1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
6 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
7 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
8 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
10 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
11 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
12 -Bsymbolic linker option.
14 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
15 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
18 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
19 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
21 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
22 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
24 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
26 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
27 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
28 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
30 * Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
33 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
34 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
37 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
40 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
41 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
42 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
44 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
46 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
48 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
49 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
50 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
52 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
53 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
55 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
56 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
57 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
58 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
59 Windows and SymbianOS).
61 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
62 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
64 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
65 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
71 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
72 when debugging using remote targets.
74 set mem inaccessible-by-default
75 show mem inaccessible-by-default
76 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
77 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
78 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
79 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
80 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
82 set breakpoint auto-hw
83 show breakpoint auto-hw
84 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
85 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
86 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
87 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
88 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
89 including "next" and "finish".
92 catch exception unhandled
93 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
96 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
100 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
101 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
102 an alias to "set sysroot".
105 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
106 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
109 * New native configurations
111 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
116 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
117 not query the target for its built-in description.
121 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
122 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
123 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
128 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
129 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
132 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
137 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
138 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
140 qXfer:libraries:read:
141 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
142 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
143 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
144 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
148 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
157 i[34567]86-*-netware*
158 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
159 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
161 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
164 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
165 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
174 * Other removed features
181 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
188 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
193 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
194 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
199 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
200 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
202 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
204 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
205 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
206 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
207 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
211 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
212 in debugging information.
216 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
217 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
219 set mips stack-arg-size
220 set mips saved-gpreg-size
222 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
224 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
229 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
231 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
232 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
233 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
235 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
236 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
239 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
240 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
242 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
243 stub provides the required support.
245 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
246 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
251 unset substitute-path
253 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
254 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
255 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
256 between compilation and debugging.
260 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
261 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
262 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
266 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
268 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
269 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
271 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
276 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
277 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
278 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
279 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
283 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
284 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
286 qXfer:memory-map:read:
287 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
288 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
293 Erase and program a flash memory device.
295 * Removed remote packets
298 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
299 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
301 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
305 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
307 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
311 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
312 only if it doesn't already have a value.
314 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
316 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
318 restart <n> Return the program state to a
319 previously saved state.
321 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
323 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
325 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
326 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
328 info forks List forks of the user program that
329 are available to be debugged.
331 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
332 forks of the user program that are
333 available to be debugged.
335 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
336 that are available to be debugged (and
337 kill the forked process).
339 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
340 that are available to be debugged (and
341 allow the process to continue).
345 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
347 * Improved Windows host support
349 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
350 native console support, and remote communications using either
351 network sockets or serial ports.
353 * Improved Modula-2 language support
355 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
356 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
357 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
358 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
359 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
360 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
364 The ARM rdi-share module.
366 The Netware NLM debug server.
368 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
370 * New native configurations
372 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
373 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
377 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
379 * New command line options
381 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
382 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
383 the child (debugged) program exited with.
384 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
385 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
386 specified multiple times and in conjunction
387 with the --command (-x) option.
389 * Deprecated commands removed
391 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
395 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
396 othernames set arm disassembler
397 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
398 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
399 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
402 * New BSD user-level threads support
404 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
405 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
408 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
409 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
410 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
412 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
413 are not yet supported.
415 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
416 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
418 * REMOVED configurations and files
420 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
421 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
422 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
424 * New "set print array-indexes" command
426 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
427 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
430 * VAX floating point support
432 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
434 * User-defined command support
436 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
437 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
438 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
440 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
442 * New command line option
444 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
447 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
449 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
450 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
451 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
452 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
453 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
455 * Internationalization
457 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
458 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
459 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
463 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
464 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
465 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
467 * New native configurations
469 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
473 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
474 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
476 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
478 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
479 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
480 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
483 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
484 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
485 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
497 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
498 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
500 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
502 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
503 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
504 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
514 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
516 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
518 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
519 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
522 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
524 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
525 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
526 IRIX long double values).
530 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
531 command. This problem has been fixed.
533 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
535 * Fix for ``many threads''
537 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
538 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
541 ptrace: No such process.
542 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
544 This problem has been fixed.
546 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
548 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
551 * New ``start'' command.
553 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
555 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
557 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
558 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
559 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
561 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
562 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
563 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
564 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
565 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
566 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
567 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
568 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
569 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
571 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
573 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
574 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
575 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
576 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
577 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
579 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
580 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
581 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
583 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
585 * New native configurations
587 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
588 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
589 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
590 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
591 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
592 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
593 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
595 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
597 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
598 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
599 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
600 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
601 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
602 work, was also included.
604 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
605 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
615 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
616 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
618 * REMOVED configurations and files
620 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
621 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
622 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
623 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
624 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
625 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
626 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
627 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
628 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
630 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
632 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
634 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
636 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
637 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
638 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
639 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
642 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
644 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
645 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
646 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
647 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
648 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
649 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
652 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
654 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
656 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
657 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
658 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
660 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
662 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
663 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
665 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
667 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
668 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
669 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
671 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
673 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
674 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
676 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
678 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
679 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
680 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
682 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
684 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
685 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
686 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
688 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
690 * Removed --with-mmalloc
692 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
693 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
695 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
697 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
698 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
699 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
700 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
702 * Revised SPARC target
704 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
705 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
706 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
707 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
708 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
712 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
713 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
714 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
717 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
719 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
720 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
723 * C++ nested types and namespaces
725 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
726 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
727 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
728 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
729 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
730 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
731 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
732 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
733 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
735 * New native configurations
737 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
738 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
739 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
740 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
741 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
743 * New debugging protocols
745 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
747 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
749 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
750 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
751 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
753 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
755 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
756 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
757 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
760 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
761 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
762 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
763 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
764 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
765 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
766 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
767 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
768 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
770 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
772 * REMOVED configurations and files
774 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
775 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
776 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
777 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
778 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
779 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
780 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
781 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
782 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
783 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
784 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
785 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
786 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
787 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
788 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
789 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
790 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
792 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
796 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
799 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
801 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
802 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
803 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
806 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
807 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
812 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
813 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
814 remote protocol documentation for details.
816 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
818 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
819 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
820 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
823 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
825 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
826 per-thread variables.
828 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
830 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
831 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
833 * Separate debug info.
835 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
836 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
837 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
838 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
839 and optional debug files.
841 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
843 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
844 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
847 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
848 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
852 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
853 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
854 considered "useable".
856 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
858 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
859 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
862 * GDB supports logging output to a file
864 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
865 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
867 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
869 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
870 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
873 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
875 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
876 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
880 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
881 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
882 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
883 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
884 data, for more informative profiling results.
886 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
888 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
889 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
890 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
892 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
895 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
896 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
897 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
898 in a subsequent -var-update.
900 * New native configurations.
902 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
904 * Multi-arched targets.
906 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
907 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
909 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
911 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
912 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
913 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
916 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
917 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
918 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
919 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
920 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
921 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
922 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
923 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
924 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
925 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
926 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
927 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
929 * REMOVED configurations and files
932 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
933 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
934 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
935 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
936 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
937 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
939 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
940 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
941 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
942 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
943 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
944 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
946 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
948 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
949 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
950 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
951 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
952 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
954 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
956 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
958 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
959 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
960 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
961 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
962 shared libs like mad''.
964 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
966 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
967 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
968 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
969 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
971 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
973 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
974 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
977 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
978 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
980 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
981 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
983 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
984 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
985 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
986 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
988 * Multi-arched targets.
990 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
991 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
993 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
994 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
995 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
999 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1002 * New native configurations
1004 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1005 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1006 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1007 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1009 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1011 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1012 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1013 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1014 permanently REMOVED.
1016 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1017 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1018 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1019 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1020 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1021 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1022 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1023 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1024 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1025 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1027 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1028 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1030 * OBSOLETE languages
1032 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1034 * REMOVED configurations and files
1036 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1037 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1038 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1039 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1040 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1042 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1044 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1046 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1047 commands. The default is 1024.
1049 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1051 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1053 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1055 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1056 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1057 from a file into memory (restore).
1059 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1061 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1062 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1063 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1065 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1073 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1074 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1075 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1077 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1078 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1079 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1081 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1082 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1083 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1085 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1086 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1087 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1089 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1091 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1093 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1094 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1095 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1096 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1097 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1098 (notably embedded) targets.
1100 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1102 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1103 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1104 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1105 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1107 * New command line option
1109 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1111 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1113 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1114 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1115 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1116 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1117 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1118 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1119 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1120 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1121 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1122 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1124 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1126 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1127 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1129 * New native configurations
1131 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1132 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1133 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1134 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1138 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1140 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1142 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1143 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1144 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1145 permanently REMOVED.
1147 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1148 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1149 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1150 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1151 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1153 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1155 * REMOVED configurations and files
1157 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1159 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1160 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1161 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1162 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1163 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1164 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1165 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1166 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1167 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1168 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1169 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1171 * Changes to command line processing
1173 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1174 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1176 * Changes to key bindings
1178 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1180 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1182 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1184 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1187 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1189 Numerous documentation fixes.
1191 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1193 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1195 * New native configurations
1197 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1198 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1199 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1200 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1201 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1202 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1206 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1208 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1210 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1212 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1213 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1214 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1215 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1216 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1218 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1219 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1220 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1221 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1222 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1223 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1224 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1225 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1227 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1228 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1230 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1231 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1232 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1233 permanently REMOVED.
1235 * REMOVED configurations and files
1237 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1238 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1240 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1244 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1246 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1247 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1252 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1254 * The MI enabled by default.
1256 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1257 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1258 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1259 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1260 which is now deprecated.
1262 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1264 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1265 main features are supported:
1267 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1269 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1272 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1274 - a Pascal expression parser.
1276 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1278 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1280 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1282 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1283 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1285 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1287 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1289 * Changes in completion.
1291 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1292 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1293 users expect at the shell prompt.
1295 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1296 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1297 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1298 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1299 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1300 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1301 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1303 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1305 * New platform-independent commands:
1307 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1308 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1309 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1311 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1313 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1314 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1315 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1317 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1319 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1320 multi-threaded programs though.
1322 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1324 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1326 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1327 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1330 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1332 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1333 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1334 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1335 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1336 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1339 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1340 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1341 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1343 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1345 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1346 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1348 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1349 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1352 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1353 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1354 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1355 a given linear address.
1357 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1358 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1359 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1361 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1363 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1365 * Changes in documentation.
1367 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1368 Documentation License.
1370 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1373 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1375 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1378 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1379 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1380 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1382 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1384 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1385 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1386 contents of this file.
1390 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1392 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1394 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1396 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1397 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1398 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1399 greater level of detail.
1401 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1403 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1404 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1405 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1408 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1410 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1411 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1412 machines ``out of the box''.
1414 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1415 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1416 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1417 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1418 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1420 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1421 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1422 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1423 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1424 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1426 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1427 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1430 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1433 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1434 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1435 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1436 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1438 * New native configurations
1440 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1441 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1445 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1446 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1447 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1448 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1450 * OBSOLETE configurations
1452 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1453 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1455 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1458 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1459 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1460 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1461 be permanently REMOVED.
1463 * Gould support removed
1465 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1467 * New features for SVR4
1469 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1470 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1471 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1473 * Many C++ enhancements
1475 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1476 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1478 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1480 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1481 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1482 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1483 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1485 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1486 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1488 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1490 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1491 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1492 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1494 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1495 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1497 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1499 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1500 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1501 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1503 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1505 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1506 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1507 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1509 * ``apropos'' command added.
1511 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1512 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1513 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1517 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1518 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1519 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1520 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1521 enabled by configuring with:
1523 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1525 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1527 * New native configurations
1529 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1530 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1531 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1535 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1536 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1537 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1539 * OBSOLETE configurations
1541 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1543 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1544 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1545 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1546 be permanently REMOVED.
1550 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1551 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1552 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1553 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1554 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1555 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1556 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1561 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1563 * set extension-language
1565 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1566 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1567 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1568 set extension-language .c c++
1569 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1570 and their associated languages.
1572 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1574 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1575 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1576 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1580 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1581 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1583 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1584 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1586 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1587 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1588 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1589 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1590 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1591 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1592 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1593 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1595 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1596 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1597 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1598 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1602 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1603 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1604 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1605 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1606 for xdb and dbx commands.
1610 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1611 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1612 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1614 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1615 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1616 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1618 * Debugging across forks
1620 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1625 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1626 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1627 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1629 * GDB remote protocol additions
1631 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1632 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1633 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1634 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1636 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1637 full 64-bit address. The command
1639 set remoteaddresssize 32
1641 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1642 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1645 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1646 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1648 maint packet heythere
1650 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1651 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1654 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1655 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1656 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1658 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1660 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1661 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1662 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1664 * mask-address variable for Mips
1666 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1667 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1668 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1670 * Higher serial baud rates
1672 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1673 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1674 to achieve all of these rates.)
1678 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1679 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1682 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1684 * New native configurations
1686 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1687 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1688 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1689 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1690 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1691 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1692 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1696 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1697 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1698 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1699 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1700 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1701 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1702 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1703 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1704 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1705 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1706 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1708 * New debugging protocols
1710 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1711 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1712 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1713 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1714 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1715 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1719 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1720 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1725 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1726 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1728 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1730 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1731 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1732 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1734 * Live range splitting
1736 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1737 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1738 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1742 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1743 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1747 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1748 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1749 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1754 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1759 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1760 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1761 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1762 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1763 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1764 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1768 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1769 the symbol at the specified address.
1773 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1774 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1775 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1776 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1777 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1781 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1782 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1783 of most MIPS variants.
1787 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1788 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1789 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1793 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1794 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1795 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1796 the possible architectures.
1798 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1800 * New native configurations
1802 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1803 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1804 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1805 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1806 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1807 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1811 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1812 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1813 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1814 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1815 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1817 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1821 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1822 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1823 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1824 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1825 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1829 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1831 * Windows 95/NT native
1833 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1834 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1835 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1836 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1837 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1839 * dont-repeat command
1841 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1842 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1843 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1844 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1846 * Send break instead of ^C
1848 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1849 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1850 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1852 * Remote protocol timeout
1854 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1855 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1856 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1858 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1860 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1861 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1862 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1863 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1864 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1866 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1867 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1868 automatically on hpux10.
1870 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1872 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1874 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1876 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1877 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1878 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1879 every character. The default value is 1050.
1881 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1883 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1884 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1885 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1886 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1887 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1888 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1890 * Speedups for remote debugging
1892 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1893 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1894 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1896 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1898 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1899 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1901 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1903 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1905 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1906 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1908 * Remote targets use caching
1910 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1911 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1912 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1913 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1914 off' turns the the data cache off.
1916 * Remote targets may have threads
1918 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1919 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1920 gdb/remote.c for details.
1924 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1925 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1926 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1927 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1928 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1929 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1930 sequence is something like
1932 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1934 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1938 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1939 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1940 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1941 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1942 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1943 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1944 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1945 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1949 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1950 but does simplify configuration and building.
1954 GDB now supports hpux10.
1956 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1958 * New native configurations
1960 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1961 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1962 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1963 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1967 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1968 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1969 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1970 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1973 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1975 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1976 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1977 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1978 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1979 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1981 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1983 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1984 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1987 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1989 To execute the command use:
1992 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1993 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1994 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1996 * New `if' and `while' commands
1998 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1999 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2000 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2001 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2002 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2003 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2004 if the expression is zero.
2006 * Fortran source language mode
2008 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2009 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2010 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2011 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2014 * Better HPUX support
2016 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2017 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2018 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2019 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2020 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2026 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2027 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2033 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2034 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2037 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2038 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2040 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2042 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2043 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2044 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2045 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2046 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2047 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2049 * New DOS host serial code
2051 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2052 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2055 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2057 * New "complete" command
2059 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2060 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2062 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2064 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2065 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2067 * Breakpoint hit counts
2069 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2070 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2071 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2072 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2073 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2076 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2078 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2079 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2080 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2082 * Shared library breakpoints
2084 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2085 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2087 * Hardware watchpoints
2089 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2090 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2092 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2096 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2097 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2099 * Improved Irix 5 support
2101 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2103 * Improved HPPA support
2105 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2107 * New native configurations
2109 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2110 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2111 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2112 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2116 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2117 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2120 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2122 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2123 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2127 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2128 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2130 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2132 * Irix 5 is now supported
2136 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2137 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2138 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2139 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2140 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2143 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2145 * User visible changes:
2149 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2150 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2151 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2152 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2153 debugging info for the mips target).
2155 * DEC Alpha native support
2157 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2158 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2159 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2160 Alpha-specific notes.
2162 * Preliminary thread implementation
2164 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2166 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2168 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2169 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2172 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2174 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2175 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2176 call methods, ...etc.
2178 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2180 * User visible changes:
2182 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2183 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2184 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2185 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2187 Filename completion now works.
2189 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2190 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2191 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2193 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2194 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2195 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2196 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2197 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2201 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2202 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2205 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2209 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2210 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2211 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2215 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2216 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2217 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2218 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2219 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2223 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2224 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2225 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2227 * New targets supported
2229 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2230 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2231 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2232 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2233 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2235 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2236 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2237 GO32 memory extender.
2239 * New remote protocols
2241 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2243 * New source languages supported
2245 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2246 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2247 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2250 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2252 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2254 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2255 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2256 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2257 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2258 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2259 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2261 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2263 * Faster and better demangling
2265 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2266 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2267 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2268 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2269 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2270 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2273 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2274 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2275 compiler does not actually implement.
2277 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2279 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2280 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2281 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2282 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2283 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2284 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2287 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2288 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2290 * Improved configure script
2292 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2293 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2294 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2295 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2297 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2298 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2299 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2300 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2301 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2302 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2304 * Documentation improvements
2306 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2307 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2308 before submitting changes.
2310 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2311 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2312 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2313 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2314 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2316 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2317 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2318 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2319 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2320 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2321 around this problem.
2325 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2326 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2327 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2330 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2331 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2333 * New native hosts supported
2335 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2336 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2338 * New targets supported
2340 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2342 * New file formats supported
2344 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2345 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2349 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2351 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2352 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2354 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2355 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2356 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2358 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2359 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2361 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2362 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2363 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2366 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2367 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2368 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2369 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2370 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2372 * Internal improvements
2374 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2375 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2377 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2378 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2379 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2380 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2381 shared code that handles any of them.
2383 * New command line options
2385 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2389 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2390 General Public License.
2392 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2394 * Host/native/target split
2396 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2397 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2398 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2399 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2400 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2402 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2403 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2404 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2405 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2406 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2407 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2408 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2410 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2411 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2412 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2414 * New hosts supported
2416 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2417 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2418 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2420 * New targets supported
2422 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2423 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2425 * New native hosts supported
2427 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2428 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2429 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2431 * New file formats supported
2433 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2434 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2435 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2439 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2440 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2441 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2443 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2445 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2446 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2447 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2448 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2452 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2453 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2454 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2456 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2460 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2461 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2464 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2465 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2467 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2468 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2469 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2470 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2471 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2472 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2474 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2475 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2476 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2477 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2481 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2482 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2483 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2484 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2485 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2487 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2488 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2489 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2490 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2494 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2495 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2496 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2497 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2498 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2499 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2500 each instruction being stepped through.
2502 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2503 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2505 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2506 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2507 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2508 processor with a serial port.
2512 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2513 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2514 supported, and what files each one uses.
2518 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2519 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2520 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2521 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2523 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2524 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2525 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2526 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2530 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2531 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2532 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2533 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2534 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2535 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2537 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2540 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2542 * Better support for C++ function names
2544 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2545 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2546 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2547 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2548 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2550 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2551 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2552 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2553 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2554 for the list of formats.
2556 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2558 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2559 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2560 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2561 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2562 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2563 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2566 * New 'maintenance' command
2568 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2569 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2570 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2572 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2573 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2574 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2575 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2576 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2577 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2579 The following commands are new:
2581 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2582 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2583 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2585 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2587 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2588 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2589 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2590 read after argv processing.
2592 * New hosts supported
2594 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2596 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2598 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2599 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2600 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2601 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2602 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2605 * New targets supported
2607 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2609 * More smarts about finding #include files
2611 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2612 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2613 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2614 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2615 the one that contains your sources.
2617 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2618 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2619 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2621 * Interesting infernals change
2623 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2624 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2625 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2626 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2628 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2630 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2631 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2632 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2634 See the ChangeLog for details.
2636 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2638 * New machines supported (host and target)
2640 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2642 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2644 * New malloc package
2646 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2647 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2648 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2649 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2650 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2651 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2655 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2656 'help info proc' for details.
2658 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2660 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2661 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2664 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2666 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2667 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2668 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2669 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2670 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2671 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2673 * Cross byte order fixes
2675 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2676 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2678 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2680 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2681 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2682 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2683 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2684 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2685 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2686 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2687 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2688 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2689 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2691 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2692 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2693 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2694 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2696 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2697 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2698 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2701 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2703 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2704 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2705 shared across multiple host platforms.
2707 * longjmp() handling
2709 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2710 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2711 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2712 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2716 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2717 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2722 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2723 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2724 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2726 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2728 * New machines supported (host and target)
2730 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2732 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2733 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2735 * New machines supported (target)
2737 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2741 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2742 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2743 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2745 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2746 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2747 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2748 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2749 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2752 * New features for SVR4
2754 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2755 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2756 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2758 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2759 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2760 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2762 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2763 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2765 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2767 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2768 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2769 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2770 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2771 same code linked statically.
2775 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2776 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2777 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2778 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2779 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2780 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2784 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2785 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2786 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2789 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2791 * New machines supported (host and target)
2793 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2794 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2795 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2797 * Almost SCO Unix support
2799 We had hoped to support:
2800 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2801 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2802 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2803 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2805 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2807 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2808 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2809 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2810 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2815 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2816 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2817 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2821 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2822 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2823 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2825 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2827 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2828 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2829 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2831 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2832 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2833 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2834 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2837 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2838 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2839 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2840 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2843 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2844 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2847 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2848 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2849 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2852 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2854 * Improved configuration
2856 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2857 Porting BFD is simpler.
2861 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2862 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2863 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2864 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2868 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2870 * New host supported (not target)
2872 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2875 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2877 * Multiple source language support
2879 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2880 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2881 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2882 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2883 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2884 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2888 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2889 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2890 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2891 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2893 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2894 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2895 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2897 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2898 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2902 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2903 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2904 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2905 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2908 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2910 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2911 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2912 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2913 examining core files.
2917 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2920 * New machines supported (host and target)
2922 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2923 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2924 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2926 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2928 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2930 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2932 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2933 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2934 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2936 * New remote interfaces
2942 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2946 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2948 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2949 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2950 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2951 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2952 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2953 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2954 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2955 stub on the target system.
2957 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2959 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2960 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2961 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2963 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2964 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2967 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2969 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2970 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2972 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2973 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2974 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2976 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2977 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2978 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2979 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2981 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2982 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2983 it is already running. Default is ON.
2985 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2986 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2987 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2988 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2991 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2992 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2993 or the value of the environment variable
2996 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2997 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3000 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3001 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3002 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3004 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3005 history expansion will be performed on
3006 command line input. The default is OFF.
3008 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3009 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3010 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3012 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3013 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3014 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3017 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3018 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3019 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3022 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3023 ``set width'' instead.
3025 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3026 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3027 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3028 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3030 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3033 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3036 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3039 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3042 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3044 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3045 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3046 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3050 * Support for Shared Libraries
3052 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3053 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3054 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3055 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3056 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3057 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3058 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3059 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3061 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3062 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3063 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3065 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3070 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3071 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3072 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3073 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3074 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3075 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3077 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3079 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3081 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3082 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3083 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3086 * C++ multiple inheritance
3088 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3091 * C++ exception handling
3093 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3094 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3095 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3098 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3099 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3100 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3102 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3103 current stack frame.
3106 * Minor command changes
3108 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3109 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3110 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3112 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3113 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3114 frames without printing.
3116 * New directory command
3118 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3119 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3120 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3121 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3122 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3124 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3126 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3129 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3130 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3131 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3132 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob