1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
7 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
8 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
9 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
10 for tracepoint actions.
12 * "disassemble" command with a /r modifier, print the raw instructions
13 in hex as well as in symbolic form."
15 * Process record and replay
17 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
18 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
19 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
22 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
23 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
24 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
27 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
28 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
31 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
32 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
33 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
34 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
35 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
36 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
37 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
38 the installation instructions for more information.
40 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
41 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
42 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
43 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
45 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
46 now complete on file names.
48 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
49 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
50 For instance, consider:
52 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
53 # struct example variable;
56 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
57 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
59 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
60 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
62 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
63 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
66 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
67 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
68 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
73 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
76 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
77 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
78 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
81 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
82 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
85 Obtains additional operating system information
89 Read or write additional signal information.
91 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
93 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
94 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
95 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
97 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
100 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
101 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
103 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
104 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
105 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
107 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
108 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
110 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
112 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
114 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
115 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
117 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
118 list of section offsets.
120 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
121 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
122 have also been fixed.
124 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
125 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
126 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
128 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
131 template<typename T> class C { };
134 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
136 ptype C<char const *>
138 ptype C<const char *>
141 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
143 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
144 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
146 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
147 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
148 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
150 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
151 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
153 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
156 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
157 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
159 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
160 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
165 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
166 available is determined at configure time.
168 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
170 * Ada tasking support
172 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
176 Print the list of Ada tasks.
178 Print detailed information about task number N.
180 Print the task number of the current task.
182 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
184 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
185 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
187 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
189 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
190 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
191 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
192 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
193 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
194 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
197 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
198 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
201 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
203 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
205 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
207 maint set python print-stack
208 maint show python print-stack
209 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
212 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
217 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
221 Show operating system information about processes.
224 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
227 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
230 Detach from inferior number NUM.
233 Kill inferior number NUM.
237 set sh calling-convention
238 show sh calling-convention
239 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
241 set print symbol-loading
242 show print symbol-loading
243 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
247 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
249 set disassemble-next-line
250 show disassemble-next-line
251 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
254 set remote noack-packet
255 show remote noack-packet
256 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
257 under "New remote packets."
259 set remote query-attached-packet
260 show remote query-attached-packet
261 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
263 set remote read-siginfo-object
264 show remote read-siginfo-object
265 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
268 set remote write-siginfo-object
269 show remote write-siginfo-object
270 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
273 set displaced-stepping
274 show displaced-stepping
275 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
276 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
277 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
281 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
283 maint set internal-error
284 maint show internal-error
285 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
287 maint set internal-warning
288 maint show internal-warning
289 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
294 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
296 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
297 show multiple-symbols
298 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
299 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
300 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
302 set breakpoint always-inserted
303 show breakpoint always-inserted
304 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
305 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
306 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
308 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
309 show arm fallback-mode
310 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
312 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
313 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
314 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
315 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
317 set disable-randomization
318 show disable-randomization
319 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
320 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
321 multiple debugging sessions.
325 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
330 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
331 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
332 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
333 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
335 set target-wide-charset
336 show target-wide-charset
337 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
338 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
340 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
342 set tcp connect-timeout
343 show tcp connect-timeout
344 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
345 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
346 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
348 set libthread-db-search-path
349 show libthread-db-search-path
350 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
353 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
354 show schedule-multiple
355 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
361 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
362 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
363 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
367 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
368 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
369 alias for the `fork' command.
372 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
373 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
374 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
377 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
378 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
379 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
383 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
384 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
385 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
388 * New native configurations
390 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
392 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
396 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
397 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
398 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
400 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
401 (mingw32ce) debugging.
407 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
409 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
411 * New native configurations
413 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
414 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
418 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
419 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
421 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
423 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
424 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
425 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
426 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
428 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
429 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
431 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
434 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
435 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
436 and in inlined functions.
438 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
439 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
440 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
442 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
444 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
445 registers on PowerPC targets.
447 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
448 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
450 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
451 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
453 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
454 extended-remote mode.
456 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
457 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
458 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
459 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
461 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
462 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
463 target architectures.
465 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
466 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
467 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
468 stored in two consecutive float registers.
470 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
473 * Improved support for debugging Ada
474 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
476 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
477 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
478 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
479 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
481 - Improved command completion in Ada
484 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
489 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
490 show print frame-arguments
491 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
492 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
497 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
504 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
513 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
516 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
520 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
522 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
524 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
525 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
526 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
528 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
529 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
530 -Bsymbolic linker option.
532 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
533 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
536 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
537 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
539 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
540 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
542 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
544 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
545 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
546 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
548 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
549 automatically displayed as character or string data.
551 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
552 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
555 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
556 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
557 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
559 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
562 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
563 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
564 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
566 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
568 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
570 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
571 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
572 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
574 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
575 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
577 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
578 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
579 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
580 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
581 Windows and SymbianOS).
583 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
584 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
586 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
587 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
593 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
594 when debugging using remote targets.
596 set mem inaccessible-by-default
597 show mem inaccessible-by-default
598 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
599 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
600 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
601 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
602 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
604 set breakpoint auto-hw
605 show breakpoint auto-hw
606 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
607 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
608 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
609 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
610 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
611 including "next" and "finish".
614 catch exception unhandled
615 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
618 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
622 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
623 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
624 an alias to "set sysroot".
627 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
628 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
631 * New native configurations
633 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
638 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
639 not query the target for its built-in description.
643 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
644 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
645 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
650 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
651 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
654 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
659 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
660 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
662 qXfer:libraries:read:
663 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
664 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
665 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
666 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
670 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
679 i[34567]86-*-netware*
680 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
681 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
683 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
686 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
687 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
696 * Other removed features
703 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
710 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
715 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
716 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
721 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
722 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
724 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
726 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
727 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
728 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
729 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
733 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
734 in debugging information.
738 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
739 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
741 set mips stack-arg-size
742 set mips saved-gpreg-size
744 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
746 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
751 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
753 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
754 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
755 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
757 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
758 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
761 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
762 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
764 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
765 stub provides the required support.
767 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
768 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
773 unset substitute-path
775 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
776 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
777 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
778 between compilation and debugging.
782 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
783 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
784 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
788 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
790 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
791 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
793 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
798 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
799 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
800 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
801 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
805 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
806 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
808 qXfer:memory-map:read:
809 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
810 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
815 Erase and program a flash memory device.
817 * Removed remote packets
820 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
821 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
823 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
827 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
829 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
833 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
834 only if it doesn't already have a value.
836 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
838 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
840 restart <n> Return the program state to a
841 previously saved state.
843 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
845 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
847 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
848 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
850 info forks List forks of the user program that
851 are available to be debugged.
853 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
854 forks of the user program that are
855 available to be debugged.
857 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
858 that are available to be debugged (and
859 kill the forked process).
861 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
862 that are available to be debugged (and
863 allow the process to continue).
867 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
869 * Improved Windows host support
871 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
872 native console support, and remote communications using either
873 network sockets or serial ports.
875 * Improved Modula-2 language support
877 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
878 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
879 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
880 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
881 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
882 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
886 The ARM rdi-share module.
888 The Netware NLM debug server.
890 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
892 * New native configurations
894 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
895 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
899 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
901 * New command line options
903 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
904 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
905 the child (debugged) program exited with.
906 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
907 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
908 specified multiple times and in conjunction
909 with the --command (-x) option.
911 * Deprecated commands removed
913 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
917 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
918 othernames set arm disassembler
919 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
920 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
921 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
924 * New BSD user-level threads support
926 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
927 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
930 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
931 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
932 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
934 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
935 are not yet supported.
937 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
938 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
940 * REMOVED configurations and files
942 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
943 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
944 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
946 * New "set print array-indexes" command
948 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
949 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
952 * VAX floating point support
954 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
956 * User-defined command support
958 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
959 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
960 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
962 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
964 * New command line option
966 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
969 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
971 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
972 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
973 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
974 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
975 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
977 * Internationalization
979 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
980 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
981 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
985 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
986 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
987 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
989 * New native configurations
991 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
995 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
996 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
998 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1000 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1001 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1002 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1005 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1006 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1007 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1017 powerpc bdm protocol
1019 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1020 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1022 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1024 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1025 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1026 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1027 permanently REMOVED.
1036 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1038 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1040 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1041 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1044 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1046 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1047 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1048 IRIX long double values).
1052 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1053 command. This problem has been fixed.
1055 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1057 * Fix for ``many threads''
1059 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1060 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1063 ptrace: No such process.
1064 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1066 This problem has been fixed.
1068 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1070 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1073 * New ``start'' command.
1075 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1077 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1079 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1080 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1081 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1083 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1084 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1085 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1086 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1087 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1088 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1089 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1090 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1091 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1093 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1095 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1096 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1097 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1098 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1099 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1101 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1102 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1103 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1105 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1107 * New native configurations
1109 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1110 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1111 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1112 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1113 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1114 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1115 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1117 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1119 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1120 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1121 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1122 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1123 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1124 work, was also included.
1126 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1127 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1137 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1138 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1140 * REMOVED configurations and files
1142 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1143 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1144 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1145 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1146 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1147 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1148 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1149 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1150 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1151 sonymips mips-sony-*
1152 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1154 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1156 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1158 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1159 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1160 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1161 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1164 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1166 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1167 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1168 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1169 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1170 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1171 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1174 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1176 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1178 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1179 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1180 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1182 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1184 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1185 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1187 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1189 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1190 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1191 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1193 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1195 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1196 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1198 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1200 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1201 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1202 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1204 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1206 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1207 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1208 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1210 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1212 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1214 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1215 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1217 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1219 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1220 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1221 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1222 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1224 * Revised SPARC target
1226 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1227 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1228 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1229 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1230 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1234 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1235 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1236 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1239 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1241 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1242 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1245 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1247 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1248 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1249 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1250 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1251 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1252 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1253 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1254 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1255 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1257 * New native configurations
1259 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1260 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1261 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1262 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1263 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1265 * New debugging protocols
1267 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1269 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1271 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1272 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1273 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1275 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1277 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1278 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1279 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1280 permanently REMOVED.
1282 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1283 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1284 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1285 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1286 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1287 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1288 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1289 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1290 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1291 sonymips mips-sony-*
1292 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1294 * REMOVED configurations and files
1296 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1297 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1298 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1299 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1300 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1301 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1302 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1303 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1304 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1305 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1306 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1307 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1308 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1309 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1310 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1311 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1312 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1314 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1318 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1319 integrated into GDB.
1321 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1323 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1324 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1325 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1328 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1329 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1330 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1334 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1335 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1336 remote protocol documentation for details.
1338 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1340 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1341 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1342 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1345 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1347 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1348 per-thread variables.
1350 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1352 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1353 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1355 * Separate debug info.
1357 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1358 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1359 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1360 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1361 and optional debug files.
1363 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1365 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1366 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1369 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1370 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1374 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1375 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1376 considered "useable".
1378 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1380 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1381 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1384 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1386 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1387 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1389 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1391 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1392 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1395 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1397 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1398 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1402 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1403 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1404 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1405 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1406 data, for more informative profiling results.
1408 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1410 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1411 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1412 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1414 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1417 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1418 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1419 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1420 in a subsequent -var-update.
1422 * New native configurations.
1424 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1426 * Multi-arched targets.
1428 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1429 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1431 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1433 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1434 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1435 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1436 permanently REMOVED.
1438 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1439 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1440 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1441 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1442 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1443 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1444 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1445 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1446 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1447 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1448 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1449 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1451 * REMOVED configurations and files
1454 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1455 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1456 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1457 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1458 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1459 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1461 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1462 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1463 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1464 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1465 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1466 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1468 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1470 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1471 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1472 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1473 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1474 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1476 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1478 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1480 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1481 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1482 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1483 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1484 shared libs like mad''.
1486 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1488 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1489 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1490 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1491 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1493 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1495 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1496 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1499 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1500 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1502 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1503 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1505 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1506 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1507 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1508 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1510 * Multi-arched targets.
1512 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1513 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1515 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1516 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1517 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1521 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1524 * New native configurations
1526 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1527 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1528 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1529 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1531 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1533 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1534 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1535 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1536 permanently REMOVED.
1538 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1539 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1540 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1541 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1542 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1543 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1544 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1545 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1546 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1547 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1549 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1550 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1552 * OBSOLETE languages
1554 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1556 * REMOVED configurations and files
1558 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1559 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1560 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1561 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1562 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1564 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1566 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1568 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1569 commands. The default is 1024.
1571 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1573 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1575 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1577 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1578 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1579 from a file into memory (restore).
1581 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1583 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1584 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1585 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1587 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1595 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1596 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1597 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1599 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1600 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1601 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1603 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1604 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1605 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1607 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1608 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1609 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1611 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1613 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1615 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1616 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1617 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1618 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1619 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1620 (notably embedded) targets.
1622 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1624 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1625 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1626 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1627 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1629 * New command line option
1631 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1633 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1635 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1636 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1637 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1638 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1639 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1640 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1641 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1642 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1643 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1644 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1646 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1648 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1649 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1651 * New native configurations
1653 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1654 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1655 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1656 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1660 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1662 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1664 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1665 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1666 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1667 permanently REMOVED.
1669 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1670 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1671 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1672 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1673 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1675 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1677 * REMOVED configurations and files
1679 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1681 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1682 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1683 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1684 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1685 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1686 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1687 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1688 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1689 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1690 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1691 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1693 * Changes to command line processing
1695 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1696 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1698 * Changes to key bindings
1700 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1702 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1704 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1706 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1709 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1711 Numerous documentation fixes.
1713 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1715 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1717 * New native configurations
1719 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1720 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1721 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1722 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1723 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1724 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1728 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1730 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1732 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1734 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1735 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1736 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1737 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1738 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1740 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1741 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1742 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1743 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1744 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1745 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1746 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1747 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1749 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1750 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1752 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1753 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1754 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1755 permanently REMOVED.
1757 * REMOVED configurations and files
1759 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1760 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1762 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1766 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1768 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1769 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1774 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1776 * The MI enabled by default.
1778 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1779 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1780 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1781 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1782 which is now deprecated.
1784 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1786 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1787 main features are supported:
1789 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1791 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1794 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1796 - a Pascal expression parser.
1798 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1800 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1802 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1804 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1805 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1807 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1809 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1811 * Changes in completion.
1813 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1814 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1815 users expect at the shell prompt.
1817 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1818 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1819 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1820 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1821 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1822 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1823 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1825 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1827 * New platform-independent commands:
1829 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1830 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1831 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1833 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1835 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1836 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1837 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1839 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1841 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1842 multi-threaded programs though.
1844 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1846 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1848 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1849 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1852 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1854 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1855 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1856 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1857 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1858 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1861 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1862 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1863 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1865 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1867 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1868 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1870 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1871 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1874 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1875 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1876 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1877 a given linear address.
1879 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1880 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1881 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1883 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1885 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1887 * Changes in documentation.
1889 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1890 Documentation License.
1892 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1895 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1897 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1900 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1901 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1902 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1904 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1906 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1907 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1908 contents of this file.
1912 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1914 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1916 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1918 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1919 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1920 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1921 greater level of detail.
1923 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1925 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1926 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1927 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1930 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1932 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1933 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1934 machines ``out of the box''.
1936 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1937 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1938 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1939 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1940 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1942 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1943 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1944 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1945 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1946 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1948 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1949 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1952 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1955 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1956 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1957 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1958 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1960 * New native configurations
1962 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1963 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1967 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1968 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1969 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1970 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1972 * OBSOLETE configurations
1974 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1975 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1977 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1980 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1981 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1982 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1983 be permanently REMOVED.
1985 * Gould support removed
1987 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1989 * New features for SVR4
1991 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1992 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1993 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1995 * Many C++ enhancements
1997 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1998 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2000 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2002 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2003 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2004 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2005 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2007 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2008 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2010 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2012 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2013 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2014 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2016 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2017 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2019 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2021 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2022 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2023 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2025 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2027 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2028 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2029 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2031 * ``apropos'' command added.
2033 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2034 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2035 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2039 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2040 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2041 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2042 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2043 enabled by configuring with:
2045 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2047 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2049 * New native configurations
2051 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2052 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2053 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2057 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2058 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2059 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2061 * OBSOLETE configurations
2063 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2065 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2066 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2067 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2068 be permanently REMOVED.
2072 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2073 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2074 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2075 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2076 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2077 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2078 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2083 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2085 * set extension-language
2087 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2088 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2089 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2090 set extension-language .c c++
2091 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2092 and their associated languages.
2094 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2096 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2097 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2098 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2102 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2103 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2105 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2106 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2108 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2109 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2110 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2111 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2112 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2113 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2114 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2115 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2117 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2118 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2119 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2120 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2124 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2125 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2126 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2127 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2128 for xdb and dbx commands.
2132 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2133 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2134 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2136 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2137 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2138 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2140 * Debugging across forks
2142 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2147 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2148 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2149 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2151 * GDB remote protocol additions
2153 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2154 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2155 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2156 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2158 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2159 full 64-bit address. The command
2161 set remoteaddresssize 32
2163 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2164 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2167 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2168 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2170 maint packet heythere
2172 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2173 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2176 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2177 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2178 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2180 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2182 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2183 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2184 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2186 * mask-address variable for Mips
2188 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2189 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2190 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2192 * Higher serial baud rates
2194 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2195 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2196 to achieve all of these rates.)
2200 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2201 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2204 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2206 * New native configurations
2208 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2209 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2210 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2211 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2212 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2213 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2214 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2218 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2219 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2220 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2221 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2222 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2223 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2224 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2225 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2226 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2227 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2228 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2230 * New debugging protocols
2232 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2233 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2234 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2235 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2236 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2237 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2241 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2242 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2247 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2248 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2250 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2252 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2253 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2254 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2256 * Live range splitting
2258 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2259 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2260 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2264 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2265 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2269 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2270 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2271 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2276 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2281 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2282 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2283 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2284 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2285 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2286 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2290 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2291 the symbol at the specified address.
2295 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2296 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2297 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2298 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2299 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2303 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2304 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2305 of most MIPS variants.
2309 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2310 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2311 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2315 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2316 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2317 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2318 the possible architectures.
2320 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2322 * New native configurations
2324 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2325 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2326 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2327 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2328 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2329 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2333 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2334 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2335 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2336 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2337 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2339 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2343 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2344 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2345 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2346 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2347 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2351 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2353 * Windows 95/NT native
2355 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2356 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2357 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2358 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2359 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2361 * dont-repeat command
2363 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2364 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2365 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2366 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2368 * Send break instead of ^C
2370 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2371 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2372 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2374 * Remote protocol timeout
2376 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2377 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2378 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2380 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2382 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2383 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2384 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2385 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2386 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2388 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2389 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2390 automatically on hpux10.
2392 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2394 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2396 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2398 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2399 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2400 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2401 every character. The default value is 1050.
2403 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2405 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2406 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2407 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2408 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2409 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2410 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2412 * Speedups for remote debugging
2414 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2415 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2416 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2418 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2420 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2421 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2423 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2425 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2427 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2428 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2430 * Remote targets use caching
2432 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2433 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2434 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2435 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2436 off' turns the the data cache off.
2438 * Remote targets may have threads
2440 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2441 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2442 gdb/remote.c for details.
2446 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2447 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2448 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2449 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2450 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2451 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2452 sequence is something like
2454 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2456 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2460 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2461 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2462 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2463 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2464 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2465 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2466 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2467 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2471 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2472 but does simplify configuration and building.
2476 GDB now supports hpux10.
2478 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2480 * New native configurations
2482 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2483 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2484 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2485 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2489 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2490 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2491 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2492 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2495 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2497 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2498 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2499 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2500 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2501 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2503 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2505 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2506 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2509 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2511 To execute the command use:
2514 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2515 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2516 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2518 * New `if' and `while' commands
2520 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2521 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2522 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2523 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2524 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2525 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2526 if the expression is zero.
2528 * Fortran source language mode
2530 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2531 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2532 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2533 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2536 * Better HPUX support
2538 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2539 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2540 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2541 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2542 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2548 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2549 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2555 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2556 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2559 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2560 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2562 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2564 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2565 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2566 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2567 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2568 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2569 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2571 * New DOS host serial code
2573 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2574 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2577 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2579 * New "complete" command
2581 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2582 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2584 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2586 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2587 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2589 * Breakpoint hit counts
2591 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2592 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2593 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2594 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2595 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2598 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2600 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2601 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2602 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2604 * Shared library breakpoints
2606 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2607 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2609 * Hardware watchpoints
2611 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2612 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2614 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2618 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2619 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2621 * Improved Irix 5 support
2623 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2625 * Improved HPPA support
2627 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2629 * New native configurations
2631 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2632 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2633 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2634 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2638 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2639 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2642 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2644 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2645 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2649 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2650 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2652 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2654 * Irix 5 is now supported
2658 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2659 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2660 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2661 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2662 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2665 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2667 * User visible changes:
2671 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2672 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2673 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2674 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2675 debugging info for the mips target).
2677 * DEC Alpha native support
2679 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2680 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2681 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2682 Alpha-specific notes.
2684 * Preliminary thread implementation
2686 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2688 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2690 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2691 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2694 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2696 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2697 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2698 call methods, ...etc.
2700 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2702 * User visible changes:
2704 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2705 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2706 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2707 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2709 Filename completion now works.
2711 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2712 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2713 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2715 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2716 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2717 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2718 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2719 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2723 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2724 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2727 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2731 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2732 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2733 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2737 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2738 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2739 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2740 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2741 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2745 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2746 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2747 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2749 * New targets supported
2751 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2752 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2753 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2754 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2755 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2757 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2758 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2759 GO32 memory extender.
2761 * New remote protocols
2763 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2765 * New source languages supported
2767 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2768 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2769 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2772 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2774 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2776 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2777 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2778 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2779 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2780 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2781 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2783 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2785 * Faster and better demangling
2787 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2788 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2789 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2790 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2791 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2792 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2795 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2796 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2797 compiler does not actually implement.
2799 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2801 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2802 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2803 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2804 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2805 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2806 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2809 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2810 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2812 * Improved configure script
2814 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2815 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2816 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2817 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2819 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2820 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2821 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2822 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2823 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2824 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2826 * Documentation improvements
2828 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2829 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2830 before submitting changes.
2832 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2833 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2834 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2835 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2836 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2838 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2839 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2840 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2841 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2842 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2843 around this problem.
2847 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2848 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2849 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2852 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2853 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2855 * New native hosts supported
2857 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2858 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2860 * New targets supported
2862 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2864 * New file formats supported
2866 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2867 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2871 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2873 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2874 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2876 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2877 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2878 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2880 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2881 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2883 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2884 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2885 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2888 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2889 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2890 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2891 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2892 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2894 * Internal improvements
2896 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2897 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2899 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2900 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2901 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2902 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2903 shared code that handles any of them.
2905 * New command line options
2907 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2911 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2912 General Public License.
2914 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2916 * Host/native/target split
2918 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2919 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2920 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2921 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2922 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2924 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2925 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2926 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2927 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2928 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2929 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2930 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2932 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2933 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2934 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2936 * New hosts supported
2938 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2939 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2940 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2942 * New targets supported
2944 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2945 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2947 * New native hosts supported
2949 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2950 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2951 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2953 * New file formats supported
2955 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2956 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2957 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2961 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2962 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2963 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2965 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2967 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2968 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2969 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2970 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2974 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2975 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2976 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2978 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2982 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2983 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2986 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2987 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2989 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2990 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2991 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2992 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2993 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2994 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2996 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2997 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2998 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2999 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3003 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3004 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3005 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3006 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3007 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3009 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3010 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3011 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3012 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3016 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3017 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3018 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3019 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3020 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3021 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3022 each instruction being stepped through.
3024 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3025 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3027 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3028 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3029 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3030 processor with a serial port.
3034 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3035 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3036 supported, and what files each one uses.
3040 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3041 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3042 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3043 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3045 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3046 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3047 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3048 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3052 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3053 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3054 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3055 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3056 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3057 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3059 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3062 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3064 * Better support for C++ function names
3066 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3067 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3068 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3069 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3070 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3072 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3073 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3074 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3075 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3076 for the list of formats.
3078 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3080 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3081 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3082 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3083 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3084 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3085 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3088 * New 'maintenance' command
3090 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3091 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3092 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3094 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3095 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3096 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3097 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3098 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3099 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3101 The following commands are new:
3103 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3104 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3105 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3107 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3109 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3110 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3111 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3112 read after argv processing.
3114 * New hosts supported
3116 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3118 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3120 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3121 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3122 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3123 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3124 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3127 * New targets supported
3129 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3131 * More smarts about finding #include files
3133 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3134 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3135 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3136 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3137 the one that contains your sources.
3139 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3140 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3141 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3143 * Interesting infernals change
3145 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3146 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3147 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3148 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3150 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3152 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3153 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3154 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3156 See the ChangeLog for details.
3158 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3160 * New machines supported (host and target)
3162 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3164 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3166 * New malloc package
3168 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3169 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3170 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3171 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3172 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3173 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3177 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3178 'help info proc' for details.
3180 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3182 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3183 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3186 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3188 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3189 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3190 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3191 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3192 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3193 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3195 * Cross byte order fixes
3197 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3198 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3200 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3202 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3203 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3204 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3205 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3206 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3207 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3208 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3209 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3210 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3211 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3213 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3214 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3215 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3216 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3218 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3219 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3220 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3223 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3225 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3226 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3227 shared across multiple host platforms.
3229 * longjmp() handling
3231 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3232 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3233 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3234 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3238 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3239 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3244 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3245 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3246 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3248 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3250 * New machines supported (host and target)
3252 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3254 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3255 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3257 * New machines supported (target)
3259 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3263 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3264 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3265 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3267 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3268 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3269 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3270 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3271 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3274 * New features for SVR4
3276 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3277 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3278 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3280 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3281 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3282 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3284 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3285 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3287 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3289 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3290 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3291 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3292 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3293 same code linked statically.
3297 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3298 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3299 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3300 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3301 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3302 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3306 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3307 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3308 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3311 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3313 * New machines supported (host and target)
3315 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3316 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3317 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3319 * Almost SCO Unix support
3321 We had hoped to support:
3322 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3323 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3324 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3325 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3327 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3329 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3330 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3331 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3332 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3337 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3338 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3339 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3343 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3344 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3345 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3347 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3349 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3350 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3351 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3353 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3354 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3355 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3356 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3359 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3360 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3361 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3362 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3365 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3366 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3369 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3370 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3371 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3374 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3376 * Improved configuration
3378 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3379 Porting BFD is simpler.
3383 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3384 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3385 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3386 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3390 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3392 * New host supported (not target)
3394 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3397 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3399 * Multiple source language support
3401 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3402 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3403 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3404 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3405 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3406 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3410 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3411 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3412 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3413 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3415 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3416 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3417 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3419 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3420 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3424 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3425 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3426 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3427 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3430 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3432 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3433 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3434 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3435 examining core files.
3439 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3442 * New machines supported (host and target)
3444 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3445 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3446 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3448 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3450 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3452 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3454 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3455 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3456 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3458 * New remote interfaces
3464 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3468 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3470 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3471 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3472 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3473 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3474 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3475 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3476 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3477 stub on the target system.
3479 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3481 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3482 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3483 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3485 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3486 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3489 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3491 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3492 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3494 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3495 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3496 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3498 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3499 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3500 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3501 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3503 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3504 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3505 it is already running. Default is ON.
3507 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3508 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3509 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3510 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3513 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3514 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3515 or the value of the environment variable
3518 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3519 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3522 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3523 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3524 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3526 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3527 history expansion will be performed on
3528 command line input. The default is OFF.
3530 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3531 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3532 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3534 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3535 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3536 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3539 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3540 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3541 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3544 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3545 ``set width'' instead.
3547 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3548 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3549 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3550 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3552 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3555 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3558 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3561 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3564 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3566 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3567 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3568 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3572 * Support for Shared Libraries
3574 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3575 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3576 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3577 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3578 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3579 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3580 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3581 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3583 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3584 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3585 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3587 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3592 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3593 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3594 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3595 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3596 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3597 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3599 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3601 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3603 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3604 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3605 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3608 * C++ multiple inheritance
3610 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3613 * C++ exception handling
3615 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3616 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3617 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3620 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3621 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3622 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3624 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3625 current stack frame.
3628 * Minor command changes
3630 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3631 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3632 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3634 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3635 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3636 frames without printing.
3638 * New directory command
3640 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3641 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3642 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3643 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3644 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3646 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3648 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3651 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3652 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3653 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3654 where the program that you are debugging will run.