1 What has changed since GDB-3.5?
2 (Organized release by release)
5 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
7 * New "complete" command
9 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
10 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
12 * Trailing space optional in prompt
14 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
15 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
17 * Breakpoint hit counts
19 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
20 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
21 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
22 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
23 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
26 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
28 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
29 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
30 arrays actually contain only short strings.
32 * Shared library breakpoints
34 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
35 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
37 * Hardware watchpoints
39 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
40 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
42 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
46 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
47 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
49 * Improved Irix 5 support
51 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
53 * Improved HPPA support
55 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
57 * New native configurations
59 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
60 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
61 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
62 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
66 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
67 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
70 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
72 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
73 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
77 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
78 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
80 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
82 * Irix 5 is now supported
86 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
87 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
88 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
89 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
90 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
93 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
95 * User visible changes:
99 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
100 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
101 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
102 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
103 debugging info for the mips target).
105 * DEC Alpha native support
107 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
108 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
109 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
110 Alpha-specific notes.
112 * Preliminary thread implementation
114 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
116 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
118 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
119 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
122 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
124 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
125 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
126 call methods, ...etc.
128 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
130 * User visible changes:
132 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
133 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
134 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
135 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
137 Filename completion now works.
139 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
140 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
141 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
143 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
144 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
145 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
146 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
147 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
151 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
152 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
155 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
159 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
160 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
161 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
165 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
166 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
167 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
168 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
169 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
173 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
174 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
175 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
177 * New targets supported
179 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
180 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
181 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
182 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
183 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
185 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
186 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
187 GO32 memory extender.
189 * New remote protocols
191 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
193 * New source languages supported
195 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
196 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
197 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
200 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
202 * HP Precision Architecture supported
204 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
205 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
206 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
207 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
208 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
209 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
211 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
213 * Faster and better demangling
215 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
216 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
217 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
218 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
219 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
220 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
223 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
224 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
225 compiler does not actually implement.
227 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
229 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
230 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
231 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
232 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
233 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
234 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
237 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
238 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
240 * Improved configure script
242 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
243 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
244 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
245 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
247 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
248 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
249 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
250 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
251 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
252 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
254 * Documentation improvements
256 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
257 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
258 before submitting changes.
260 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
261 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
262 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
263 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
264 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
266 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
267 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
268 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
269 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
270 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
275 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
276 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
277 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
280 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
281 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
283 * New native hosts supported
285 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
286 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
288 * New targets supported
290 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
292 * New file formats supported
294 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
295 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
299 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
301 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
302 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
304 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
305 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
306 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
308 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
309 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
311 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
312 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
313 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
316 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
317 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
318 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
319 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
320 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
322 * Internal improvements
324 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
325 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
327 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
328 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
329 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
330 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
331 shared code that handles any of them.
333 * New command line options
335 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
339 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
340 General Public License.
342 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
344 * Host/native/target split
346 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
347 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
348 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
349 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
350 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
352 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
353 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
354 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
355 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
356 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
357 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
358 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
360 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
361 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
362 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
364 * New hosts supported
366 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
367 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
368 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
370 * New targets supported
372 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
373 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
375 * New native hosts supported
377 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
378 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
379 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
381 * New file formats supported
383 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
384 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
385 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
389 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
390 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
391 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
393 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
395 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
396 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
397 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
398 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
402 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
403 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
404 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
406 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
410 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
411 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
414 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
415 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
417 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
418 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
419 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
420 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
421 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
422 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
424 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
425 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
426 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
427 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
431 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
432 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
433 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
434 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
435 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
437 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
438 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
439 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
440 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
444 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
445 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
446 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
447 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
448 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
449 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
450 each instruction being stepped through.
452 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
453 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
455 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
456 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
457 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
458 processor with a serial port.
462 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
463 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
464 supported, and what files each one uses.
468 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
469 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
470 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
471 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
473 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
474 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
475 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
476 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
480 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
481 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
482 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
483 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
484 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
485 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
487 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
490 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
492 * Better support for C++ function names
494 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
495 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
496 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
497 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
498 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
500 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
501 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
502 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
503 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
504 for the list of formats.
506 * G++ symbol mangling problem
508 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
509 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
510 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
511 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
512 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
513 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
516 * New 'maintenance' command
518 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
519 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
520 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
522 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
523 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
524 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
525 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
526 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
527 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
529 The following commands are new:
531 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
532 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
533 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
535 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
537 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
538 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
539 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
540 read after argv processing.
542 * New hosts supported
544 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
546 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
548 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
549 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
550 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
551 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
552 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
555 * New targets supported
557 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
559 * More smarts about finding #include files
561 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
562 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
563 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
564 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
565 the one that contains your sources.
567 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
568 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
569 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
571 * Interesting infernals change
573 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
574 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
575 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
576 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
578 * Bug fixes (of course!)
580 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
581 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
582 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
584 See the ChangeLog for details.
586 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
588 * New machines supported (host and target)
590 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
592 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
596 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
597 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
598 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
599 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
600 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
601 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
605 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
606 'help info proc' for details.
608 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
610 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
611 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
614 * File name changes for MS-DOS
616 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
617 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
618 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
619 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
620 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
621 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
623 * Cross byte order fixes
625 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
626 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
628 * New -mapped and -readnow options
630 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
631 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
632 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
633 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
634 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
635 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
636 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
637 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
638 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
639 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
641 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
642 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
643 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
644 slower, but makes future operations faster.
646 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
647 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
648 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
651 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
653 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
654 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
655 shared across multiple host platforms.
659 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
660 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
661 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
662 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
666 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
667 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
672 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
673 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
674 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
676 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
678 * New machines supported (host and target)
680 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
682 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
683 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
685 * New machines supported (target)
687 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
691 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
692 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
693 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
695 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
696 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
697 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
698 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
699 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
702 * New features for SVR4
704 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
705 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
706 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
708 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
709 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
710 it prints the address mappings of the process.
712 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
713 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
715 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
717 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
718 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
719 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
720 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
721 same code linked statically.
725 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
726 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
727 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
728 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
729 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
730 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
734 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
735 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
736 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
739 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
741 * New machines supported (host and target)
743 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
744 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
745 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
747 * Almost SCO Unix support
749 We had hoped to support:
750 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
751 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
752 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
753 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
755 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
757 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
758 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
759 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
760 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
765 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
766 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
767 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
771 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
772 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
773 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
775 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
777 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
778 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
779 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
781 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
782 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
783 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
784 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
787 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
788 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
789 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
790 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
793 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
794 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
797 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
798 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
799 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
802 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
804 * Improved configuration
806 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
807 Porting BFD is simpler.
811 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
812 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
813 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
814 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
818 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
820 * New host supported (not target)
822 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
825 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
827 * Multiple source language support
829 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
830 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
831 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
832 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
833 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
834 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
838 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
839 currently under development at the State University of New York at
840 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
841 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
843 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
844 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
845 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
847 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
848 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
852 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
853 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
854 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
855 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
858 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
860 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
861 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
862 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
863 examining core files.
867 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
870 * New machines supported (host and target)
872 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
873 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
874 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
876 * New hosts supported (not targets)
878 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
880 * New targets supported (not hosts)
882 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
883 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
884 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
886 * New remote interfaces
892 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
896 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
898 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
899 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
900 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
901 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
902 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
903 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
904 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
905 stub on the target system.
907 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
909 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
910 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
911 object file types such as a.out and coff.
913 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
914 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
917 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
919 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
920 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
922 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
923 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
924 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
926 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
927 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
928 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
929 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
931 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
932 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
933 it is already running. Default is ON.
935 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
936 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
937 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
938 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
941 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
942 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
943 or the value of the environment variable
946 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
947 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
950 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
951 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
952 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
954 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
955 history expansion will be performed on
956 command line input. The default is OFF.
958 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
959 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
960 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
962 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
963 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
964 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
967 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
968 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
969 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
972 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
973 ``set width'' instead.
975 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
976 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
977 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
978 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
980 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
983 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
986 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
989 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
992 * Support for Epoch Environment.
994 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
995 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
996 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1000 * Support for Shared Libraries
1002 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1003 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1004 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1005 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1006 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1007 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1008 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1009 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1011 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1012 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1013 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1015 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1020 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1021 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1022 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1023 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1024 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1025 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1027 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1029 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1031 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1032 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1033 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1036 * C++ multiple inheritance
1038 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1041 * C++ exception handling
1043 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1044 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1045 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1048 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1049 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1050 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1052 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1053 current stack frame.
1056 * Minor command changes
1058 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1059 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1060 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1062 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1063 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1064 frames without printing.
1066 * New directory command
1068 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1069 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1070 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1071 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1072 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1074 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1076 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1079 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1080 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1081 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1082 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob