1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.7
6 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
8 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
9 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
10 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
11 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
15 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
16 show print frame-arguments
17 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
18 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
20 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
21 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
23 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
26 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
27 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
28 and in inlined functions.
30 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
31 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
32 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
34 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
36 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
37 registers on PowerPC targets.
39 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
40 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
42 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
43 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
45 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
46 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
47 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
48 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
50 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
51 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
59 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
66 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
75 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
77 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
79 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
80 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
81 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
83 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
84 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
85 -Bsymbolic linker option.
87 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
88 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
91 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
92 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
94 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
95 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
97 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
99 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
100 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
101 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
103 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
104 automatically displayed as character or string data.
106 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
107 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
110 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
111 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
112 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
114 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
117 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
118 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
119 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
121 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
123 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
125 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
126 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
127 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
129 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
130 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
132 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
133 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
134 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
135 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
136 Windows and SymbianOS).
138 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
139 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
141 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
142 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
148 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
149 when debugging using remote targets.
151 set mem inaccessible-by-default
152 show mem inaccessible-by-default
153 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
154 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
155 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
156 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
157 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
159 set breakpoint auto-hw
160 show breakpoint auto-hw
161 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
162 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
163 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
164 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
165 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
166 including "next" and "finish".
169 catch exception unhandled
170 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
173 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
177 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
178 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
179 an alias to "set sysroot".
182 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
183 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
186 * New native configurations
188 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
193 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
194 not query the target for its built-in description.
198 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
199 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
200 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
205 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
206 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
209 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
214 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
215 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
217 qXfer:libraries:read:
218 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
219 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
220 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
221 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
225 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
234 i[34567]86-*-netware*
235 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
236 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
238 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
241 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
242 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
251 * Other removed features
258 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
265 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
270 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
271 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
276 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
277 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
279 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
281 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
282 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
283 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
284 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
288 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
289 in debugging information.
293 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
294 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
296 set mips stack-arg-size
297 set mips saved-gpreg-size
299 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
301 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
306 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
308 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
309 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
310 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
312 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
313 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
316 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
317 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
319 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
320 stub provides the required support.
322 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
323 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
328 unset substitute-path
330 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
331 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
332 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
333 between compilation and debugging.
337 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
338 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
339 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
343 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
345 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
346 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
348 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
353 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
354 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
355 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
356 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
360 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
361 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
363 qXfer:memory-map:read:
364 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
365 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
370 Erase and program a flash memory device.
372 * Removed remote packets
375 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
376 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
378 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
382 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
384 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
388 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
389 only if it doesn't already have a value.
391 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
393 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
395 restart <n> Return the program state to a
396 previously saved state.
398 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
400 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
402 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
403 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
405 info forks List forks of the user program that
406 are available to be debugged.
408 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
409 forks of the user program that are
410 available to be debugged.
412 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
413 that are available to be debugged (and
414 kill the forked process).
416 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
417 that are available to be debugged (and
418 allow the process to continue).
422 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
424 * Improved Windows host support
426 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
427 native console support, and remote communications using either
428 network sockets or serial ports.
430 * Improved Modula-2 language support
432 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
433 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
434 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
435 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
436 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
437 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
441 The ARM rdi-share module.
443 The Netware NLM debug server.
445 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
447 * New native configurations
449 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
450 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
454 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
456 * New command line options
458 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
459 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
460 the child (debugged) program exited with.
461 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
462 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
463 specified multiple times and in conjunction
464 with the --command (-x) option.
466 * Deprecated commands removed
468 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
472 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
473 othernames set arm disassembler
474 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
475 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
476 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
479 * New BSD user-level threads support
481 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
482 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
485 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
486 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
487 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
489 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
490 are not yet supported.
492 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
493 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
495 * REMOVED configurations and files
497 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
498 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
499 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
501 * New "set print array-indexes" command
503 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
504 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
507 * VAX floating point support
509 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
511 * User-defined command support
513 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
514 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
515 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
517 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
519 * New command line option
521 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
524 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
526 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
527 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
528 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
529 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
530 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
532 * Internationalization
534 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
535 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
536 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
540 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
541 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
542 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
544 * New native configurations
546 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
550 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
551 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
553 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
555 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
556 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
557 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
560 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
561 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
562 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
574 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
575 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
577 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
579 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
580 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
581 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
591 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
593 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
595 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
596 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
599 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
601 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
602 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
603 IRIX long double values).
607 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
608 command. This problem has been fixed.
