1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
7 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
8 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
9 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
10 for tracepoint actions.
12 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
13 in hex as well as in symbolic form."
15 * Process record and replay
17 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
18 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
19 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
22 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
23 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
24 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
27 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
28 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
31 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
32 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
33 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
34 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
35 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
36 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
37 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
38 the installation instructions for more information.
40 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
41 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
42 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
43 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
45 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
46 now complete on file names.
48 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
49 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
50 For instance, consider:
52 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
53 # struct example variable;
56 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
57 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
59 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
60 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
62 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
63 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
66 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
67 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
68 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
73 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
76 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
77 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
78 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
81 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
82 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
85 Obtains additional operating system information
89 Read or write additional signal information.
91 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
93 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
94 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
95 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
97 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
100 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
101 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
103 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
104 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
105 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
107 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
108 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
110 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
112 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
114 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
115 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
117 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
118 list of section offsets.
120 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
121 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
122 have also been fixed.
124 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
125 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
126 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
128 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
131 template<typename T> class C { };
134 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
136 ptype C<char const *>
138 ptype C<const char *>
141 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
143 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
144 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
146 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
147 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
148 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
150 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
151 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
153 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
156 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
157 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
159 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
160 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
165 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
166 available is determined at configure time.
168 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
170 * Ada tasking support
172 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
176 Print the list of Ada tasks.
178 Print detailed information about task number N.
180 Print the task number of the current task.
182 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
184 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
185 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
187 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
189 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
190 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
191 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
192 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
193 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
194 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
197 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
199 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
201 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
203 maint set python print-stack
204 maint show python print-stack
205 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
208 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
213 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
217 Show operating system information about processes.
220 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
223 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
226 Detach from inferior number NUM.
229 Kill inferior number NUM.
233 set sh calling-convention
234 show sh calling-convention
235 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
237 set print symbol-loading
238 show print symbol-loading
239 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
243 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
245 set disassemble-next-line
246 show disassemble-next-line
247 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
250 set remote noack-packet
251 show remote noack-packet
252 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
253 under "New remote packets."
255 set remote query-attached-packet
256 show remote query-attached-packet
257 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
259 set remote read-siginfo-object
260 show remote read-siginfo-object
261 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
264 set remote write-siginfo-object
265 show remote write-siginfo-object
266 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
269 set displaced-stepping
270 show displaced-stepping
271 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
272 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
273 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
277 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
279 maint set internal-error
280 maint show internal-error
281 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
283 maint set internal-warning
284 maint show internal-warning
285 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
290 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
292 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
293 show multiple-symbols
294 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
295 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
296 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
298 set breakpoint always-inserted
299 show breakpoint always-inserted
300 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
301 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
302 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
304 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
305 show arm fallback-mode
306 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
308 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
309 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
310 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
311 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
313 set disable-randomization
314 show disable-randomization
315 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
316 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
317 multiple debugging sessions.
321 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
326 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
327 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
328 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
329 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
331 set target-wide-charset
332 show target-wide-charset
333 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
334 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
336 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
338 set tcp connect-timeout
339 show tcp connect-timeout
340 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
341 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
342 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
344 set libthread-db-search-path
345 show libthread-db-search-path
346 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
349 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
350 show schedule-multiple
351 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
357 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
358 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
359 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
363 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
364 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
365 alias for the `fork' command.
368 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
369 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
370 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
373 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
374 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
375 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
379 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
380 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
381 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
384 * New native configurations
386 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
388 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
392 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
393 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
394 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
396 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
397 (mingw32ce) debugging.
403 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
405 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
407 * New native configurations
409 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
410 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
414 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
415 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
417 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
419 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
420 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
421 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
422 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
424 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
425 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
427 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
430 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
431 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
432 and in inlined functions.
434 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
435 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
436 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
438 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
440 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
441 registers on PowerPC targets.
443 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
444 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
446 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
447 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
449 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
450 extended-remote mode.
452 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
453 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
454 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
455 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
457 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
458 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
459 target architectures.
461 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
462 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
463 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
464 stored in two consecutive float registers.
466 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
469 * Improved support for debugging Ada
470 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
472 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
473 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
474 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
475 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
477 - Improved command completion in Ada
480 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
485 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
486 show print frame-arguments
487 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
488 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
493 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
500 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
509 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
512 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
516 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
518 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
520 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
521 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
522 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
524 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
525 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
526 -Bsymbolic linker option.
528 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
529 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
532 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
533 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
535 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
536 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
538 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
540 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
541 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
542 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
544 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
545 automatically displayed as character or string data.
547 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
548 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
551 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
552 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
553 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
555 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
558 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
559 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
560 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
562 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
564 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
566 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
567 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
568 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
570 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
571 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
573 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
574 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
575 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
576 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
577 Windows and SymbianOS).
579 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
580 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
582 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
583 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
589 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
590 when debugging using remote targets.
592 set mem inaccessible-by-default
593 show mem inaccessible-by-default
594 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
595 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
596 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
597 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
598 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
600 set breakpoint auto-hw
601 show breakpoint auto-hw
602 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
603 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
604 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
605 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
606 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
607 including "next" and "finish".
610 catch exception unhandled
611 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
614 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
618 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
619 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
620 an alias to "set sysroot".
623 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
624 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
627 * New native configurations
629 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
634 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
635 not query the target for its built-in description.
639 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
640 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
641 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
646 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
647 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
650 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
655 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
656 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
658 qXfer:libraries:read:
659 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
660 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
661 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
662 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
666 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
675 i[34567]86-*-netware*
676 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
677 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
679 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
682 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
683 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
692 * Other removed features
699 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
706 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
711 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
712 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
717 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
718 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
720 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
722 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
723 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
724 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
725 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
729 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
730 in debugging information.
734 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
735 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
737 set mips stack-arg-size
738 set mips saved-gpreg-size
740 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
742 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
747 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
749 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
750 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
751 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
753 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
754 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
757 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
758 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
760 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
761 stub provides the required support.
763 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
764 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
769 unset substitute-path
771 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
772 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
773 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
774 between compilation and debugging.
778 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
779 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
780 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
784 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
786 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
787 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
789 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
794 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
795 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
796 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
797 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
801 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
802 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
804 qXfer:memory-map:read:
805 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
806 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
811 Erase and program a flash memory device.
813 * Removed remote packets
816 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
817 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
819 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
823 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
825 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
829 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
830 only if it doesn't already have a value.
832 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
834 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
836 restart <n> Return the program state to a
837 previously saved state.
839 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
841 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
843 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
844 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
846 info forks List forks of the user program that
847 are available to be debugged.
849 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
850 forks of the user program that are
851 available to be debugged.
853 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
854 that are available to be debugged (and
855 kill the forked process).
857 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
858 that are available to be debugged (and
859 allow the process to continue).
863 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
865 * Improved Windows host support
867 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
868 native console support, and remote communications using either
869 network sockets or serial ports.
871 * Improved Modula-2 language support
873 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
874 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
875 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
876 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
877 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
878 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
882 The ARM rdi-share module.
884 The Netware NLM debug server.
886 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
888 * New native configurations
890 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
891 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
895 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
897 * New command line options
899 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
900 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
901 the child (debugged) program exited with.
902 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
903 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
904 specified multiple times and in conjunction
905 with the --command (-x) option.
907 * Deprecated commands removed
909 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
913 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
914 othernames set arm disassembler
915 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
916 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
917 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
920 * New BSD user-level threads support
922 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
923 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
926 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
927 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
928 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
930 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
931 are not yet supported.
933 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
934 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
936 * REMOVED configurations and files
938 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
939 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
940 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
942 * New "set print array-indexes" command
944 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
945 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
948 * VAX floating point support
950 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
952 * User-defined command support
954 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
955 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
956 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
958 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
960 * New command line option
962 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
965 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
967 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
968 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
969 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
970 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
971 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
973 * Internationalization
975 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
976 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
977 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
981 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
982 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
983 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
985 * New native configurations
987 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
991 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
992 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
994 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
996 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
997 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
998 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1001 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1002 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1003 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1013 powerpc bdm protocol
1015 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1016 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1018 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1020 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1021 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1022 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1023 permanently REMOVED.
1032 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1034 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1036 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1037 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1040 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1042 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1043 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1044 IRIX long double values).
1048 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1049 command. This problem has been fixed.
1051 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1053 * Fix for ``many threads''
1055 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1056 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1059 ptrace: No such process.
1060 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1062 This problem has been fixed.
1064 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1066 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1069 * New ``start'' command.
1071 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1073 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1075 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1076 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1077 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1079 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1080 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1081 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1082 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1083 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1084 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1085 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1086 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1087 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1089 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1091 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1092 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1093 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1094 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1095 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1097 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1098 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1099 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1101 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1103 * New native configurations
1105 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1106 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1107 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1108 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1109 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1110 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1111 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1113 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1115 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1116 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1117 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1118 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1119 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1120 work, was also included.
1122 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1123 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1133 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1134 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1136 * REMOVED configurations and files
1138 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1139 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1140 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1141 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1142 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1143 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1144 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1145 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1146 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1147 sonymips mips-sony-*
1148 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1150 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1152 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1154 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1155 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1156 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1157 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1160 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1162 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1163 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1164 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1165 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1166 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1167 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1170 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1172 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1174 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1175 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1176 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1178 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1180 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1181 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1183 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1185 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1186 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1187 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1189 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1191 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1192 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1194 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1196 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1197 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1198 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1200 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1202 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1203 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1204 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1206 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1208 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1210 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1211 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1213 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1215 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1216 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1217 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1218 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1220 * Revised SPARC target
1222 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1223 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1224 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1225 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1226 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1230 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1231 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1232 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1235 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1237 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1238 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1241 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1243 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1244 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1245 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1246 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1247 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1248 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1249 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1250 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1251 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1253 * New native configurations
1255 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1256 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1257 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1258 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1259 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1261 * New debugging protocols
1263 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1265 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1267 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1268 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1269 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1271 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1273 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1274 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1275 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1276 permanently REMOVED.
1278 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1279 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1280 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1281 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1282 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1283 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1284 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1285 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1286 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1287 sonymips mips-sony-*
1288 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1290 * REMOVED configurations and files
1292 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1293 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1294 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1295 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1296 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1297 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1298 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1299 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1300 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1301 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1302 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1303 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1304 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1305 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1306 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1307 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1308 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1310 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1314 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1315 integrated into GDB.
1317 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1319 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1320 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1321 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1324 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1325 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1326 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1330 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1331 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1332 remote protocol documentation for details.
1334 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1336 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1337 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1338 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1341 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1343 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1344 per-thread variables.
1346 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1348 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1349 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1351 * Separate debug info.
1353 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1354 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1355 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1356 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1357 and optional debug files.
1359 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1361 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1362 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1365 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1366 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1370 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1371 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1372 considered "useable".
1374 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1376 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1377 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1380 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1382 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1383 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1385 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1387 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1388 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1391 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1393 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1394 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1398 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1399 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1400 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1401 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1402 data, for more informative profiling results.
1404 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1406 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1407 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1408 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1410 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1413 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1414 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1415 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1416 in a subsequent -var-update.
1418 * New native configurations.
1420 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1422 * Multi-arched targets.
1424 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1425 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1427 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1429 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1430 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1431 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1432 permanently REMOVED.
1434 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1435 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1436 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1437 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1438 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1439 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1440 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1441 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1442 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1443 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1444 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1445 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1447 * REMOVED configurations and files
1450 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1451 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1452 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1453 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1454 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1455 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1457 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1458 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1459 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1460 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1461 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1462 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1464 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1466 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1467 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1468 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1469 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1470 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1472 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1474 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1476 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1477 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1478 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1479 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1480 shared libs like mad''.
1482 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1484 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1485 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1486 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1487 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1489 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1491 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1492 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1495 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1496 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1498 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1499 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1501 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1502 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1503 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1504 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1506 * Multi-arched targets.
1508 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1509 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1511 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1512 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1513 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1517 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1520 * New native configurations
1522 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1523 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1524 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1525 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1527 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1529 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1530 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1531 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1532 permanently REMOVED.
1534 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1535 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1536 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1537 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1538 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1539 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1540 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1541 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1542 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1543 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1545 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1546 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1548 * OBSOLETE languages
1550 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1552 * REMOVED configurations and files
1554 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1555 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1556 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1557 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1558 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1560 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1562 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1564 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1565 commands. The default is 1024.
1567 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1569 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1571 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1573 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1574 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1575 from a file into memory (restore).
1577 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1579 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1580 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1581 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1583 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1591 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1592 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1593 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1595 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1596 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1597 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1599 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1600 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1601 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1603 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1604 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1605 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1607 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1609 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1611 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1612 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1613 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1614 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1615 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1616 (notably embedded) targets.
1618 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1620 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1621 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1622 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1623 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1625 * New command line option
1627 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1629 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1631 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1632 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1633 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1634 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1635 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1636 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1637 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1638 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1639 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1640 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1642 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1644 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1645 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1647 * New native configurations
1649 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1650 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1651 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1652 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1656 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1658 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1660 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1661 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1662 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1663 permanently REMOVED.
1665 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1666 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1667 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1668 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1669 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1671 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1673 * REMOVED configurations and files
1675 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1677 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1678 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1679 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1680 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1681 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1682 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1683 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1684 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1685 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1686 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1687 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1689 * Changes to command line processing
1691 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1692 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1694 * Changes to key bindings
1696 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1698 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1700 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1702 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1705 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1707 Numerous documentation fixes.
1709 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1711 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1713 * New native configurations
1715 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1716 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1717 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1718 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1719 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1720 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1724 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1726 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1728 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1730 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1731 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1732 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1733 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1734 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1736 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1737 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1738 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1739 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1740 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1741 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1742 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1743 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1745 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1746 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1748 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1749 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1750 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1751 permanently REMOVED.
1753 * REMOVED configurations and files
1755 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1756 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1758 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1762 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1764 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1765 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1770 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1772 * The MI enabled by default.
1774 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1775 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1776 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1777 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1778 which is now deprecated.
1780 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1782 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1783 main features are supported:
1785 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1787 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1790 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1792 - a Pascal expression parser.
1794 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1796 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1798 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1800 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1801 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1803 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1805 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1807 * Changes in completion.
1809 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1810 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1811 users expect at the shell prompt.
1813 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1814 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1815 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1816 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1817 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1818 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1819 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1821 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1823 * New platform-independent commands:
1825 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1826 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1827 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1829 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1831 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1832 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1833 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1835 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1837 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1838 multi-threaded programs though.
1840 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1842 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1844 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1845 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1848 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1850 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1851 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1852 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1853 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1854 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1857 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1858 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1859 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1861 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1863 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1864 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1866 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1867 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1870 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1871 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1872 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1873 a given linear address.
1875 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1876 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1877 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1879 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1881 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1883 * Changes in documentation.
1885 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1886 Documentation License.
1888 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1891 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1893 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1896 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1897 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1898 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1900 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1902 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1903 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1904 contents of this file.
1908 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1910 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1912 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1914 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1915 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1916 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1917 greater level of detail.
1919 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1921 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1922 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1923 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1926 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1928 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1929 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1930 machines ``out of the box''.
1932 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1933 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1934 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1935 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1936 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1938 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1939 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1940 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1941 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1942 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1944 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1945 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1948 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1951 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1952 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1953 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1954 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1956 * New native configurations
1958 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1959 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1963 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1964 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1965 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1966 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1968 * OBSOLETE configurations
1970 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1971 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1973 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1976 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1977 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1978 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1979 be permanently REMOVED.
1981 * Gould support removed
1983 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1985 * New features for SVR4
1987 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1988 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1989 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1991 * Many C++ enhancements
1993 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1994 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1996 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1998 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1999 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2000 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2001 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2003 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2004 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2006 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2008 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2009 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2010 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2012 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2013 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2015 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2017 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2018 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2019 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2021 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2023 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2024 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2025 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2027 * ``apropos'' command added.
2029 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2030 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2031 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2035 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2036 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2037 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2038 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2039 enabled by configuring with:
2041 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2043 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2045 * New native configurations
2047 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2048 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2049 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2053 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2054 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2055 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2057 * OBSOLETE configurations
2059 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2061 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2062 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2063 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2064 be permanently REMOVED.
2068 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2069 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2070 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2071 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2072 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2073 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2074 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2079 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2081 * set extension-language
2083 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2084 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2085 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2086 set extension-language .c c++
2087 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2088 and their associated languages.
2090 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2092 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2093 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2094 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2098 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2099 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2101 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2102 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2104 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2105 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2106 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2107 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2108 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2109 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2110 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2111 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2113 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2114 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2115 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2116 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2120 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2121 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2122 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2123 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2124 for xdb and dbx commands.
2128 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2129 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2130 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2132 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2133 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2134 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2136 * Debugging across forks
2138 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2143 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2144 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2145 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2147 * GDB remote protocol additions
2149 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2150 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2151 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2152 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2154 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2155 full 64-bit address. The command
2157 set remoteaddresssize 32
2159 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2160 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2163 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2164 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2166 maint packet heythere
2168 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2169 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2172 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2173 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2174 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2176 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2178 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2179 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2180 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2182 * mask-address variable for Mips
2184 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2185 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2186 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2188 * Higher serial baud rates
2190 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2191 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2192 to achieve all of these rates.)
2196 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2197 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2200 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2202 * New native configurations
2204 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2205 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2206 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2207 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2208 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2209 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2210 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2214 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2215 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2216 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2217 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2218 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2219 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2220 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2221 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2222 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2223 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2224 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2226 * New debugging protocols
2228 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2229 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2230 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2231 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2232 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2233 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2237 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2238 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2243 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2244 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2246 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2248 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2249 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2250 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2252 * Live range splitting
2254 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2255 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2256 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2260 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2261 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2265 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2266 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2267 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2272 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2277 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2278 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2279 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2280 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2281 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2282 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2286 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2287 the symbol at the specified address.
2291 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2292 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2293 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2294 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2295 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2299 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2300 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2301 of most MIPS variants.
2305 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2306 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2307 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2311 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2312 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2313 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2314 the possible architectures.
2316 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2318 * New native configurations
2320 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2321 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2322 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2323 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2324 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2325 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2329 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2330 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2331 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2332 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2333 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2335 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2339 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2340 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2341 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2342 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2343 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2347 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2349 * Windows 95/NT native
2351 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2352 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2353 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2354 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2355 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2357 * dont-repeat command
2359 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2360 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2361 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2362 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2364 * Send break instead of ^C
2366 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2367 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2368 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2370 * Remote protocol timeout
2372 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2373 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2374 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2376 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2378 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2379 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2380 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2381 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2382 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2384 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2385 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2386 automatically on hpux10.
2388 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2390 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2392 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2394 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2395 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2396 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2397 every character. The default value is 1050.
2399 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2401 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2402 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2403 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2404 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2405 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2406 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2408 * Speedups for remote debugging
2410 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2411 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2412 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2414 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2416 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2417 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2419 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2421 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2423 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2424 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2426 * Remote targets use caching
2428 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2429 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2430 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2431 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2432 off' turns the the data cache off.
2434 * Remote targets may have threads
2436 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2437 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2438 gdb/remote.c for details.
2442 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2443 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2444 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2445 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2446 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2447 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2448 sequence is something like
2450 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2452 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2456 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2457 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2458 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2459 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2460 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2461 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2462 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2463 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2467 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2468 but does simplify configuration and building.
2472 GDB now supports hpux10.
2474 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2476 * New native configurations
2478 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2479 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2480 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2481 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2485 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2486 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2487 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2488 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2491 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2493 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2494 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2495 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2496 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2497 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2499 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2501 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2502 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2505 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2507 To execute the command use:
2510 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2511 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2512 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2514 * New `if' and `while' commands
2516 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2517 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2518 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2519 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2520 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2521 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2522 if the expression is zero.
2524 * Fortran source language mode
2526 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2527 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2528 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2529 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2532 * Better HPUX support
2534 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2535 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2536 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2537 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2538 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2544 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2545 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2551 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2552 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2555 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2556 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2558 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2560 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2561 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2562 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2563 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2564 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2565 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2567 * New DOS host serial code
2569 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2570 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2573 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2575 * New "complete" command
2577 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2578 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2580 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2582 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2583 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2585 * Breakpoint hit counts
2587 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2588 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2589 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2590 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2591 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2594 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2596 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2597 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2598 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2600 * Shared library breakpoints
2602 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2603 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2605 * Hardware watchpoints
2607 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2608 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2610 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2614 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2615 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2617 * Improved Irix 5 support
2619 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2621 * Improved HPPA support
2623 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2625 * New native configurations
2627 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2628 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2629 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2630 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2634 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2635 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2638 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2640 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2641 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2645 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2646 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2648 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2650 * Irix 5 is now supported
2654 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2655 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2656 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2657 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2658 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2661 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2663 * User visible changes:
2667 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2668 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2669 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2670 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2671 debugging info for the mips target).
2673 * DEC Alpha native support
2675 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2676 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2677 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2678 Alpha-specific notes.
2680 * Preliminary thread implementation
2682 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2684 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2686 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2687 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2690 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2692 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2693 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2694 call methods, ...etc.
2696 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2698 * User visible changes:
2700 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2701 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2702 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2703 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2705 Filename completion now works.
2707 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2708 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2709 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2711 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2712 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2713 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2714 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2715 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2719 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2720 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2723 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2727 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2728 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2729 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2733 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2734 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2735 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2736 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2737 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2741 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2742 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2743 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2745 * New targets supported
2747 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2748 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2749 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2750 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2751 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2753 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2754 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2755 GO32 memory extender.
2757 * New remote protocols
2759 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2761 * New source languages supported
2763 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2764 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2765 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2768 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2770 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2772 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2773 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2774 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2775 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2776 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2777 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2779 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2781 * Faster and better demangling
2783 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2784 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2785 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2786 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2787 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2788 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2791 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2792 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2793 compiler does not actually implement.
2795 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2797 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2798 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2799 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2800 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2801 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2802 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2805 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2806 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2808 * Improved configure script
2810 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2811 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2812 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2813 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2815 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2816 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2817 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2818 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2819 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2820 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2822 * Documentation improvements
2824 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2825 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2826 before submitting changes.
2828 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2829 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2830 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2831 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2832 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2834 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2835 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2836 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2837 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2838 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2839 around this problem.
2843 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2844 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2845 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2848 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2849 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2851 * New native hosts supported
2853 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2854 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2856 * New targets supported
2858 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2860 * New file formats supported
2862 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2863 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2867 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2869 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2870 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2872 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2873 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2874 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2876 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2877 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2879 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2880 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2881 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2884 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2885 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2886 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2887 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2888 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2890 * Internal improvements
2892 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2893 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2895 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2896 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2897 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2898 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2899 shared code that handles any of them.
2901 * New command line options
2903 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2907 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2908 General Public License.
2910 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2912 * Host/native/target split
2914 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2915 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2916 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2917 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2918 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2920 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2921 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2922 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2923 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2924 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2925 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2926 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2928 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2929 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2930 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2932 * New hosts supported
2934 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2935 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2936 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2938 * New targets supported
2940 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2941 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2943 * New native hosts supported
2945 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2946 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2947 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2949 * New file formats supported
2951 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2952 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2953 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2957 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2958 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2959 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2961 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2963 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2964 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2965 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2966 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2970 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2971 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2972 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2974 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2978 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2979 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2982 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2983 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2985 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2986 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2987 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2988 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2989 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2990 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2992 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2993 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2994 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2995 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2999 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3000 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3001 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3002 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3003 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3005 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3006 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3007 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3008 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3012 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3013 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3014 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3015 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3016 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3017 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3018 each instruction being stepped through.
3020 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3021 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3023 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3024 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3025 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3026 processor with a serial port.
3030 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3031 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3032 supported, and what files each one uses.
3036 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3037 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3038 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3039 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3041 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3042 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3043 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3044 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3048 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3049 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3050 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3051 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3052 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3053 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3055 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3058 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3060 * Better support for C++ function names
3062 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3063 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3064 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3065 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3066 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3068 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3069 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3070 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3071 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3072 for the list of formats.
3074 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3076 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3077 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3078 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3079 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3080 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3081 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3084 * New 'maintenance' command
3086 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3087 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3088 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3090 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3091 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3092 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3093 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3094 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3095 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3097 The following commands are new:
3099 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3100 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3101 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3103 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3105 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3106 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3107 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3108 read after argv processing.
3110 * New hosts supported
3112 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3114 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3116 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3117 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3118 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3119 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3120 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3123 * New targets supported
3125 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3127 * More smarts about finding #include files
3129 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3130 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3131 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3132 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3133 the one that contains your sources.
3135 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3136 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3137 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3139 * Interesting infernals change
3141 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3142 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3143 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3144 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3146 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3148 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3149 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3150 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3152 See the ChangeLog for details.
3154 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3156 * New machines supported (host and target)
3158 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3160 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3162 * New malloc package
3164 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3165 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3166 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3167 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3168 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3169 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3173 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3174 'help info proc' for details.
3176 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3178 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3179 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3182 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3184 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3185 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3186 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3187 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3188 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3189 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3191 * Cross byte order fixes
3193 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3194 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3196 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3198 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3199 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3200 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3201 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3202 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3203 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3204 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3205 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3206 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3207 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3209 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3210 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3211 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3212 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3214 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3215 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3216 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3219 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3221 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3222 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3223 shared across multiple host platforms.
3225 * longjmp() handling
3227 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3228 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3229 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3230 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3234 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3235 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3240 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3241 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3242 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3244 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3246 * New machines supported (host and target)
3248 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3250 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3251 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3253 * New machines supported (target)
3255 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3259 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3260 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3261 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3263 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3264 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3265 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3266 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3267 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3270 * New features for SVR4
3272 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3273 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3274 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3276 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3277 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3278 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3280 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3281 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3283 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3285 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3286 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3287 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3288 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3289 same code linked statically.
3293 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3294 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3295 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3296 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3297 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3298 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3302 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3303 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3304 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3307 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3309 * New machines supported (host and target)
3311 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3312 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3313 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3315 * Almost SCO Unix support
3317 We had hoped to support:
3318 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3319 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3320 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3321 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3323 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3325 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3326 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3327 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3328 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3333 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3334 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3335 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3339 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3340 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3341 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3343 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3345 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3346 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3347 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3349 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3350 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3351 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3352 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3355 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3356 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3357 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3358 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3361 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3362 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3365 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3366 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3367 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3370 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3372 * Improved configuration
3374 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3375 Porting BFD is simpler.
3379 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3380 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3381 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3382 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3386 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3388 * New host supported (not target)
3390 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3393 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3395 * Multiple source language support
3397 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3398 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3399 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3400 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3401 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3402 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3406 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3407 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3408 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3409 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3411 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3412 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3413 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3415 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3416 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3420 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3421 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3422 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3423 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3426 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3428 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3429 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3430 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3431 examining core files.
3435 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3438 * New machines supported (host and target)
3440 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3441 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3442 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3444 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3446 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3448 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3450 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3451 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3452 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3454 * New remote interfaces
3460 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3464 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3466 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3467 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3468 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3469 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3470 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3471 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3472 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3473 stub on the target system.
3475 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3477 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3478 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3479 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3481 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3482 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3485 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3487 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3488 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3490 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3491 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3492 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3494 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3495 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3496 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3497 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3499 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3500 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3501 it is already running. Default is ON.
3503 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3504 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3505 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3506 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3509 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3510 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3511 or the value of the environment variable
3514 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3515 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3518 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3519 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3520 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3522 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3523 history expansion will be performed on
3524 command line input. The default is OFF.
3526 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3527 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3528 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3530 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3531 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3532 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3535 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3536 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3537 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3540 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3541 ``set width'' instead.
3543 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3544 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3545 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3546 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3548 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3551 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3554 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3557 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3560 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3562 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3563 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3564 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3568 * Support for Shared Libraries
3570 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3571 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3572 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3573 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3574 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3575 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3576 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3577 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3579 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3580 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3581 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3583 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3588 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3589 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3590 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3591 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3592 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3593 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3595 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3597 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3599 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3600 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3601 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3604 * C++ multiple inheritance
3606 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3609 * C++ exception handling
3611 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3612 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3613 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3616 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3617 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3618 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3620 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3621 current stack frame.
3624 * Minor command changes
3626 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3627 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3628 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3630 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3631 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3632 frames without printing.
3634 * New directory command
3636 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3637 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3638 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3639 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3640 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3642 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3644 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3647 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3648 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3649 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3650 where the program that you are debugging will run.