1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.1:
6 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
8 * Removed --with-mmalloc
10 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
11 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
13 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
15 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
16 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
17 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
18 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
20 * Revised SPARC target
22 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
23 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
24 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
25 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
26 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
30 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
31 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
32 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
35 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
37 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
38 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
41 * C++ nested types and namespaces
43 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
44 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
45 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
46 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
47 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
48 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
49 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
50 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
51 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
53 * New native configurations
55 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
56 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
57 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
58 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
59 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
61 * New debugging protocols
63 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
65 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
67 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
68 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
69 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
71 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
73 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
74 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
75 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
78 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
79 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
80 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
81 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
82 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
83 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
84 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
85 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
86 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
88 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
90 * REMOVED configurations and files
92 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
93 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
94 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
95 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
96 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
97 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
98 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
99 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
100 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
101 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
102 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
103 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
104 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
105 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
106 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
107 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
108 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
110 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
114 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
117 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
119 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
120 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
121 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
124 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
125 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
130 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
131 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
132 remote protocol documentation for details.
134 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
136 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
137 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
138 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
141 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
143 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
144 per-thread variables.
146 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
148 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
149 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
151 * Separate debug info.
153 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
154 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
155 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
156 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
157 and optional debug files.
159 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
161 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
162 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
165 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
166 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
170 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
171 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
172 considered "useable".
174 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
176 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
177 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
180 * GDB supports logging output to a file
182 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
183 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
185 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
187 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
188 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
191 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
193 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
194 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
198 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
199 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
200 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
201 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
202 data, for more informative profiling results.
204 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
206 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
207 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
208 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
210 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
213 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
214 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
215 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
216 in a subsequent -var-update.
218 * New native configurations.
220 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
222 * Multi-arched targets.
224 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
225 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
227 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
229 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
230 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
231 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
234 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
235 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
236 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
237 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
238 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
239 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
240 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
241 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
242 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
243 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
244 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
245 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
247 * REMOVED configurations and files
250 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
251 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
252 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
253 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
254 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
255 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
257 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
258 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
259 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
260 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
261 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
262 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
264 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
266 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
267 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
268 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
269 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
270 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
272 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
274 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
276 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
277 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
278 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
279 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
280 shared libs like mad''.
282 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
284 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
285 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
286 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
287 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
289 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
291 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
292 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
295 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
296 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
298 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
299 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
301 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
302 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
303 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
304 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
306 * Multi-arched targets.
308 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
309 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
311 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
312 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
313 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
317 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
320 * New native configurations
322 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
323 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
324 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
325 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
327 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
329 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
330 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
331 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
334 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
335 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
336 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
337 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
338 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
339 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
340 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
341 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
342 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
343 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
345 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
346 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
350 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
352 * REMOVED configurations and files
354 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
355 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
356 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
357 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
358 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
360 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
362 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
364 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
365 commands. The default is 1024.
367 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
369 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
371 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
373 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
374 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
375 from a file into memory (restore).
377 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
379 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
380 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
381 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
383 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
391 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
392 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
393 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
395 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
396 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
397 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
399 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
400 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
401 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
403 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
404 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
405 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
407 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
409 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
411 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
412 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
413 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
414 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
415 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
416 (notably embedded) targets.
418 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
420 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
421 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
422 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
423 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
425 * New command line option
427 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
429 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
431 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
432 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
433 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
434 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
435 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
436 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
437 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
438 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
439 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
440 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
442 * Changes in ARM configurations.
444 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
445 configuration is fully multi-arch.
447 * New native configurations
449 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
450 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
451 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
452 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
456 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
458 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
460 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
461 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
462 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
465 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
466 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
467 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
468 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
469 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
471 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
473 * REMOVED configurations and files
475 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
477 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
478 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
479 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
480 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
481 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
482 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
483 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
484 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
485 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
486 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
487 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
489 * Changes to command line processing
491 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
492 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
494 * Changes to key bindings
496 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
498 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
500 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
502 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
505 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
507 Numerous documentation fixes.
509 Numerous testsuite fixes.
511 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
513 * New native configurations
515 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
516 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
517 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
518 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
520 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
524 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
526 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
528 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
530 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
531 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
532 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
533 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
534 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
536 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
537 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
538 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
539 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
540 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
541 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
542 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
543 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
545 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
546 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
548 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
549 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
550 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
553 * REMOVED configurations and files
555 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
556 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
558 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
562 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
564 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
565 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
570 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
572 * The MI enabled by default.
574 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
575 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
576 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
577 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
578 which is now deprecated.
580 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
582 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
583 main features are supported:
585 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
587 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
590 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
592 - a Pascal expression parser.
594 However, some important features are not yet supported.
596 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
598 - there are some problems with boolean types;
600 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
601 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
603 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
605 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
607 * Changes in completion.
609 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
610 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
611 users expect at the shell prompt.
613 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
614 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
615 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
616 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
617 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
618 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
619 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
621 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
623 * New platform-independent commands:
625 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
626 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
627 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
629 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
631 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
632 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
633 many threads as your system allows you to have.
635 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
637 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
638 multi-threaded programs though.
640 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
642 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
644 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
645 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
648 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
650 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
651 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
652 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
653 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
654 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
657 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
658 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
659 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
661 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
663 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
664 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
666 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
667 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
670 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
671 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
672 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
673 a given linear address.
675 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
676 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
677 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
679 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
681 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
683 * Changes in documentation.
685 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
686 Documentation License.
688 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
691 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
693 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
696 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
697 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
698 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
700 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
702 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
703 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
704 contents of this file.
708 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
710 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
712 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
714 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
715 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
716 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
717 greater level of detail.
719 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
721 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
722 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
723 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
726 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
728 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
729 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
730 machines ``out of the box''.
732 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
733 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
734 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
735 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
736 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
738 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
739 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
740 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
741 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
742 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
744 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
745 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
748 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
751 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
752 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
753 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
754 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
756 * New native configurations
758 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
759 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
763 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
764 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
765 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
766 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
768 * OBSOLETE configurations
770 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
771 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
773 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
776 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
777 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
778 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
779 be permanently REMOVED.
781 * Gould support removed
783 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
785 * New features for SVR4
787 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
788 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
789 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
791 * Many C++ enhancements
793 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
794 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
796 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
798 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
799 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
800 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
801 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
803 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
804 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
806 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
808 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
809 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
810 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
812 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
813 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
815 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
817 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
818 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
819 include ``set remote P-packet''.
821 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
823 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
824 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
825 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
827 * ``apropos'' command added.
829 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
830 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
831 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
835 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
836 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
837 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
838 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
839 enabled by configuring with:
841 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
843 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
845 * New native configurations
847 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
848 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
849 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
853 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
854 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
855 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
857 * OBSOLETE configurations
859 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
861 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
862 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
863 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
864 be permanently REMOVED.
868 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
869 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
870 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
871 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
872 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
873 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
874 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
879 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
881 * set extension-language
883 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
884 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
885 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
886 set extension-language .c c++
887 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
888 and their associated languages.
890 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
892 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
893 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
894 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
898 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
899 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
901 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
902 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
904 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
905 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
906 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
907 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
908 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
909 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
910 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
911 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
913 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
914 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
915 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
916 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
920 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
921 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
922 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
923 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
924 for xdb and dbx commands.
928 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
929 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
930 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
932 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
933 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
934 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
936 * Debugging across forks
938 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
943 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
944 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
945 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
947 * GDB remote protocol additions
949 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
950 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
951 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
952 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
954 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
955 full 64-bit address. The command
957 set remoteaddresssize 32
959 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
960 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
963 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
964 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
966 maint packet heythere
968 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
969 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
972 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
973 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
974 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
976 * Tracing can collect general expressions
978 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
979 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
980 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
982 * mask-address variable for Mips
984 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
985 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
986 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
988 * Higher serial baud rates
990 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
991 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
992 to achieve all of these rates.)
996 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
997 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1000 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1002 * New native configurations
1004 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1005 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1006 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1007 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1008 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1009 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1010 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1014 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1015 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1016 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1017 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1018 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1019 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1020 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1021 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1022 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1023 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1024 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1026 * New debugging protocols
1028 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1029 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1030 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1031 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1032 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1033 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1037 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1038 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1043 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1044 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1046 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1048 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1049 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1050 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1052 * Live range splitting
1054 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1055 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1056 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1060 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1061 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1065 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1066 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1067 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1072 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1077 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1078 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1079 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1080 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1081 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1082 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1086 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1087 the symbol at the specified address.
1091 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1092 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1093 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1094 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1095 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1099 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1100 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1101 of most MIPS variants.
1105 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1106 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1107 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1111 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1112 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1113 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1114 the possible architectures.
1116 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1118 * New native configurations
1120 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1121 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1122 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1123 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1124 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1125 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1129 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1130 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1131 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1132 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1133 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1135 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1139 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1140 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1141 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1142 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1143 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1147 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1149 * Windows 95/NT native
1151 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1152 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1153 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1154 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1155 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1157 * dont-repeat command
1159 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1160 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1161 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1162 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1164 * Send break instead of ^C
1166 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1167 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1168 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1170 * Remote protocol timeout
1172 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1173 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1174 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1176 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1178 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1179 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1180 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1181 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1182 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1184 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1185 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1186 automatically on hpux10.
1188 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1190 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1192 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1194 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1195 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1196 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1197 every character. The default value is 1050.
1199 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1201 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1202 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1203 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1204 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1205 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1206 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1208 * Speedups for remote debugging
1210 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1211 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1212 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1214 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1216 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1217 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1219 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1221 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1223 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1224 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1226 * Remote targets use caching
1228 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1229 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1230 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1231 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1232 off' turns the the data cache off.
1234 * Remote targets may have threads
1236 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1237 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1238 gdb/remote.c for details.
1242 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1243 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1244 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1245 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1246 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1247 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1248 sequence is something like
1250 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1252 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1256 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1257 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1258 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1259 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1260 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1261 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1262 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1263 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1267 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1268 but does simplify configuration and building.
1272 GDB now supports hpux10.
1274 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1276 * New native configurations
1278 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1279 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1280 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1281 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1285 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1286 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1287 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1288 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1291 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1293 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1294 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1295 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1296 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1297 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1299 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1301 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1302 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1305 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1307 To execute the command use:
1310 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1311 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1312 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1314 * New `if' and `while' commands
1316 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1317 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1318 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1319 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1320 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1321 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1322 if the expression is zero.
1324 * Fortran source language mode
1326 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1327 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1328 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1329 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1332 * Better HPUX support
1334 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1335 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1336 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1337 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1338 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1344 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1345 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1351 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1352 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1355 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1356 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1358 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1360 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1361 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1362 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1363 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1364 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1365 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1367 * New DOS host serial code
1369 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1370 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1373 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1375 * New "complete" command
1377 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1378 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1380 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1382 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1383 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1385 * Breakpoint hit counts
1387 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1388 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1389 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1390 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1391 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1394 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1396 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1397 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1398 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1400 * Shared library breakpoints
1402 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1403 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1405 * Hardware watchpoints
1407 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1408 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1410 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1414 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1415 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1417 * Improved Irix 5 support
1419 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1421 * Improved HPPA support
1423 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1425 * New native configurations
1427 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1428 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1429 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1430 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1434 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1435 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1438 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1440 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1441 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1445 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1446 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1448 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1450 * Irix 5 is now supported
1454 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1455 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1456 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1457 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1458 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1461 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1463 * User visible changes:
1467 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1468 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1469 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1470 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1471 debugging info for the mips target).
1473 * DEC Alpha native support
1475 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1476 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1477 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1478 Alpha-specific notes.
1480 * Preliminary thread implementation
1482 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1484 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1486 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1487 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1490 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1492 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1493 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1494 call methods, ...etc.
1496 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1498 * User visible changes:
1500 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1501 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1502 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1503 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1505 Filename completion now works.
1507 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1508 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1509 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1511 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1512 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1513 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1514 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1515 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1519 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1520 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1523 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1527 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1528 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1529 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1533 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1534 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1535 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1536 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1537 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1541 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1542 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1543 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1545 * New targets supported
1547 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1548 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1549 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1550 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1551 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1553 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1554 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1555 GO32 memory extender.
1557 * New remote protocols
1559 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1561 * New source languages supported
1563 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1564 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1565 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1568 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1570 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1572 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1573 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1574 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1575 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1576 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1577 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1579 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1581 * Faster and better demangling
1583 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1584 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1585 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1586 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1587 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1588 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1591 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1592 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1593 compiler does not actually implement.
1595 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1597 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1598 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1599 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1600 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1601 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1602 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1605 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1606 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1608 * Improved configure script
1610 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1611 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1612 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1613 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1615 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1616 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1617 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1618 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1619 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1620 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1622 * Documentation improvements
1624 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1625 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1626 before submitting changes.
1628 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1629 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1630 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1631 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1632 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1634 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1635 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1636 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1637 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1638 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1639 around this problem.
1643 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1644 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1645 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1648 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1649 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1651 * New native hosts supported
1653 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1654 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1656 * New targets supported
1658 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1660 * New file formats supported
1662 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1663 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1667 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1669 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1670 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1672 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1673 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1674 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1676 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1677 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1679 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1680 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1681 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1684 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1685 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1686 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1687 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1688 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1690 * Internal improvements
1692 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1693 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1695 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1696 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1697 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1698 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1699 shared code that handles any of them.
1701 * New command line options
1703 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1707 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1708 General Public License.
1710 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1712 * Host/native/target split
1714 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1715 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1716 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1717 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1718 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1720 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1721 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1722 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1723 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1724 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1725 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1726 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1728 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1729 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1730 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1732 * New hosts supported
1734 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1735 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1736 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1738 * New targets supported
1740 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1741 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1743 * New native hosts supported
1745 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1746 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1747 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1749 * New file formats supported
1751 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1752 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1753 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1757 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1758 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1759 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1761 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1763 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1764 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1765 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1766 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1770 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1771 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1772 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1774 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1778 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1779 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1782 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1783 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1785 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1786 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1787 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1788 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1789 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1790 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1792 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1793 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1794 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1795 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1799 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1800 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1801 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1802 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1803 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1805 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1806 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1807 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1808 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1812 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1813 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1814 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1815 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1816 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1817 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1818 each instruction being stepped through.
1820 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1821 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1823 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1824 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1825 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1826 processor with a serial port.
1830 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1831 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1832 supported, and what files each one uses.
1836 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1837 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1838 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1839 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1841 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1842 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1843 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1844 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1848 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1849 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1850 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1851 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1852 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1853 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1855 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1858 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1860 * Better support for C++ function names
1862 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1863 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1864 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1865 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1866 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1868 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1869 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1870 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1871 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1872 for the list of formats.
1874 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1876 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1877 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1878 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1879 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1880 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1881 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1884 * New 'maintenance' command
1886 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1887 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1888 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1890 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1891 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1892 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1893 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1894 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1895 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1897 The following commands are new:
1899 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1900 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1901 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1903 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1905 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1906 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1907 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1908 read after argv processing.
1910 * New hosts supported
1912 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1914 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1916 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1917 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1918 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1919 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1920 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1923 * New targets supported
1925 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1927 * More smarts about finding #include files
1929 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1930 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1931 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1932 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1933 the one that contains your sources.
1935 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1936 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1937 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1939 * Interesting infernals change
1941 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1942 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1943 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1944 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1946 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1948 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1949 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1950 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1952 See the ChangeLog for details.
1954 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1956 * New machines supported (host and target)
1958 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1960 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1962 * New malloc package
1964 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1965 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1966 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1967 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1968 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1969 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1973 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1974 'help info proc' for details.
1976 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1978 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1979 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1982 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1984 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1985 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1986 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1987 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1988 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1989 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1991 * Cross byte order fixes
1993 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1994 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1996 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1998 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1999 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2000 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2001 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2002 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2003 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2004 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2005 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2006 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2007 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2009 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2010 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2011 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2012 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2014 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2015 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2016 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2019 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2021 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2022 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2023 shared across multiple host platforms.
2025 * longjmp() handling
2027 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2028 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2029 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2030 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2034 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2035 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2040 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2041 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2042 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2044 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2046 * New machines supported (host and target)
2048 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2050 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2051 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2053 * New machines supported (target)
2055 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2059 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2060 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2061 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2063 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2064 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2065 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2066 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2067 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2070 * New features for SVR4
2072 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2073 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2074 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2076 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2077 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2078 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2080 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2081 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2083 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2085 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2086 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2087 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2088 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2089 same code linked statically.
2093 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2094 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2095 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2096 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2097 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2098 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2102 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2103 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2104 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2107 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2109 * New machines supported (host and target)
2111 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2112 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2113 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2115 * Almost SCO Unix support
2117 We had hoped to support:
2118 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2119 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2120 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2121 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2123 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2125 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2126 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2127 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2128 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2133 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2134 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2135 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2139 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2140 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2141 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2143 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2145 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2146 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2147 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2149 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2150 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2151 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2152 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2155 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2156 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2157 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2158 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2161 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2162 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2165 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2166 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2167 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2170 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2172 * Improved configuration
2174 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2175 Porting BFD is simpler.
2179 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2180 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2181 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2182 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2186 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2188 * New host supported (not target)
2190 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2193 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2195 * Multiple source language support
2197 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2198 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2199 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2200 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2201 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2202 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2206 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2207 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2208 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2209 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2211 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2212 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2213 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2215 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2216 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2220 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2221 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2222 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2223 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2226 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2228 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2229 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2230 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2231 examining core files.
2235 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2238 * New machines supported (host and target)
2240 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2241 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2242 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2244 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2246 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2248 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2250 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2251 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2252 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2254 * New remote interfaces
2260 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2264 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2266 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2267 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2268 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2269 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2270 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2271 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2272 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2273 stub on the target system.
2275 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2277 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2278 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2279 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2281 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2282 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2285 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2287 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2288 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2290 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2291 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2292 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2294 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2295 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2296 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2297 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2299 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2300 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2301 it is already running. Default is ON.
2303 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2304 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2305 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2306 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2309 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2310 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2311 or the value of the environment variable
2314 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2315 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2318 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2319 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2320 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2322 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2323 history expansion will be performed on
2324 command line input. The default is OFF.
2326 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2327 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2328 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2330 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2331 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2332 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2335 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2336 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2337 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2340 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2341 ``set width'' instead.
2343 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2344 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2345 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2346 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2348 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2351 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2354 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2357 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2360 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2362 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2363 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2364 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2368 * Support for Shared Libraries
2370 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2371 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2372 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2373 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2374 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2375 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2376 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2377 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2379 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2380 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2381 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2383 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2388 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2389 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2390 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2391 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2392 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2393 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2395 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2397 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2399 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2400 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2401 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2404 * C++ multiple inheritance
2406 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2409 * C++ exception handling
2411 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2412 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2413 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2416 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2417 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2418 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2420 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2421 current stack frame.
2424 * Minor command changes
2426 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2427 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2428 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2430 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2431 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2432 frames without printing.
2434 * New directory command
2436 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2437 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2438 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2439 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2440 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2442 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2444 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2447 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2448 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2449 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2450 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob