1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.3
6 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
7 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
9 * REMOVED configurations and files
11 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
12 Renesas H8/300S h8300*-*-*
13 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
14 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
15 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
18 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
20 * New command line option
22 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
25 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
27 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
28 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
29 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
30 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
31 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
33 * Internationalization
35 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
36 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
37 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
41 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
42 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
43 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
45 * New native configurations
47 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
51 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
52 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
54 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
56 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
57 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
58 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
61 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
62 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
63 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
75 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
76 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
78 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
80 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
81 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
82 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
92 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
94 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
96 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
97 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
100 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
102 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
103 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
104 IRIX long double values).
108 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
109 command. This problem has been fixed.
111 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
113 * Fix for ``many threads''
115 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
116 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
119 ptrace: No such process.
120 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
122 This problem has been fixed.
124 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
126 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
129 * New ``start'' command.
131 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
133 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
135 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
136 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
137 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
139 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
140 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
141 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
142 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
143 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
144 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
145 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
146 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
147 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
149 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
151 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
152 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
153 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
154 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
155 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
157 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
158 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
159 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
161 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
163 * New native configurations
165 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
166 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
167 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
168 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
169 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
170 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
171 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
173 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
175 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
176 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
177 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
178 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
179 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
180 work, was also included.
182 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
183 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
193 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
194 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
196 * REMOVED configurations and files
198 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
199 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
200 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
201 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
202 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
203 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
204 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
205 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
206 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
208 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
210 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
212 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
214 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
215 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
216 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
217 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
220 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
222 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
223 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
224 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
225 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
226 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
227 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
230 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
232 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
234 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
235 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
236 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
238 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
240 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
241 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
243 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
245 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
246 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
247 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
249 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
251 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
252 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
254 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
256 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
257 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
258 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
260 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
262 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
263 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
264 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
266 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
268 * Removed --with-mmalloc
270 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
271 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
273 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
275 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
276 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
277 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
278 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
280 * Revised SPARC target
282 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
283 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
284 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
285 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
286 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
290 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
291 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
292 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
295 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
297 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
298 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
301 * C++ nested types and namespaces
303 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
304 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
305 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
306 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
307 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
308 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
309 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
310 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
311 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
313 * New native configurations
315 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
316 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
317 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
318 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
319 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
321 * New debugging protocols
323 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
325 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
327 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
328 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
329 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
331 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
333 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
334 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
335 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
338 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
339 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
340 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
341 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
342 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
343 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
344 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
345 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
346 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
348 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
350 * REMOVED configurations and files
352 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
353 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
354 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
355 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
356 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
357 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
358 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
359 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
360 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
361 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
362 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
363 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
364 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
365 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
366 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
367 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
368 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
370 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
374 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
377 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
379 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
380 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
381 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
384 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
385 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
390 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
391 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
392 remote protocol documentation for details.
394 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
396 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
397 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
398 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
401 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
403 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
404 per-thread variables.
406 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
408 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
409 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
411 * Separate debug info.
413 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
414 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
415 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
416 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
417 and optional debug files.
419 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
421 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
422 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
425 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
426 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
430 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
431 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
432 considered "useable".
434 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
436 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
437 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
440 * GDB supports logging output to a file
442 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
443 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
445 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
447 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
448 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
451 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
453 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
454 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
458 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
459 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
460 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
461 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
462 data, for more informative profiling results.
464 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
466 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
467 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
468 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
470 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
473 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
474 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
475 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
476 in a subsequent -var-update.
478 * New native configurations.
480 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
482 * Multi-arched targets.
484 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
485 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
487 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
489 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
490 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
491 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
494 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
495 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
496 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
497 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
498 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
499 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
500 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
501 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
502 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
503 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
504 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
505 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
507 * REMOVED configurations and files
510 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
511 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
512 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
513 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
514 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
515 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
517 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
518 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
519 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
520 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
521 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
522 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
524 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
526 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
527 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
528 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
529 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
530 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
532 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
534 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
536 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
537 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
538 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
539 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
540 shared libs like mad''.
542 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
544 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
545 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
546 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
547 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
549 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
551 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
552 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
555 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
556 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
558 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
559 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
561 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
562 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
563 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
564 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
566 * Multi-arched targets.
568 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
569 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
571 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
572 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
573 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
577 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
580 * New native configurations
582 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
583 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
584 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
585 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
587 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
589 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
590 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
591 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
594 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
595 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
596 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
597 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
598 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
599 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
600 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
601 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
602 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
603 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
605 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
606 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
610 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
612 * REMOVED configurations and files
614 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
615 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
616 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
617 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
618 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
620 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
622 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
624 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
625 commands. The default is 1024.
627 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
629 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
631 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
633 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
634 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
635 from a file into memory (restore).
637 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
639 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
640 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
641 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
643 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
651 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
652 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
653 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
655 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
656 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
657 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
659 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
660 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
661 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
663 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
664 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
665 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
667 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
669 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
671 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
672 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
673 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
674 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
675 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
676 (notably embedded) targets.
678 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
680 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
681 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
682 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
683 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
685 * New command line option
687 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
689 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
691 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
692 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
693 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
694 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
695 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
696 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
697 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
698 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
699 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
700 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
702 * Changes in ARM configurations.
704 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
705 configuration is fully multi-arch.
707 * New native configurations
709 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
710 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
711 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
712 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
716 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
718 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
720 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
721 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
722 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
725 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
726 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
727 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
728 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
729 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
731 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
733 * REMOVED configurations and files
735 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
737 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
738 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
739 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
740 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
741 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
742 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
743 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
744 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
745 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
746 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
747 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
749 * Changes to command line processing
751 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
752 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
754 * Changes to key bindings
756 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
758 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
760 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
762 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
765 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
767 Numerous documentation fixes.
769 Numerous testsuite fixes.
771 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
773 * New native configurations
775 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
776 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
777 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
778 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
780 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
784 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
786 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
788 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
790 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
791 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
792 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
793 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
794 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
796 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
797 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
798 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
799 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
800 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
801 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
802 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
803 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
805 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
806 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
808 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
809 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
810 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
813 * REMOVED configurations and files
815 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
816 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
818 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
822 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
824 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
825 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
830 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
832 * The MI enabled by default.
834 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
835 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
836 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
837 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
838 which is now deprecated.
840 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
842 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
843 main features are supported:
845 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
847 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
850 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
852 - a Pascal expression parser.
854 However, some important features are not yet supported.
856 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
858 - there are some problems with boolean types;
860 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
861 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
863 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
865 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
867 * Changes in completion.
869 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
870 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
871 users expect at the shell prompt.
873 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
874 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
875 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
876 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
877 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
878 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
879 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
881 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
883 * New platform-independent commands:
885 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
886 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
887 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
889 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
891 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
892 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
893 many threads as your system allows you to have.
895 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
897 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
898 multi-threaded programs though.
900 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
902 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
904 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
905 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
908 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
910 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
911 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
912 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
913 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
914 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
917 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
918 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
919 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
921 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
923 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
924 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
926 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
927 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
930 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
931 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
932 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
933 a given linear address.
935 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
936 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
937 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
939 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
941 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
943 * Changes in documentation.
945 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
946 Documentation License.
948 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
951 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
953 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
956 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
957 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
958 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
960 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
962 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
963 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
964 contents of this file.
968 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
970 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
972 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
974 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
975 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
976 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
977 greater level of detail.
979 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
981 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
982 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
983 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
986 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
988 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
989 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
990 machines ``out of the box''.
992 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
993 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
994 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
995 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
996 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
998 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
999 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1000 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1001 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1002 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1004 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1005 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1008 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1011 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1012 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1013 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1014 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1016 * New native configurations
1018 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1019 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1023 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1024 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1025 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1026 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1028 * OBSOLETE configurations
1030 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1031 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1033 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1036 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1037 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1038 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1039 be permanently REMOVED.
1041 * Gould support removed
1043 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1045 * New features for SVR4
1047 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1048 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1049 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1051 * Many C++ enhancements
1053 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1054 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1056 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1058 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1059 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1060 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1061 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1063 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1064 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1066 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1068 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1069 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1070 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1072 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1073 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1075 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1077 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1078 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1079 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1081 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1083 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1084 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1085 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1087 * ``apropos'' command added.
1089 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1090 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1091 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1095 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1096 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1097 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1098 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1099 enabled by configuring with:
1101 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1103 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1105 * New native configurations
1107 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1108 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1109 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1113 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1114 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1115 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1117 * OBSOLETE configurations
1119 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1121 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1122 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1123 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1124 be permanently REMOVED.
1128 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1129 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1130 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1131 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1132 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1133 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1134 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1139 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1141 * set extension-language
1143 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1144 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1145 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1146 set extension-language .c c++
1147 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1148 and their associated languages.
1150 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1152 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1153 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1154 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1158 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1159 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1161 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1162 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1164 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1165 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1166 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1167 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1168 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1169 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1170 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1171 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1173 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1174 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1175 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1176 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1180 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1181 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1182 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1183 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1184 for xdb and dbx commands.
1188 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1189 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1190 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1192 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1193 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1194 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1196 * Debugging across forks
1198 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1203 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1204 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1205 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1207 * GDB remote protocol additions
1209 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1210 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1211 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1212 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1214 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1215 full 64-bit address. The command
1217 set remoteaddresssize 32
1219 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1220 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1223 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1224 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1226 maint packet heythere
1228 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1229 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1232 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1233 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1234 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1236 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1238 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1239 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1240 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1242 * mask-address variable for Mips
1244 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1245 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1246 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1248 * Higher serial baud rates
1250 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1251 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1252 to achieve all of these rates.)
1256 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1257 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1260 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1262 * New native configurations
1264 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1265 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1266 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1267 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1268 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1269 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1270 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1274 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1275 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1276 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1277 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1278 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1279 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1280 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1281 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1282 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1283 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1284 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1286 * New debugging protocols
1288 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1289 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1290 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1291 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1292 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1293 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1297 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1298 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1303 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1304 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1306 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1308 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1309 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1310 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1312 * Live range splitting
1314 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1315 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1316 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1320 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1321 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1325 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1326 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1327 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1332 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1337 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1338 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1339 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1340 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1341 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1342 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1346 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1347 the symbol at the specified address.
1351 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1352 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1353 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1354 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1355 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1359 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1360 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1361 of most MIPS variants.
1365 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1366 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1367 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1371 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1372 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1373 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1374 the possible architectures.
1376 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1378 * New native configurations
1380 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1381 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1382 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1383 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1384 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1385 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1389 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1390 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1391 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1392 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1393 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1395 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1399 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1400 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1401 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1402 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1403 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1407 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1409 * Windows 95/NT native
1411 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1412 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1413 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1414 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1415 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1417 * dont-repeat command
1419 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1420 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1421 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1422 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1424 * Send break instead of ^C
1426 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1427 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1428 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1430 * Remote protocol timeout
1432 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1433 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1434 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1436 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1438 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1439 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1440 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1441 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1442 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1444 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1445 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1446 automatically on hpux10.
1448 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1450 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1452 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1454 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1455 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1456 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1457 every character. The default value is 1050.
1459 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1461 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1462 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1463 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1464 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1465 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1466 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1468 * Speedups for remote debugging
1470 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1471 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1472 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1474 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1476 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1477 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1479 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1481 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1483 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1484 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1486 * Remote targets use caching
1488 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1489 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1490 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1491 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1492 off' turns the the data cache off.
1494 * Remote targets may have threads
1496 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1497 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1498 gdb/remote.c for details.
1502 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1503 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1504 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1505 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1506 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1507 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1508 sequence is something like
1510 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1512 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1516 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1517 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1518 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1519 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1520 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1521 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1522 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1523 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1527 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1528 but does simplify configuration and building.
1532 GDB now supports hpux10.
1534 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1536 * New native configurations
1538 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1539 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1540 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1541 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1545 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1546 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1547 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1548 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1551 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1553 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1554 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1555 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1556 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1557 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1559 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1561 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1562 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1565 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1567 To execute the command use:
1570 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1571 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1572 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1574 * New `if' and `while' commands
1576 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1577 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1578 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1579 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1580 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1581 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1582 if the expression is zero.
1584 * Fortran source language mode
1586 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1587 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1588 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1589 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1592 * Better HPUX support
1594 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1595 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1596 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1597 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1598 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1604 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1605 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1611 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1612 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1615 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1616 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1618 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1620 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1621 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1622 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1623 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1624 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1625 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1627 * New DOS host serial code
1629 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1630 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1633 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1635 * New "complete" command
1637 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1638 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1640 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1642 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1643 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1645 * Breakpoint hit counts
1647 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1648 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1649 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1650 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1651 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1654 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1656 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1657 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1658 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1660 * Shared library breakpoints
1662 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1663 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1665 * Hardware watchpoints
1667 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1668 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1670 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1674 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1675 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1677 * Improved Irix 5 support
1679 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1681 * Improved HPPA support
1683 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1685 * New native configurations
1687 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1688 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1689 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1690 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1694 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1695 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1698 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1700 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1701 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1705 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1706 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1708 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1710 * Irix 5 is now supported
1714 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1715 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1716 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1717 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1718 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1721 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1723 * User visible changes:
1727 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1728 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1729 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1730 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1731 debugging info for the mips target).
1733 * DEC Alpha native support
1735 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1736 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1737 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1738 Alpha-specific notes.
1740 * Preliminary thread implementation
1742 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1744 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1746 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1747 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1750 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1752 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1753 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1754 call methods, ...etc.
1756 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1758 * User visible changes:
1760 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1761 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1762 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1763 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1765 Filename completion now works.
1767 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1768 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1769 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1771 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1772 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1773 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1774 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1775 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1779 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1780 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1783 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1787 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1788 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1789 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1793 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1794 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1795 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1796 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1797 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1801 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1802 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1803 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1805 * New targets supported
1807 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1808 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1809 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1810 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1811 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1813 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1814 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1815 GO32 memory extender.
1817 * New remote protocols
1819 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1821 * New source languages supported
1823 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1824 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1825 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1828 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1830 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1832 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1833 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1834 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1835 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1836 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1837 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1839 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1841 * Faster and better demangling
1843 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1844 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1845 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1846 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1847 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1848 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1851 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1852 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1853 compiler does not actually implement.
1855 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1857 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1858 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1859 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1860 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1861 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1862 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1865 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1866 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1868 * Improved configure script
1870 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1871 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1872 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1873 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1875 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1876 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1877 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1878 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1879 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1880 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1882 * Documentation improvements
1884 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1885 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1886 before submitting changes.
1888 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1889 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1890 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1891 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1892 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1894 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1895 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1896 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1897 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1898 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1899 around this problem.
1903 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1904 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1905 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1908 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1909 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1911 * New native hosts supported
1913 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1914 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1916 * New targets supported
1918 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1920 * New file formats supported
1922 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1923 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1927 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1929 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1930 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1932 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1933 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1934 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1936 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1937 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1939 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1940 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1941 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1944 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1945 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1946 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1947 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1948 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1950 * Internal improvements
1952 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1953 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1955 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1956 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1957 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1958 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1959 shared code that handles any of them.
1961 * New command line options
1963 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1967 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1968 General Public License.
1970 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1972 * Host/native/target split
1974 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1975 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1976 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1977 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1978 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1980 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1981 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1982 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1983 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1984 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1985 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1986 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1988 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1989 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1990 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1992 * New hosts supported
1994 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1995 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1996 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1998 * New targets supported
2000 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2001 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2003 * New native hosts supported
2005 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2006 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2007 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2009 * New file formats supported
2011 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2012 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2013 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2017 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2018 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2019 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2021 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2023 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2024 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2025 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2026 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2030 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2031 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2032 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2034 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2038 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2039 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2042 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2043 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2045 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2046 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2047 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2048 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2049 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2050 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2052 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2053 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2054 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2055 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2059 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2060 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2061 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2062 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2063 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2065 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2066 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2067 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2068 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2072 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2073 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2074 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2075 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2076 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2077 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2078 each instruction being stepped through.
2080 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2081 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2083 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2084 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2085 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2086 processor with a serial port.
2090 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2091 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2092 supported, and what files each one uses.
2096 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2097 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2098 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2099 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2101 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2102 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2103 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2104 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2108 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2109 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2110 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2111 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2112 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2113 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2115 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2118 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2120 * Better support for C++ function names
2122 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2123 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2124 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2125 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2126 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2128 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2129 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2130 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2131 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2132 for the list of formats.
2134 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2136 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2137 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2138 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2139 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2140 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2141 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2144 * New 'maintenance' command
2146 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2147 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2148 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2150 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2151 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2152 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2153 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2154 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2155 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2157 The following commands are new:
2159 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2160 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2161 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2163 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2165 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2166 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2167 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2168 read after argv processing.
2170 * New hosts supported
2172 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2174 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2176 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2177 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2178 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2179 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2180 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2183 * New targets supported
2185 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2187 * More smarts about finding #include files
2189 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2190 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2191 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2192 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2193 the one that contains your sources.
2195 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2196 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2197 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2199 * Interesting infernals change
2201 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2202 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2203 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2204 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2206 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2208 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2209 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2210 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2212 See the ChangeLog for details.
2214 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2216 * New machines supported (host and target)
2218 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2220 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2222 * New malloc package
2224 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2225 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2226 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2227 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2228 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2229 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2233 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2234 'help info proc' for details.
2236 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2238 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2239 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2242 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2244 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2245 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2246 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2247 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2248 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2249 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2251 * Cross byte order fixes
2253 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2254 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2256 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2258 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2259 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2260 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2261 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2262 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2263 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2264 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2265 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2266 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2267 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2269 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2270 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2271 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2272 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2274 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2275 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2276 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2279 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2281 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2282 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2283 shared across multiple host platforms.
2285 * longjmp() handling
2287 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2288 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2289 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2290 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2294 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2295 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2300 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2301 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2302 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2304 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2306 * New machines supported (host and target)
2308 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2310 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2311 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2313 * New machines supported (target)
2315 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2319 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2320 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2321 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2323 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2324 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2325 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2326 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2327 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2330 * New features for SVR4
2332 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2333 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2334 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2336 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2337 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2338 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2340 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2341 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2343 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2345 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2346 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2347 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2348 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2349 same code linked statically.
2353 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2354 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2355 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2356 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2357 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2358 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2362 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2363 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2364 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2367 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2369 * New machines supported (host and target)
2371 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2372 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2373 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2375 * Almost SCO Unix support
2377 We had hoped to support:
2378 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2379 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2380 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2381 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2383 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2385 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2386 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2387 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2388 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2393 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2394 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2395 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2399 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2400 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2401 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2403 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2405 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2406 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2407 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2409 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2410 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2411 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2412 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2415 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2416 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2417 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2418 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2421 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2422 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2425 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2426 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2427 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2430 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2432 * Improved configuration
2434 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2435 Porting BFD is simpler.
2439 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2440 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2441 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2442 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2446 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2448 * New host supported (not target)
2450 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2453 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2455 * Multiple source language support
2457 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2458 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2459 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2460 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2461 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2462 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2466 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2467 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2468 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2469 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2471 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2472 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2473 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2475 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2476 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2480 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2481 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2482 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2483 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2486 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2488 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2489 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2490 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2491 examining core files.
2495 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2498 * New machines supported (host and target)
2500 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2501 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2502 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2504 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2506 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2508 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2510 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2511 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2512 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2514 * New remote interfaces
2520 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2524 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2526 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2527 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2528 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2529 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2530 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2531 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2532 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2533 stub on the target system.
2535 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2537 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2538 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2539 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2541 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2542 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2545 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2547 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2548 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2550 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2551 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2552 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2554 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2555 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2556 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2557 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2559 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2560 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2561 it is already running. Default is ON.
2563 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2564 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2565 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2566 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2569 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2570 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2571 or the value of the environment variable
2574 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2575 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2578 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2579 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2580 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2582 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2583 history expansion will be performed on
2584 command line input. The default is OFF.
2586 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2587 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2588 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2590 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2591 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2592 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2595 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2596 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2597 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2600 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2601 ``set width'' instead.
2603 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2604 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2605 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2606 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2608 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2611 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2614 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2617 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2620 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2622 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2623 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2624 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2628 * Support for Shared Libraries
2630 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2631 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2632 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2633 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2634 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2635 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2636 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2637 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2639 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2640 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2641 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2643 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2648 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2649 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2650 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2651 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2652 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2653 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2655 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2657 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2659 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2660 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2661 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2664 * C++ multiple inheritance
2666 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2669 * C++ exception handling
2671 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2672 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2673 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2676 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2677 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2678 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2680 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2681 current stack frame.
2684 * Minor command changes
2686 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2687 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2688 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2690 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2691 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2692 frames without printing.
2694 * New directory command
2696 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2697 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2698 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2699 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2700 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2702 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2704 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2707 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2708 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2709 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2710 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob