of the user program that are
450 available to be debugged.
452 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
453 that are available to be debugged (and
454 kill the forked process).
456 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
457 that are available to be debugged (and
458 allow the process to continue).
462 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
464 * Improved Windows host support
466 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
467 native console support, and remote communications using either
468 network sockets or serial ports.
470 * Improved Modula-2 language support
472 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
473 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
474 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
475 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
476 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
477 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
481 The ARM rdi-share module.
483 The Netware NLM debug server.
485 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
487 * New native configurations
489 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
490 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
494 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
496 * New command line options
498 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
499 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
500 the child (debugged) program exited with.
501 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
502 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
503 specified multiple times and in conjunction
504 with the --command (-x) option.
506 * Deprecated commands removed
508 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
512 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
513 othernames set arm disassembler
514 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
515 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
516 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
519 * New BSD user-level threads support
521 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
522 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
525 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
526 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
527 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
529 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
530 are not yet supported.
532 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
533 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
535 * REMOVED configurations and files
537 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
538 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
539 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
541 * New "set print array-indexes" command
543 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
544 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
547 * VAX floating point support
549 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
551 * User-defined command support
553 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
554 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
555 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
557 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
559 * New command line option
561 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
564 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
566 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
567 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
568 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
569 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
570 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
572 * Internationalization
574 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
575 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
576 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
580 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
581 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
582 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
584 * New native configurations
586 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
590 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
591 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
593 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
595 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
596 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
597 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
600 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
601 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
602 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
614 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
615 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
617 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
619 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
620 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
621 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
631 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
633 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
635 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
636 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
639 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
641 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
642 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
643 IRIX long double values).
647 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
648 command. This problem has been fixed.
650 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
652 * Fix for ``many threads''
654 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
655 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
658 ptrace: No such process.
659 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
661 This problem has been fixed.
663 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
665 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
668 * New ``start'' command.
670 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
672 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
674 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
675 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
676 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
678 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
679 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
680 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
681 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
682 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
683 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
684 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
685 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
686 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
688 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
690 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
691 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
692 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
693 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
694 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
696 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
697 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
698 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
700 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
702 * New native configurations
704 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
705 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
706 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
707 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
708 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
709 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
710 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
712 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
714 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
715 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
716 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
717 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
718 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
719 work, was also included.
721 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
722 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
732 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
733 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
735 * REMOVED configurations and files
737 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
738 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
739 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
740 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
741 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
742 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
743 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
744 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
745 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
747 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
749 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
751 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
753 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
754 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
755 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
756 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
759 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
761 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
762 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
763 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
764 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
765 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
766 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
769 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
771 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
773 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
774 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
775 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
777 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
779 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
780 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
782 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
784 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
785 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
786 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
788 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
790 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
791 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
793 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
795 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
796 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
797 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
799 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
801 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
802 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
803 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
805 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
807 * Removed --with-mmalloc
809 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
810 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
812 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
814 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
815 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
816 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
817 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
819 * Revised SPARC target
821 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
822 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
823 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
824 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
825 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
829 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
830 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
831 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
834 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
836 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
837 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
840 * C++ nested types and namespaces
842 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
843 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
844 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
845 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
846 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
847 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
848 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
849 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
850 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
852 * New native configurations
854 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
855 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
856 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
857 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
858 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
860 * New debugging protocols
862 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
864 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
866 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
867 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
868 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
870 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
872 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
873 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
874 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
877 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
878 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
879 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
880 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
881 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
882 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
883 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
884 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
885 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
887 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
889 * REMOVED configurations and files
891 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
892 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
893 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
894 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
895 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
896 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
897 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
898 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
899 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
900 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
901 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
902 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
903 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
904 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
905 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
906 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
907 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
909 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
913 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
916 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
918 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
919 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
920 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
923 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
924 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
929 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
930 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
931 remote protocol documentation for details.
933 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
935 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
936 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
937 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
940 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
942 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
943 per-thread variables.
945 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
947 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
948 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
950 * Separate debug info.
952 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
953 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
954 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
955 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
956 and optional debug files.
958 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
960 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
961 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
964 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
965 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
969 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
970 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
971 considered "useable".
973 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
975 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
976 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
979 * GDB supports logging output to a file
981 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
982 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
984 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
986 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
987 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
990 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
992 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
993 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
997 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
998 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
999 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1000 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1001 data, for more informative profiling results.
1003 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1005 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1006 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1007 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1009 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1012 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1013 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1014 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1015 in a subsequent -var-update.
1017 * New native configurations.
1019 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1021 * Multi-arched targets.
1023 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1024 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1026 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1028 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1029 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1030 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1031 permanently REMOVED.
1033 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1034 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1035 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1036 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1037 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1038 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1039 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1040 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1041 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1042 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1043 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1044 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1046 * REMOVED configurations and files
1049 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1050 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1051 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1052 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1053 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1054 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1056 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1057 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1058 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1059 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1060 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1061 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1063 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1065 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1066 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1067 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1068 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1069 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1071 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1073 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1075 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1076 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1077 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1078 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1079 shared libs like mad''.
1081 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1083 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1084 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1085 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1086 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1088 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1090 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1091 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1094 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1095 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1097 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1098 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1100 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1101 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1102 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1103 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1105 * Multi-arched targets.
1107 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1108 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1110 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1111 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1112 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1116 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1119 * New native configurations
1121 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1122 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1123 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1124 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1126 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1128 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1129 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1130 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1131 permanently REMOVED.
1133 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1134 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1135 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1136 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1137 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1138 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1139 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1140 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1141 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1142 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1144 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1145 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1147 * OBSOLETE languages
1149 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1151 * REMOVED configurations and files
1153 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1154 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1155 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1156 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1157 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1159 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1161 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1163 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1164 commands. The default is 1024.
1166 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1168 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1170 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1172 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1173 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1174 from a file into memory (restore).
1176 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1178 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1179 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1180 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1182 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1190 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1191 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1192 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1194 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1195 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1196 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1198 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1199 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1200 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1202 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1203 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1204 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1206 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1208 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1210 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1211 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1212 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1213 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1214 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1215 (notably embedded) targets.
1217 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1219 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1220 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1221 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1222 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1224 * New command line option
1226 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1228 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1230 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1231 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1232 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1233 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1234 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1235 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1236 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1237 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1238 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1239 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1241 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1243 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1244 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1246 * New native configurations
1248 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1249 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1250 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1251 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1255 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1257 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1259 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1260 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1261 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1262 permanently REMOVED.
1264 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1265 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1266 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1267 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1268 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1270 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1272 * REMOVED configurations and files
1274 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1276 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1277 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1278 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1279 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1280 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1281 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1282 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1283 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1284 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1285 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1286 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1288 * Changes to command line processing
1290 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1291 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1293 * Changes to key bindings
1295 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1297 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1299 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1301 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1304 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1306 Numerous documentation fixes.
1308 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1310 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1312 * New native configurations
1314 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1315 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1316 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1317 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1318 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1319 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1323 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1325 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1327 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1329 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1330 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1331 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1332 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1333 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1335 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1336 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1337 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1338 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1339 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1340 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1341 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1342 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1344 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1345 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1347 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1348 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1349 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1350 permanently REMOVED.
1352 * REMOVED configurations and files
1354 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1355 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1357 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1361 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1363 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1364 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1369 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1371 * The MI enabled by default.
1373 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1374 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1375 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1376 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1377 which is now deprecated.
1379 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1381 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1382 main features are supported:
1384 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1386 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1389 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1391 - a Pascal expression parser.
1393 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1395 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1397 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1399 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1400 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1402 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1404 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1406 * Changes in completion.
1408 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1409 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1410 users expect at the shell prompt.
1412 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1413 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1414 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1415 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1416 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1417 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1418 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1420 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1422 * New platform-independent commands:
1424 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1425 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1426 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1428 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1430 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1431 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1432 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1434 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1436 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1437 multi-threaded programs though.
1439 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1441 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1443 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1444 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1447 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1449 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1450 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1451 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1452 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1453 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1456 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1457 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1458 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1460 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1462 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1463 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1465 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1466 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1469 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1470 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1471 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1472 a given linear address.
1474 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1475 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1476 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1478 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1480 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1482 * Changes in documentation.
1484 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1485 Documentation License.
1487 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1490 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1492 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1495 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1496 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1497 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1499 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1501 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1502 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1503 contents of this file.
1507 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1509 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1511 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1513 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1514 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1515 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1516 greater level of detail.
1518 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1520 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1521 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1522 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1525 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1527 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1528 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1529 machines ``out of the box''.
1531 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1532 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1533 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1534 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1535 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1537 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1538 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1539 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1540 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1541 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1543 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1544 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1547 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1550 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1551 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1552 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1553 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1555 * New native configurations
1557 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1558 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1562 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1563 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1564 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1565 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1567 * OBSOLETE configurations
1569 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1570 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1572 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1575 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1576 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1577 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1578 be permanently REMOVED.
1580 * Gould support removed
1582 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1584 * New features for SVR4
1586 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1587 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1588 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1590 * Many C++ enhancements
1592 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1593 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1595 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1597 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1598 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1599 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1600 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1602 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1603 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1605 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1607 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1608 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1609 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1611 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1612 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1614 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1616 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1617 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1618 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1620 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1622 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1623 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1624 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1626 * ``apropos'' command added.
1628 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1629 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1630 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1634 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1635 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1636 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1637 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1638 enabled by configuring with:
1640 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1642 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1644 * New native configurations
1646 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1647 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1648 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1652 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1653 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1654 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1656 * OBSOLETE configurations
1658 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1660 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1661 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1662 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1663 be permanently REMOVED.
1667 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1668 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1669 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1670 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1671 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1672 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1673 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1678 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1680 * set extension-language
1682 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1683 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1684 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1685 set extension-language .c c++
1686 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1687 and their associated languages.
1689 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1691 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1692 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1693 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1697 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1698 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1700 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1701 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1703 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1704 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1705 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1706 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1707 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1708 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1709 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1710 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1712 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1713 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1714 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1715 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1719 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1720 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1721 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1722 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1723 for xdb and dbx commands.
1727 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1728 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1729 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1731 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1732 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1733 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1735 * Debugging across forks
1737 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1742 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1743 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1744 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1746 * GDB remote protocol additions
1748 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1749 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1750 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1751 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1753 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1754 full 64-bit address. The command
1756 set remoteaddresssize 32
1758 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1759 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1762 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1763 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1765 maint packet heythere
1767 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1768 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1771 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1772 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1773 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1775 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1777 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1778 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1779 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1781 * mask-address variable for Mips
1783 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1784 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1785 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1787 * Higher serial baud rates
1789 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1790 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1791 to achieve all of these rates.)
1795 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1796 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1799 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1801 * New native configurations
1803 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1804 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1805 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1806 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1807 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1808 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1809 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1813 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1814 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1815 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1816 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1817 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1818 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1819 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1820 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1821 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1822 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1823 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1825 * New debugging protocols
1827 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1828 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1829 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1830 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1831 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1832 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1836 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1837 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1842 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1843 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1845 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1847 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1848 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1849 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1851 * Live range splitting
1853 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1854 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1855 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1859 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1860 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1864 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1865 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1866 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1871 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1876 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1877 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1878 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1879 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1880 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1881 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1885 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1886 the symbol at the specified address.
1890 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1891 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1892 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1893 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1894 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1898 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1899 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1900 of most MIPS variants.
1904 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1905 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1906 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1910 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1911 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1912 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1913 the possible architectures.
1915 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1917 * New native configurations
1919 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1920 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1921 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1922 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1923 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1924 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1928 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1929 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1930 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1931 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1932 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1934 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1938 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1939 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1940 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1941 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1942 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1946 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1948 * Windows 95/NT native
1950 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1951 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1952 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1953 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1954 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1956 * dont-repeat command
1958 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1959 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1960 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1961 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1963 * Send break instead of ^C
1965 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1966 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1967 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1969 * Remote protocol timeout
1971 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1972 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1973 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1975 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1977 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1978 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1979 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1980 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1981 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1983 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1984 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1985 automatically on hpux10.
1987 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1989 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1991 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1993 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1994 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1995 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1996 every character. The default value is 1050.
1998 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2000 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2001 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2002 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2003 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2004 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2005 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2007 * Speedups for remote debugging
2009 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2010 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2011 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2013 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2015 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2016 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2018 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2020 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2022 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2023 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2025 * Remote targets use caching
2027 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2028 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2029 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2030 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2031 off' turns the the data cache off.
2033 * Remote targets may have threads
2035 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2036 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2037 gdb/remote.c for details.
2041 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2042 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2043 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2044 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2045 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2046 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2047 sequence is something like
2049 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2051 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2055 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2056 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2057 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2058 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2059 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2060 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2061 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2062 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2066 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2067 but does simplify configuration and building.
2071 GDB now supports hpux10.
2073 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2075 * New native configurations
2077 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2078 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2079 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2080 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2084 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2085 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2086 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2087 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2090 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2092 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2093 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2094 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2095 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2096 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2098 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2100 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2101 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2104 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2106 To execute the command use:
2109 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2110 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2111 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2113 * New `if' and `while' commands
2115 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2116 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2117 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2118 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2119 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2120 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2121 if the expression is zero.
2123 * Fortran source language mode
2125 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2126 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2127 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2128 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2131 * Better HPUX support
2133 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2134 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2135 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2136 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2137 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2143 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2144 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2150 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2151 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2154 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2155 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2157 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2159 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2160 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2161 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2162 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2163 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2164 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2166 * New DOS host serial code
2168 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2169 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2172 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2174 * New "complete" command
2176 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2177 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2179 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2181 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2182 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2184 * Breakpoint hit counts
2186 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2187 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2188 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2189 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2190 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2193 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2195 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2196 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2197 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2199 * Shared library breakpoints
2201 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2202 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2204 * Hardware watchpoints
2206 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2207 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2209 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2213 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2214 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2216 * Improved Irix 5 support
2218 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2220 * Improved HPPA support
2222 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2224 * New native configurations
2226 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2227 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2228 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2229 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2233 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2234 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2237 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2239 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2240 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2244 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2245 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2247 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2249 * Irix 5 is now supported
2253 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2254 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2255 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2256 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2257 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2260 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2262 * User visible changes:
2266 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2267 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2268 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2269 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2270 debugging info for the mips target).
2272 * DEC Alpha native support
2274 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2275 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2276 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2277 Alpha-specific notes.
2279 * Preliminary thread implementation
2281 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2283 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2285 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2286 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2289 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2291 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2292 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2293 call methods, ...etc.
2295 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2297 * User visible changes:
2299 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2300 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2301 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2302 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2304 Filename completion now works.
2306 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2307 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2308 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2310 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2311 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2312 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2313 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2314 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2318 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2319 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2322 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2326 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2327 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2328 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2332 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2333 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2334 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2335 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2336 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2340 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2341 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2342 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2344 * New targets supported
2346 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2347 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2348 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2349 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2350 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2352 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2353 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2354 GO32 memory extender.
2356 * New remote protocols
2358 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2360 * New source languages supported
2362 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2363 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2364 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2367 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2369 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2371 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2372 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2373 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2374 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2375 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2376 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2378 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2380 * Faster and better demangling
2382 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2383 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2384 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2385 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2386 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2387 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2390 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2391 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2392 compiler does not actually implement.
2394 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2396 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2397 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2398 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2399 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2400 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2401 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2404 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2405 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2407 * Improved configure script
2409 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2410 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2411 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2412 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2414 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2415 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2416 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2417 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2418 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2419 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2421 * Documentation improvements
2423 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2424 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2425 before submitting changes.
2427 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2428 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2429 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2430 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2431 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2433 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2434 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2435 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2436 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2437 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2438 around this problem.
2442 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2443 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2444 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2447 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2448 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2450 * New native hosts supported
2452 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2453 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2455 * New targets supported
2457 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2459 * New file formats supported
2461 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2462 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2466 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2468 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2469 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2471 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2472 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2473 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2475 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2476 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2478 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2479 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2480 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2483 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2484 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2485 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2486 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2487 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2489 * Internal improvements
2491 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2492 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2494 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2495 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2496 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2497 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2498 shared code that handles any of them.
2500 * New command line options
2502 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2506 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2507 General Public License.
2509 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2511 * Host/native/target split
2513 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2514 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2515 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2516 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2517 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2519 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2520 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2521 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2522 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2523 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2524 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2525 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2527 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2528 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2529 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2531 * New hosts supported
2533 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2534 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2535 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2537 * New targets supported
2539 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2540 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2542 * New native hosts supported
2544 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2545 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2546 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2548 * New file formats supported
2550 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2551 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2552 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2556 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2557 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2558 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2560 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2562 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2563 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2564 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2565 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2569 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2570 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2571 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2573 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2577 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2578 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2581 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2582 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2584 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2585 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2586 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2587 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2588 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2589 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2591 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2592 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2593 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2594 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2598 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2599 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2600 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2601 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2602 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2604 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2605 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2606 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2607 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2611 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2612 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2613 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2614 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2615 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2616 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2617 each instruction being stepped through.
2619 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2620 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2622 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2623 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2624 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2625 processor with a serial port.
2629 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2630 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2631 supported, and what files each one uses.
2635 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2636 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2637 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2638 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2640 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2641 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2642 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2643 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2647 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2648 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2649 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2650 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2651 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2652 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2654 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2657 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2659 * Better support for C++ function names
2661 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2662 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2663 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2664 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2665 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2667 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2668 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2669 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2670 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2671 for the list of formats.
2673 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2675 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2676 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2677 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2678 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2679 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2680 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2683 * New 'maintenance' command
2685 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2686 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2687 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2689 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2690 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2691 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2692 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2693 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2694 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2696 The following commands are new:
2698 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2699 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2700 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2702 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2704 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2705 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2706 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2707 read after argv processing.
2709 * New hosts supported
2711 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2713 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2715 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2716 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2717 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2718 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2719 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2722 * New targets supported
2724 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2726 * More smarts about finding #include files
2728 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2729 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2730 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2731 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2732 the one that contains your sources.
2734 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2735 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2736 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2738 * Interesting infernals change
2740 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2741 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2742 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2743 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2745 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2747 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2748 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2749 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2751 See the ChangeLog for details.
2753 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2755 * New machines supported (host and target)
2757 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2759 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2761 * New malloc package
2763 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2764 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2765 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2766 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2767 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2768 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2772 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2773 'help info proc' for details.
2775 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2777 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2778 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2781 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2783 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2784 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2785 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2786 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2787 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2788 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2790 * Cross byte order fixes
2792 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2793 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2795 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2797 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2798 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2799 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2800 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2801 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2802 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2803 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2804 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2805 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2806 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2808 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2809 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2810 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2811 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2813 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2814 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2815 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2818 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2820 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2821 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2822 shared across multiple host platforms.
2824 * longjmp() handling
2826 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2827 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2828 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2829 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2833 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2834 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2839 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2840 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2841 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2843 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2845 * New machines supported (host and target)
2847 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2849 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2850 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2852 * New machines supported (target)
2854 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2858 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2859 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2860 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2862 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2863 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2864 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2865 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2866 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2869 * New features for SVR4
2871 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2872 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2873 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2875 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2876 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2877 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2879 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2880 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2882 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2884 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2885 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2886 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2887 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2888 same code linked statically.
2892 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2893 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2894 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2895 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2896 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2897 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2901 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2902 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2903 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2906 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2908 * New machines supported (host and target)
2910 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2911 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2912 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2914 * Almost SCO Unix support
2916 We had hoped to support:
2917 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2918 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2919 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2920 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2922 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2924 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2925 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2926 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2927 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2932 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2933 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2934 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2938 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2939 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2940 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2942 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2944 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2945 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2946 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2948 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2949 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2950 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2951 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2954 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2955 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2956 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2957 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2960 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2961 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2964 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2965 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2966 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2969 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2971 * Improved configuration
2973 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2974 Porting BFD is simpler.
2978 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2979 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2980 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2981 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2985 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2987 * New host supported (not target)
2989 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2992 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2994 * Multiple source language support
2996 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2997 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2998 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2999 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3000 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3001 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3005 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3006 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3007 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3008 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3010 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3011 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3012 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3014 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3015 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3019 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3020 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3021 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3022 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3025 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3027 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3028 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3029 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3030 examining core files.
3034 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3037 * New machines supported (host and target)
3039 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3040 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3041 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3043 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3045 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3047 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3049 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3050 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3051 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3053 * New remote interfaces
3059 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3063 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3065 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3066 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3067 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3068 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3069 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3070 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3071 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3072 stub on the target system.
3074 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3076 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3077 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3078 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3080 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3081 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3084 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3086 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3087 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3089 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3090 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3091 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3093 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3094 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3095 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3096 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3098 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3099 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3100 it is already running. Default is ON.
3102 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3103 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3104 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3105 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3108 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3109 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3110 or the value of the environment variable
3113 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3114 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3117 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3118 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3119 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3121 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3122 history expansion will be performed on
3123 command line input. The default is OFF.
3125 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3126 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3127 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3129 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3130 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3131 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3134 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3135 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3136 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3139 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3140 ``set width'' instead.
3142 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3143 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3144 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3145 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3147 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3150 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3153 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3156 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3159 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3161 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3162 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3163 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3167 * Support for Shared Libraries
3169 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3170 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3171 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3172 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3173 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3174 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3175 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3176 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3178 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3179 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3180 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3182 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3187 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3188 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3189 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3190 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3191 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3192 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3194 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3196 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3198 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3199 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3200 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3203 * C++ multiple inheritance
3205 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3208 * C++ exception handling
3210 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3211 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3212 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3215 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3216 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3217 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3219 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3220 current stack frame.
3223 * Minor command changes
3225 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3226 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3227 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3229 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3230 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3231 frames without printing.
3233 * New directory command
3235 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3236 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3237 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3238 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3239 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3241 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3243 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3246 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3247 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3248 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3249 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob