1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
6 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
9 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
10 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
12 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
14 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
20 set mem inaccessible-by-default
21 show mem inaccessible-by-default
22 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
23 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
24 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
25 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
26 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
28 set breakpoint auto-hw
29 show breakpoint auto-hw
30 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
31 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
32 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
33 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
34 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
35 including "next" and "finish".
38 catch exception unhandled
39 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
42 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
46 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
47 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
48 an alias to "set sysroot".
50 * New native configurations
52 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
57 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
58 not query the target for its built-in description.
62 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
63 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
68 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
69 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
72 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
75 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
80 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
82 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
83 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
84 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
86 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
87 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
90 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
91 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
93 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
94 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
101 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
102 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
103 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
104 between compilation and debugging.
108 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
109 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
110 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
114 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
116 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
117 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
119 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
124 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
125 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
126 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
127 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
131 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
132 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
134 * Removed remote packets
137 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
138 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
140 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
144 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
146 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
150 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
151 only if it doesn't already have a value.
153 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
155 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
157 restart <n> Return the program state to a
158 previously saved state.
160 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
162 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
164 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
165 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
167 info forks List forks of the user program that
168 are available to be debugged.
170 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
171 forks of the user program that are
172 available to be debugged.
174 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
175 that are available to be debugged (and
176 kill the forked process).
178 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
179 that are available to be debugged (and
180 allow the process to continue).
184 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
186 * Improved Windows host support
188 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
189 native console support, and remote communications using either
190 network sockets or serial ports.
192 * Improved Modula-2 language support
194 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
195 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
196 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
197 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
198 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
199 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
203 The ARM rdi-share module.
205 The Netware NLM debug server.
207 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
209 * New native configurations
211 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
212 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
216 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
218 * New command line options
220 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
221 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
222 the child (debugged) program exited with.
223 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
224 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
225 specified multiple times and in conjunction
226 with the --command (-x) option.
228 * Deprecated commands removed
230 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
234 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
235 othernames set arm disassembler
236 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
237 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
238 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
241 * New BSD user-level threads support
243 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
244 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
247 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
248 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
249 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
251 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
252 are not yet supported.
254 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
255 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
257 * REMOVED configurations and files
259 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
260 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
261 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
263 * New "set print array-indexes" command
265 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
266 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
269 * VAX floating point support
271 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
273 * User-defined command support
275 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
276 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
277 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
279 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
281 * New command line option
283 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
286 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
288 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
289 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
290 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
291 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
292 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
294 * Internationalization
296 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
297 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
298 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
302 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
303 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
304 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
306 * New native configurations
308 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
312 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
313 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
315 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
317 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
318 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
319 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
322 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
323 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
324 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
336 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
337 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
339 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
341 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
342 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
343 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
353 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
355 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
357 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
358 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
361 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
363 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
364 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
365 IRIX long double values).
369 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
370 command. This problem has been fixed.
372 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
374 * Fix for ``many threads''
376 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
377 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
380 ptrace: No such process.
381 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
383 This problem has been fixed.
385 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
387 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
390 * New ``start'' command.
392 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
394 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
396 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
397 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
398 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
400 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
401 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
402 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
403 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
404 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
405 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
406 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
407 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
408 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
410 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
412 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
413 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
414 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
415 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
416 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
418 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
419 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
420 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
422 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
424 * New native configurations
426 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
427 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
428 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
429 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
430 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
431 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
432 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
434 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
436 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
437 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
438 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
439 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
440 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
441 work, was also included.