610 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
612 * Fix for ``many threads''
614 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
615 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
618 ptrace: No such process.
619 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
621 This problem has been fixed.
623 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
625 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
628 * New ``start'' command.
630 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
632 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
634 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
635 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
636 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
638 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
639 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
640 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
641 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
642 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
643 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
644 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
645 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
646 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
648 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
650 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
651 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
652 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
653 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
654 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
656 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
657 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
658 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
660 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
662 * New native configurations
664 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
665 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
666 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
667 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
668 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
669 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
670 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
672 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
674 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
675 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
676 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
677 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
678 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
679 work, was also included.
681 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
682 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
692 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
693 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
695 * REMOVED configurations and files
697 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
698 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
699 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
700 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
701 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
702 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
703 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
704 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
705 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
707 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
709 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
711 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
713 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
714 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
715 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
716 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
719 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
721 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
722 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
723 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
724 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
725 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
726 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
729 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
731 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
733 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
734 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
735 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
737 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
739 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
740 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
742 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
744 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
745 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
746 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
748 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
750 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
751 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
753 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
755 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
756 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
757 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
759 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
761 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
762 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
763 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
765 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
767 * Removed --with-mmalloc
769 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
770 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
772 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
774 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
775 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
776 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
777 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
779 * Revised SPARC target
781 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
782 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
783 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
784 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
785 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
789 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
790 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
791 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
794 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
796 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
797 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
800 * C++ nested types and namespaces
802 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
803 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
804 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
805 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
806 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
807 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
808 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
809 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
810 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
812 * New native configurations
814 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
815 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
816 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
817 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
818 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
820 * New debugging protocols
822 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
824 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
826 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
827 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
828 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
830 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
832 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
833 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
834 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
837 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
838 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
839 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
840 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
841 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
842 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
843 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
844 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
845 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
847 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
849 * REMOVED configurations and files
851 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
852 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
853 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
854 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
855 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
856 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
857 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
858 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
859 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
860 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
861 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
862 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
863 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
864 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
865 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
866 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
867 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
869 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
873 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
876 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
878 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
879 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
880 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
883 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
884 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
889 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
890 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
891 remote protocol documentation for details.
893 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
895 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
896 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
897 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
900 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
902 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
903 per-thread variables.
905 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
907 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
908 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
910 * Separate debug info.
912 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
913 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
914 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
915 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
916 and optional debug files.
918 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
920 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
921 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
924 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
925 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
929 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
930 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
931 considered "useable".
933 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
935 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
936 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
939 * GDB supports logging output to a file
941 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
942 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
944 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
946 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
947 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
950 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
952 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
953 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
957 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
958 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
959 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
960 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
961 data, for more informative profiling results.
963 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
965 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
966 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
967 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
969 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
972 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
973 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
974 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
975 in a subsequent -var-update.
977 * New native configurations.
979 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
981 * Multi-arched targets.
983 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
984 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
986 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
988 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
989 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
990 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
993 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
994 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
995 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
996 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
997 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
998 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
999 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1000 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1001 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1002 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1003 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1004 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1006 * REMOVED configurations and files
1009 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1010 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1011 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1012 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1013 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1014 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1016 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1017 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1018 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1019 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1020 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1021 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1023 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1025 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1026 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1027 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1028 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1029 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1031 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1033 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1035 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1036 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1037 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1038 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1039 shared libs like mad''.
1041 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1043 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1044 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1045 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1046 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1048 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1050 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1051 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1054 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1055 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1057 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1058 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1060 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1061 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1062 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1063 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1065 * Multi-arched targets.
1067 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1068 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1070 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1071 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1072 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1076 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1079 * New native configurations
1081 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1082 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1083 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1084 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1086 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1088 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1089 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1090 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1091 permanently REMOVED.
1093 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1094 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1095 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1096 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1097 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1098 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1099 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1100 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1101 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1102 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1104 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1105 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1107 * OBSOLETE languages
1109 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1111 * REMOVED configurations and files
1113 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1114 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1115 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1116 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1117 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1119 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1121 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1123 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1124 commands. The default is 1024.
1126 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1128 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1130 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1132 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1133 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1134 from a file into memory (restore).
1136 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1138 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1139 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1140 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1142 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1150 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1151 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1152 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1154 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1155 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1156 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1158 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1159 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1160 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1162 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1163 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1164 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1166 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1168 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1170 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1171 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1172 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1173 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1174 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1175 (notably embedded) targets.
1177 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1179 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1180 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1181 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1182 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1184 * New command line option
1186 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1188 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1190 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1191 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1192 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1193 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1194 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1195 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1196 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1197 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1198 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1199 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1201 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1203 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1204 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1206 * New native configurations
1208 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1209 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1210 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1211 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1215 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1217 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1219 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1220 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1221 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1222 permanently REMOVED.
1224 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1225 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1226 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1227 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1228 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1230 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1232 * REMOVED configurations and files
1234 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1236 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1237 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1238 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1239 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1240 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1241 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1242 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1243 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1244 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1245 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1246 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1248 * Changes to command line processing
1250 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1251 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1253 * Changes to key bindings
1255 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1257 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1259 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1261 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1264 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1266 Numerous documentation fixes.
1268 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1270 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1272 * New native configurations
1274 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1275 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1276 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1277 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1278 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1279 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1283 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1285 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1287 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1289 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1290 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1291 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1292 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1293 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1295 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1296 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1297 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1298 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1299 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1300 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1301 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1302 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1304 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1305 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1307 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1308 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1309 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1310 permanently REMOVED.
1312 * REMOVED configurations and files
1314 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1315 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1317 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1321 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1323 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1324 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1329 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1331 * The MI enabled by default.
1333 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1334 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1335 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1336 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1337 which is now deprecated.
1339 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1341 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1342 main features are supported:
1344 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1346 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1349 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1351 - a Pascal expression parser.
1353 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1355 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1357 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1359 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1360 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1362 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1364 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1366 * Changes in completion.
1368 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1369 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1370 users expect at the shell prompt.
1372 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1373 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1374 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1375 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1376 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1377 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1378 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1380 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1382 * New platform-independent commands:
1384 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1385 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1386 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1388 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1390 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1391 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1392 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1394 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1396 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1397 multi-threaded programs though.
1399 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1401 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1403 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1404 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1407 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1409 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1410 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1411 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1412 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1413 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1416 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1417 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1418 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1420 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1422 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1423 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1425 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1426 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1429 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1430 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1431 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1432 a given linear address.
1434 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1435 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1436 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1438 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1440 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1442 * Changes in documentation.
1444 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1445 Documentation License.
1447 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1450 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1452 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1455 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1456 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1457 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1459 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1461 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1462 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1463 contents of this file.
1467 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1469 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1471 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1473 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1474 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1475 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1476 greater level of detail.
1478 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1480 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1481 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1482 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1485 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1487 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1488 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1489 machines ``out of the box''.
1491 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1492 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1493 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1494 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1495 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1497 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1498 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1499 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1500 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1501 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1503 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1504 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1507 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1510 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1511 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1512 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1513 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1515 * New native configurations
1517 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1518 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1522 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1523 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1524 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1525 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1527 * OBSOLETE configurations
1529 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1530 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1532 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1535 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1536 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1537 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1538 be permanently REMOVED.
1540 * Gould support removed
1542 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1544 * New features for SVR4
1546 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1547 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1548 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1550 * Many C++ enhancements
1552 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1553 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1555 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1557 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1558 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1559 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1560 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1562 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1563 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1565 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1567 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1568 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1569 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1571 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1572 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1574 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1576 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1577 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1578 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1580 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1582 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1583 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1584 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1586 * ``apropos'' command added.
1588 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1589 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1590 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1594 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1595 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1596 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1597 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1598 enabled by configuring with:
1600 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1602 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1604 * New native configurations
1606 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1607 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1608 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1612 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1613 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1614 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1616 * OBSOLETE configurations
1618 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1620 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1621 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1622 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1623 be permanently REMOVED.
1627 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1628 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1629 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1630 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1631 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1632 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1633 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1638 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1640 * set extension-language
1642 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1643 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1644 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1645 set extension-language .c c++
1646 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1647 and their associated languages.
1649 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1651 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1652 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1653 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1657 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1658 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1660 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1661 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1663 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1664 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1665 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1666 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1667 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1668 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1669 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1670 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1672 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1673 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1674 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1675 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1679 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1680 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1681 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1682 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1683 for xdb and dbx commands.
1687 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1688 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1689 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1691 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1692 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1693 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1695 * Debugging across forks
1697 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1702 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1703 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1704 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1706 * GDB remote protocol additions
1708 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1709 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1710 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1711 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1713 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1714 full 64-bit address. The command
1716 set remoteaddresssize 32
1718 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1719 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1722 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1723 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1725 maint packet heythere
1727 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1728 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1731 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1732 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1733 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1735 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1737 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1738 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1739 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1741 * mask-address variable for Mips
1743 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1744 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1745 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1747 * Higher serial baud rates
1749 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1750 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1751 to achieve all of these rates.)
1755 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1756 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1759 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1761 * New native configurations
1763 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1764 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1765 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1766 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1767 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1768 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1769 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1773 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1774 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1775 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1776 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1777 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1778 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1779 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1780 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1781 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1782 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1783 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1785 * New debugging protocols
1787 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1788 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1789 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1790 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1791 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1792 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1796 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1797 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1802 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1803 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1805 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1807 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1808 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1809 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1811 * Live range splitting
1813 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1814 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1815 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1819 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1820 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1824 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1825 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1826 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1831 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1836 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1837 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1838 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1839 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1840 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1841 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1845 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1846 the symbol at the specified address.
1850 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1851 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1852 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1853 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1854 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1858 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1859 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1860 of most MIPS variants.
1864 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1865 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1866 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1870 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1871 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1872 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1873 the possible architectures.
1875 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1877 * New native configurations
1879 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1880 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1881 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1882 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1883 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1884 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1888 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1889 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1890 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1891 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1892 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1894 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1898 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1899 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1900 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1901 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1902 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1906 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1908 * Windows 95/NT native
1910 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1911 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1912 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1913 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1914 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1916 * dont-repeat command
1918 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1919 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1920 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1921 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1923 * Send break instead of ^C
1925 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1926 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1927 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1929 * Remote protocol timeout
1931 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1932 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1933 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1935 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1937 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1938 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1939 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1940 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1941 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1943 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1944 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1945 automatically on hpux10.
1947 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1949 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1951 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1953 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1954 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1955 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1956 every character. The default value is 1050.
1958 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1960 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1961 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1962 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1963 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1964 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1965 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1967 * Speedups for remote debugging
1969 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1970 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1971 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1973 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1975 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1976 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1978 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1980 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1982 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1983 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1985 * Remote targets use caching
1987 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1988 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1989 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1990 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1991 off' turns the the data cache off.
1993 * Remote targets may have threads
1995 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1996 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1997 gdb/remote.c for details.
2001 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2002 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2003 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2004 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2005 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2006 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2007 sequence is something like
2009 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2011 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2015 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2016 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2017 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2018 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2019 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2020 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2021 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2022 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2026 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2027 but does simplify configuration and building.
2031 GDB now supports hpux10.
2033 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2035 * New native configurations
2037 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2038 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2039 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2040 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2044 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2045 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2046 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2047 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2050 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2052 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2053 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2054 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2055 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2056 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2058 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2060 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2061 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2064 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2066 To execute the command use:
2069 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2070 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2071 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2073 * New `if' and `while' commands
2075 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2076 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2077 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2078 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2079 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2080 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2081 if the expression is zero.
2083 * Fortran source language mode
2085 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2086 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2087 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2088 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2091 * Better HPUX support
2093 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2094 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2095 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2096 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2097 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2103 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2104 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2110 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2111 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2114 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2115 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2117 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2119 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2120 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2121 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2122 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2123 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2124 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2126 * New DOS host serial code
2128 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2129 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2132 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2134 * New "complete" command
2136 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2137 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2139 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2141 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2142 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2144 * Breakpoint hit counts
2146 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2147 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2148 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2149 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2150 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2153 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2155 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2156 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2157 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2159 * Shared library breakpoints
2161 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2162 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2164 * Hardware watchpoints
2166 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2167 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2169 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2173 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2174 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2176 * Improved Irix 5 support
2178 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2180 * Improved HPPA support
2182 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2184 * New native configurations
2186 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2187 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2188 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2189 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2193 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2194 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2197 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2199 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2200 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2204 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2205 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2207 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2209 * Irix 5 is now supported
2213 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2214 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2215 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2216 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2217 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2220 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2222 * User visible changes:
2226 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2227 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2228 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2229 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2230 debugging info for the mips target).
2232 * DEC Alpha native support
2234 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2235 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2236 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2237 Alpha-specific notes.
2239 * Preliminary thread implementation
2241 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2243 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2245 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2246 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2249 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2251 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2252 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2253 call methods, ...etc.
2255 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2257 * User visible changes:
2259 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2260 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2261 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2262 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2264 Filename completion now works.
2266 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2267 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2268 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2270 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2271 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2272 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2273 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2274 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2278 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2279 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2282 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2286 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2287 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2288 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2292 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2293 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2294 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2295 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2296 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2300 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2301 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2302 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2304 * New targets supported
2306 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2307 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2308 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2309 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2310 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2312 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2313 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2314 GO32 memory extender.
2316 * New remote protocols
2318 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2320 * New source languages supported
2322 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2323 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2324 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2327 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2329 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2331 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2332 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2333 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2334 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2335 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2336 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2338 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2340 * Faster and better demangling
2342 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2343 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2344 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2345 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2346 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2347 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2350 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2351 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2352 compiler does not actually implement.
2354 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2356 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2357 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2358 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2359 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2360 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2361 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2364 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2365 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2367 * Improved configure script
2369 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2370 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2371 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2372 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2374 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2375 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2376 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2377 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2378 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2379 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2381 * Documentation improvements
2383 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2384 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2385 before submitting changes.
2387 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2388 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2389 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2390 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2391 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2393 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2394 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2395 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2396 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2397 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2398 around this problem.
2402 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2403 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2404 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2407 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2408 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2410 * New native hosts supported
2412 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2413 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2415 * New targets supported
2417 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2419 * New file formats supported
2421 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2422 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2426 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2428 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2429 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2431 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2432 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2433 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2435 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2436 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2438 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2439 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2440 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2443 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2444 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2445 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2446 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2447 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2449 * Internal improvements
2451 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2452 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2454 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2455 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2456 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2457 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2458 shared code that handles any of them.
2460 * New command line options
2462 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2466 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2467 General Public License.
2469 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2471 * Host/native/target split
2473 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2474 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2475 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2476 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2477 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2479 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2480 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2481 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2482 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2483 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2484 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2485 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2487 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2488 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2489 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2491 * New hosts supported
2493 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2494 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2495 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2497 * New targets supported
2499 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2500 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2502 * New native hosts supported
2504 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2505 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2506 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2508 * New file formats supported
2510 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2511 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2512 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2516 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2517 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2518 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2520 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2522 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2523 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2524 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2525 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2529 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2530 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2531 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2533 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2537 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2538 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2541 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2542 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2544 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2545 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2546 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2547 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2548 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2549 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2551 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2552 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2553 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2554 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2558 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2559 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2560 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2561 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2562 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2564 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2565 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2566 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2567 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2571 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2572 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2573 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2574 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2575 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2576 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2577 each instruction being stepped through.
2579 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2580 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2582 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2583 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2584 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2585 processor with a serial port.
2589 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2590 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2591 supported, and what files each one uses.
2595 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2596 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2597 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2598 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2600 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2601 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2602 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2603 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2607 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2608 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2609 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2610 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2611 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2612 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2614 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2617 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2619 * Better support for C++ function names
2621 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2622 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2623 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2624 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2625 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2627 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2628 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2629 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2630 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2631 for the list of formats.
2633 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2635 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2636 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2637 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2638 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2639 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2640 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2643 * New 'maintenance' command
2645 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2646 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2647 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2649 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2650 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2651 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2652 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2653 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2654 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2656 The following commands are new:
2658 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2659 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2660 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2662 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2664 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2665 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2666 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2667 read after argv processing.
2669 * New hosts supported
2671 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2673 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2675 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2676 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2677 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2678 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2679 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2682 * New targets supported
2684 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2686 * More smarts about finding #include files
2688 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2689 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2690 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2691 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2692 the one that contains your sources.
2694 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2695 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2696 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2698 * Interesting infernals change
2700 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2701 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2702 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2703 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2705 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2707 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2708 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2709 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2711 See the ChangeLog for details.
2713 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2715 * New machines supported (host and target)
2717 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2719 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2721 * New malloc package
2723 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2724 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2725 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2726 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2727 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2728 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2732 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2733 'help info proc' for details.
2735 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2737 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2738 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2741 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2743 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2744 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2745 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2746 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2747 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2748 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2750 * Cross byte order fixes
2752 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2753 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2755 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2757 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2758 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2759 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2760 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2761 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2762 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2763 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2764 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2765 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2766 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2768 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2769 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2770 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2771 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2773 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2774 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2775 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2778 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2780 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2781 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2782 shared across multiple host platforms.
2784 * longjmp() handling
2786 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2787 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2788 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2789 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2793 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2794 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2799 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2800 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2801 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2803 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2805 * New machines supported (host and target)
2807 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2809 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2810 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2812 * New machines supported (target)
2814 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2818 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2819 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2820 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2822 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2823 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2824 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2825 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2826 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2829 * New features for SVR4
2831 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2832 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2833 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2835 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2836 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2837 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2839 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2840 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2842 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2844 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2845 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2846 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2847 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2848 same code linked statically.
2852 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2853 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2854 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2855 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2856 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2857 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2861 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2862 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2863 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2866 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2868 * New machines supported (host and target)
2870 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2871 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2872 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2874 * Almost SCO Unix support
2876 We had hoped to support:
2877 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2878 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2879 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2880 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2882 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2884 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2885 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2886 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2887 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2892 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2893 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2894 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2898 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2899 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2900 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2902 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2904 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2905 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2906 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2908 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2909 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2910 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2911 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2914 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2915 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2916 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2917 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2920 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2921 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2924 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2925 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2926 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2929 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2931 * Improved configuration
2933 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2934 Porting BFD is simpler.
2938 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2939 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2940 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2941 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2945 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2947 * New host supported (not target)
2949 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2952 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2954 * Multiple source language support
2956 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2957 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2958 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2959 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2960 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2961 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2965 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2966 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2967 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2968 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2970 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2971 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2972 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2974 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2975 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2979 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2980 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2981 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2982 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2985 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2987 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2988 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2989 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2990 examining core files.
2994 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2997 * New machines supported (host and target)
2999 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3000 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3001 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3003 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3005 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3007 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3009 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3010 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3011 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3013 * New remote interfaces
3019 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3023 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3025 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3026 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3027 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3028 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3029 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3030 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3031 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3032 stub on the target system.
3034 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3036 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3037 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3038 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3040 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3041 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3044 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3046 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3047 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3049 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3050 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3051 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3053 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3054 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3055 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3056 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3058 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3059 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3060 it is already running. Default is ON.
3062 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3063 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3064 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3065 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3068 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3069 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3070 or the value of the environment variable
3073 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3074 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3077 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3078 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3079 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3081 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3082 history expansion will be performed on
3083 command line input. The default is OFF.
3085 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3086 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3087 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3089 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3090 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3091 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3094 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3095 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3096 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3099 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3100 ``set width'' instead.
3102 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3103 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3104 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3105 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3107 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3110 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3113 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3116 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3119 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3121 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3122 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3123 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3127 * Support for Shared Libraries
3129 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3130 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3131 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3132 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3133 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3134 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3135 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3136 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3138 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3139 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3140 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3142 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3147 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3148 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3149 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3150 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3151 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3152 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3154 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3156 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3158 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3159 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3160 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3163 * C++ multiple inheritance
3165 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3168 * C++ exception handling
3170 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3171 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3172 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3175 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3176 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3177 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3179 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3180 current stack frame.
3183 * Minor command changes
3185 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3186 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3187 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3189 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3190 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3191 frames without printing.
3193 * New directory command
3195 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3196 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3197 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3198 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3199 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3201 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3203 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3206 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3207 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3208 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3209 where the program that you are debugging will run.