443 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
444 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
454 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
455 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
457 * REMOVED configurations and files
459 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
460 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
461 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
462 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
463 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
464 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
465 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
466 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
467 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
469 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
471 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
473 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
475 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
476 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
477 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
478 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
481 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
483 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
484 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
485 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
486 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
487 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
488 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
491 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
493 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
495 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
496 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
497 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
499 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
501 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
502 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
504 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
506 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
507 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
508 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
510 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
512 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
513 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
515 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
517 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
518 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
519 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
521 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
523 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
524 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
525 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
527 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
529 * Removed --with-mmalloc
531 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
532 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
534 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
536 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
537 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
538 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
539 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
541 * Revised SPARC target
543 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
544 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
545 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
546 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
547 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
551 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
552 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
553 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
556 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
558 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
559 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
562 * C++ nested types and namespaces
564 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
565 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
566 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
567 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
568 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
569 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
570 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
571 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
572 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
574 * New native configurations
576 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
577 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
578 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
579 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
580 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
582 * New debugging protocols
584 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
586 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
588 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
589 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
590 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
592 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
594 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
595 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
596 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
599 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
600 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
601 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
602 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
603 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
604 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
605 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
606 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
607 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
609 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
611 * REMOVED configurations and files
613 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
614 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
615 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
616 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
617 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
618 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
619 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
620 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
621 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
622 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
623 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
624 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
625 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
626 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
627 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
628 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
629 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
631 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
635 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
638 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
640 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
641 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
642 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
645 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
646 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
651 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
652 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
653 remote protocol documentation for details.
655 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
657 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
658 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
659 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
662 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
664 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
665 per-thread variables.
667 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
669 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
670 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
672 * Separate debug info.
674 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
675 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
676 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
677 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
678 and optional debug files.
680 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
682 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
683 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
686 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
687 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
691 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
692 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
693 considered "useable".
695 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
697 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
698 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
701 * GDB supports logging output to a file
703 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
704 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
706 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
708 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
709 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
712 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
714 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
715 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
719 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
720 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
721 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
722 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
723 data, for more informative profiling results.
725 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
727 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
728 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
729 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
731 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
734 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
735 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
736 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
737 in a subsequent -var-update.
739 * New native configurations.
741 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
743 * Multi-arched targets.
745 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
746 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
748 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
750 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
751 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
752 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
755 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
756 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
757 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
758 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
759 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
760 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
761 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
762 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
763 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
764 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
765 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
766 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
768 * REMOVED configurations and files
771 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
772 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
773 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
774 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
775 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
776 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
778 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
779 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
780 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
781 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
782 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
783 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
785 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
787 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
788 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
789 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
790 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
791 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
793 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
795 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
797 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
798 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
799 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
800 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
801 shared libs like mad''.
803 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
805 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
806 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
807 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
808 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
810 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
812 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
813 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
816 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
817 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
819 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
820 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
822 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
823 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
824 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
825 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
827 * Multi-arched targets.
829 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
830 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
832 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
833 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
834 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
838 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
841 * New native configurations
843 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
844 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
845 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
846 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
848 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
850 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
851 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
852 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
855 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
856 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
857 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
858 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
859 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
860 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
861 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
862 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
863 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
864 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
866 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
867 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
871 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
873 * REMOVED configurations and files
875 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
876 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
877 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
878 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
879 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
881 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
883 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
885 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
886 commands. The default is 1024.
888 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
890 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
892 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
894 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
895 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
896 from a file into memory (restore).
898 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
900 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
901 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
902 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
904 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
912 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
913 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
914 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
916 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
917 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
918 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
920 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
921 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
922 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
924 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
925 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
926 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
928 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
930 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
932 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
933 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
934 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
935 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
936 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
937 (notably embedded) targets.
939 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
941 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
942 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
943 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
944 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
946 * New command line option
948 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
950 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
952 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
953 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
954 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
955 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
956 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
957 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
958 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
959 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
960 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
961 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
963 * Changes in ARM configurations.
965 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
966 configuration is fully multi-arch.
968 * New native configurations
970 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
971 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
972 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
973 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
977 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
979 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
981 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
982 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
983 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
986 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
987 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
988 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
989 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
990 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
992 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
994 * REMOVED configurations and files
996 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
998 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
999 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1000 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1001 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1002 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1003 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1004 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1005 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1006 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1007 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1008 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1010 * Changes to command line processing
1012 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1013 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1015 * Changes to key bindings
1017 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1019 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1021 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1023 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1026 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1028 Numerous documentation fixes.
1030 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1032 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1034 * New native configurations
1036 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1037 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1038 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1039 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1040 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1041 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1045 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1047 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1049 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1051 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1052 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1053 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1054 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1055 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1057 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1058 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1059 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1060 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1061 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1062 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1063 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1064 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1066 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1067 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1069 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1070 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1071 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1072 permanently REMOVED.
1074 * REMOVED configurations and files
1076 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1077 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1079 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1083 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1085 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1086 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1091 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1093 * The MI enabled by default.
1095 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1096 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1097 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1098 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1099 which is now deprecated.
1101 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1103 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1104 main features are supported:
1106 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1108 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1111 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1113 - a Pascal expression parser.
1115 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1117 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1119 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1121 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1122 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1124 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1126 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1128 * Changes in completion.
1130 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1131 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1132 users expect at the shell prompt.
1134 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1135 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1136 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1137 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1138 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1139 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1140 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1142 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1144 * New platform-independent commands:
1146 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1147 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1148 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1150 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1152 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1153 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1154 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1156 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1158 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1159 multi-threaded programs though.
1161 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1163 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1165 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1166 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1169 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1171 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1172 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1173 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1174 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1175 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1178 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1179 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1180 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1182 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1184 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1185 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1187 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1188 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1191 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1192 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1193 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1194 a given linear address.
1196 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1197 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1198 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1200 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1202 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1204 * Changes in documentation.
1206 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1207 Documentation License.
1209 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1212 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1214 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1217 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1218 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1219 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1221 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1223 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1224 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1225 contents of this file.
1229 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1231 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1233 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1235 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1236 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1237 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1238 greater level of detail.
1240 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1242 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1243 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1244 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1247 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1249 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1250 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1251 machines ``out of the box''.
1253 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1254 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1255 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1256 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1257 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1259 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1260 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1261 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1262 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1263 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1265 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1266 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1269 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1272 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1273 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1274 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1275 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1277 * New native configurations
1279 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1280 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1284 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1285 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1286 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1287 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1289 * OBSOLETE configurations
1291 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1292 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1294 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1297 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1298 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1299 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1300 be permanently REMOVED.
1302 * Gould support removed
1304 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1306 * New features for SVR4
1308 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1309 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1310 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1312 * Many C++ enhancements
1314 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1315 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1317 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1319 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1320 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1321 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1322 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1324 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1325 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1327 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1329 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1330 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1331 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1333 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1334 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1336 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1338 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1339 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1340 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1342 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1344 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1345 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1346 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1348 * ``apropos'' command added.
1350 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1351 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1352 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1356 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1357 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1358 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1359 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1360 enabled by configuring with:
1362 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1364 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1366 * New native configurations
1368 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1369 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1370 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1374 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1375 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1376 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1378 * OBSOLETE configurations
1380 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1382 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1383 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1384 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1385 be permanently REMOVED.
1389 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1390 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1391 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1392 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1393 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1394 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1395 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1400 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1402 * set extension-language
1404 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1405 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1406 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1407 set extension-language .c c++
1408 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1409 and their associated languages.
1411 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1413 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1414 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1415 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1419 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1420 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1422 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1423 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1425 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1426 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1427 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1428 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1429 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1430 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1431 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1432 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1434 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1435 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1436 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1437 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1441 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1442 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1443 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1444 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1445 for xdb and dbx commands.
1449 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1450 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1451 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1453 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1454 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1455 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1457 * Debugging across forks
1459 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1464 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1465 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1466 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1468 * GDB remote protocol additions
1470 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1471 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1472 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1473 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1475 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1476 full 64-bit address. The command
1478 set remoteaddresssize 32
1480 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1481 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1484 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1485 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1487 maint packet heythere
1489 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1490 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1493 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1494 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1495 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1497 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1499 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1500 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1501 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1503 * mask-address variable for Mips
1505 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1506 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1507 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1509 * Higher serial baud rates
1511 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1512 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1513 to achieve all of these rates.)
1517 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1518 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1521 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1523 * New native configurations
1525 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1526 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1527 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1528 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1529 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1530 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1531 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1535 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1536 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1537 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1538 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1539 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1540 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1541 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1542 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1543 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1544 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1545 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1547 * New debugging protocols
1549 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1550 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1551 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1552 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1553 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1554 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1558 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1559 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1564 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1565 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1567 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1569 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1570 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1571 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1573 * Live range splitting
1575 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1576 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1577 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1581 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1582 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1586 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1587 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1588 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1593 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1598 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1599 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1600 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1601 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1602 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1603 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1607 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1608 the symbol at the specified address.
1612 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1613 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1614 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1615 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1616 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1620 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1621 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1622 of most MIPS variants.
1626 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1627 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1628 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1632 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1633 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1634 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1635 the possible architectures.
1637 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1639 * New native configurations
1641 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1642 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1643 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1644 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1645 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1646 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1650 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1651 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1652 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1653 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1654 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1656 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1660 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1661 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1662 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1663 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1664 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1668 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1670 * Windows 95/NT native
1672 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1673 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1674 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1675 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1676 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1678 * dont-repeat command
1680 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1681 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1682 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1683 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1685 * Send break instead of ^C
1687 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1688 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1689 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1691 * Remote protocol timeout
1693 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1694 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1695 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1697 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1699 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1700 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1701 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1702 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1703 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1705 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1706 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1707 automatically on hpux10.
1709 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1711 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1713 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1715 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1716 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1717 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1718 every character. The default value is 1050.
1720 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1722 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1723 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1724 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1725 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1726 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1727 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1729 * Speedups for remote debugging
1731 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1732 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1733 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1735 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1737 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1738 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1740 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1742 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1744 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1745 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1747 * Remote targets use caching
1749 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1750 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1751 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1752 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1753 off' turns the the data cache off.
1755 * Remote targets may have threads
1757 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1758 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1759 gdb/remote.c for details.
1763 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1764 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1765 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1766 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1767 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1768 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1769 sequence is something like
1771 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1773 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1777 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1778 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1779 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1780 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1781 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1782 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1783 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1784 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1788 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1789 but does simplify configuration and building.
1793 GDB now supports hpux10.
1795 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1797 * New native configurations
1799 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1800 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1801 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1802 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1806 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1807 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1808 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1809 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1812 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1814 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1815 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1816 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1817 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1818 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1820 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1822 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1823 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1826 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1828 To execute the command use:
1831 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1832 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1833 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1835 * New `if' and `while' commands
1837 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1838 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1839 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1840 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1841 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1842 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1843 if the expression is zero.
1845 * Fortran source language mode
1847 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1848 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1849 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1850 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1853 * Better HPUX support
1855 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1856 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1857 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1858 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1859 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1865 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1866 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1872 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1873 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1876 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1877 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1879 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1881 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1882 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1883 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1884 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1885 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1886 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1888 * New DOS host serial code
1890 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1891 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1894 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1896 * New "complete" command
1898 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1899 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1901 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1903 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1904 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1906 * Breakpoint hit counts
1908 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1909 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1910 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1911 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1912 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1915 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1917 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1918 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1919 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1921 * Shared library breakpoints
1923 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1924 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1926 * Hardware watchpoints
1928 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1929 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1931 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1935 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1936 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1938 * Improved Irix 5 support
1940 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1942 * Improved HPPA support
1944 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1946 * New native configurations
1948 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1949 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1950 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1951 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1955 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1956 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1959 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1961 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1962 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1966 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1967 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1969 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1971 * Irix 5 is now supported
1975 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1976 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1977 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1978 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1979 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1982 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1984 * User visible changes:
1988 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1989 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1990 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1991 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1992 debugging info for the mips target).
1994 * DEC Alpha native support
1996 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1997 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1998 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1999 Alpha-specific notes.
2001 * Preliminary thread implementation
2003 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2005 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2007 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2008 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2011 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2013 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2014 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2015 call methods, ...etc.
2017 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2019 * User visible changes:
2021 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2022 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2023 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2024 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2026 Filename completion now works.
2028 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2029 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2030 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2032 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2033 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2034 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2035 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2036 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2040 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2041 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2044 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2048 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2049 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2050 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2054 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2055 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2056 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2057 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2058 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2062 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2063 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2064 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2066 * New targets supported
2068 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2069 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2070 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2071 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2072 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2074 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2075 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2076 GO32 memory extender.
2078 * New remote protocols
2080 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2082 * New source languages supported
2084 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2085 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2086 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2089 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2091 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2093 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2094 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2095 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2096 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2097 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2098 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2100 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2102 * Faster and better demangling
2104 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2105 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2106 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2107 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2108 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2109 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2112 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2113 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2114 compiler does not actually implement.
2116 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2118 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2119 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2120 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2121 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2122 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2123 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2126 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2127 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2129 * Improved configure script
2131 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2132 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2133 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2134 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2136 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2137 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2138 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2139 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2140 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2141 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2143 * Documentation improvements
2145 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2146 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2147 before submitting changes.
2149 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2150 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2151 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2152 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2153 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2155 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2156 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2157 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2158 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2159 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2160 around this problem.
2164 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2165 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2166 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2169 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2170 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2172 * New native hosts supported
2174 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2175 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2177 * New targets supported
2179 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2181 * New file formats supported
2183 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2184 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2188 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2190 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2191 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2193 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2194 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2195 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2197 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2198 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2200 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2201 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2202 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2205 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2206 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2207 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2208 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2209 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2211 * Internal improvements
2213 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2214 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2216 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2217 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2218 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2219 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2220 shared code that handles any of them.
2222 * New command line options
2224 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2228 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2229 General Public License.
2231 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2233 * Host/native/target split
2235 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2236 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2237 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2238 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2239 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2241 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2242 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2243 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2244 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2245 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2246 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2247 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2249 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2250 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2251 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2253 * New hosts supported
2255 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2256 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2257 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2259 * New targets supported
2261 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2262 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2264 * New native hosts supported
2266 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2267 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2268 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2270 * New file formats supported
2272 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2273 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2274 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2278 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2279 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2280 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2282 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2284 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2285 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2286 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2287 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2291 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2292 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2293 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2295 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2299 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2300 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2303 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2304 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2306 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2307 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2308 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2309 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2310 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2311 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2313 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2314 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2315 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2316 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2320 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2321 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2322 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2323 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2324 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2326 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2327 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2328 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2329 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2333 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2334 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2335 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2336 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2337 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2338 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2339 each instruction being stepped through.
2341 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2342 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2344 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2345 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2346 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2347 processor with a serial port.
2351 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2352 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2353 supported, and what files each one uses.
2357 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2358 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2359 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2360 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2362 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2363 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2364 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2365 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2369 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2370 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2371 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2372 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2373 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2374 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2376 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2379 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2381 * Better support for C++ function names
2383 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2384 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2385 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2386 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2387 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2389 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2390 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2391 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2392 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2393 for the list of formats.
2395 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2397 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2398 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2399 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2400 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2401 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2402 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2405 * New 'maintenance' command
2407 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2408 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2409 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2411 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2412 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2413 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2414 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2415 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2416 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2418 The following commands are new:
2420 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2421 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2422 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2424 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2426 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2427 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2428 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2429 read after argv processing.
2431 * New hosts supported
2433 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2435 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2437 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2438 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2439 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2440 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2441 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2444 * New targets supported
2446 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2448 * More smarts about finding #include files
2450 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2451 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2452 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2453 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2454 the one that contains your sources.
2456 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2457 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2458 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2460 * Interesting infernals change
2462 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2463 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2464 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2465 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2467 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2469 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2470 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2471 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2473 See the ChangeLog for details.
2475 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2477 * New machines supported (host and target)
2479 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2481 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2483 * New malloc package
2485 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2486 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2487 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2488 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2489 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2490 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2494 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2495 'help info proc' for details.
2497 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2499 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2500 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2503 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2505 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2506 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2507 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2508 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2509 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2510 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2512 * Cross byte order fixes
2514 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2515 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2517 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2519 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2520 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2521 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2522 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2523 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2524 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2525 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2526 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2527 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2528 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2530 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2531 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2532 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2533 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2535 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2536 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2537 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2540 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2542 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2543 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2544 shared across multiple host platforms.
2546 * longjmp() handling
2548 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2549 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2550 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2551 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2555 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2556 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2561 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2562 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2563 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2565 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2567 * New machines supported (host and target)
2569 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2571 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2572 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2574 * New machines supported (target)
2576 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2580 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2581 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2582 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2584 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2585 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2586 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2587 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2588 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2591 * New features for SVR4
2593 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2594 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2595 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2597 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2598 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2599 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2601 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2602 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2604 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2606 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2607 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2608 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2609 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2610 same code linked statically.
2614 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2615 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2616 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2617 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2618 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2619 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2623 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2624 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2625 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2628 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2630 * New machines supported (host and target)
2632 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2633 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2634 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2636 * Almost SCO Unix support
2638 We had hoped to support:
2639 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2640 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2641 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2642 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2644 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2646 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2647 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2648 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2649 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2654 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2655 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2656 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2660 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2661 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2662 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2664 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2666 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2667 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2668 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2670 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2671 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2672 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2673 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2676 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2677 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2678 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2679 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2682 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2683 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2686 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2687 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2688 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2691 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2693 * Improved configuration
2695 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2696 Porting BFD is simpler.
2700 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2701 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2702 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2703 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2707 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2709 * New host supported (not target)
2711 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2714 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2716 * Multiple source language support
2718 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2719 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2720 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2721 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2722 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2723 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2727 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2728 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2729 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2730 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2732 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2733 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2734 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2736 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2737 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2741 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2742 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2743 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2744 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2747 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2749 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2750 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2751 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2752 examining core files.
2756 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2759 * New machines supported (host and target)
2761 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2762 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2763 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2765 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2767 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2769 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2771 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2772 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2773 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2775 * New remote interfaces
2781 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2785 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2787 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2788 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2789 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2790 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2791 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2792 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2793 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2794 stub on the target system.
2796 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2798 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2799 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2800 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2802 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2803 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2806 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2808 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2809 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2811 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2812 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2813 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2815 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2816 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2817 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2818 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2820 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2821 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2822 it is already running. Default is ON.
2824 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2825 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2826 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2827 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2830 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2831 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2832 or the value of the environment variable
2835 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2836 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2839 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2840 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2841 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2843 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2844 history expansion will be performed on
2845 command line input. The default is OFF.
2847 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2848 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2849 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2851 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2852 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2853 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2856 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2857 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2858 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2861 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2862 ``set width'' instead.
2864 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2865 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2866 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2867 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2869 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2872 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2875 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2878 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2881 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2883 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2884 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2885 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2889 * Support for Shared Libraries
2891 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2892 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2893 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2894 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2895 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2896 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2897 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2898 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2900 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2901 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2902 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2904 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2909 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2910 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2911 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2912 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2913 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2914 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2916 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2918 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2920 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2921 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2922 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2925 * C++ multiple inheritance
2927 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2930 * C++ exception handling
2932 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2933 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2934 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2937 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2938 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2939 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2941 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2942 current stack frame.
2945 * Minor command changes
2947 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2948 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2949 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2951 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2952 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2953 frames without printing.
2955 * New directory command
2957 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2958 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2959 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2960 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2961 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2963 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2965 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2968 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2969 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2970 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2971 where the program that you are debugging will run.