1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
6 * d10v `regs' command deprecated
8 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
9 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
13 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
14 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
15 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
16 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
17 data, for more informative profiling results.
19 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
21 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
22 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
23 "mi1", can be enabled by sepcifying the option "-i=mi1".
25 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
28 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
29 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
30 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
31 in a subsequent -var-update.
33 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
35 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
40 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
41 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
43 * REMOVED configurations and files
46 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
47 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
48 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
49 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
50 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
51 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
53 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
54 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
55 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
56 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
57 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
58 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
60 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
62 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
63 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
64 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
65 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
66 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
68 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
70 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
72 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
73 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
74 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
75 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
76 shared libs like mad''.
78 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
80 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
81 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
82 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
83 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
85 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
87 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
88 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
91 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
92 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
94 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
95 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
97 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
98 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
99 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
100 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
102 * Multi-arched targets.
104 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
105 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
107 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
108 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
109 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
113 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
116 * New native configurations
118 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
119 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
120 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
121 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
123 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
125 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
126 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
127 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
130 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
131 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
132 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
133 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
134 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
135 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
136 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
137 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
138 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
139 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
141 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
142 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
146 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
148 * REMOVED configurations and files
150 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
151 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
152 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
153 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
154 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
156 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
158 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
160 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
161 commands. The default is 1024.
163 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
165 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
167 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
169 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
170 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
171 from a file into memory (restore).
173 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
175 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
176 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
177 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
179 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
187 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
188 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
189 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
191 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
192 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
193 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
195 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
196 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
197 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
199 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
200 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
201 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
203 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
205 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
207 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
208 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
209 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
210 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
211 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
212 (notably embedded) targets.
214 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
216 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
217 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
218 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
219 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
221 * New command line option
223 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
225 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
227 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
228 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
229 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
230 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
231 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
232 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
233 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
234 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
235 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
236 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
238 * Changes in ARM configurations.
240 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
241 configuration is fully multi-arch.
243 * New native configurations
245 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
246 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
247 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
248 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
252 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
254 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
256 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
257 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
258 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
261 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
262 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
263 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
264 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
265 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
267 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
269 * REMOVED configurations and files
271 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
273 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
274 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
275 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
276 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
277 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
278 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
279 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
280 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
281 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
282 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
283 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
285 * Changes to command line processing
287 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
288 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
290 * Changes to key bindings
292 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
294 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
296 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
298 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
301 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
303 Numerous documentation fixes.
305 Numerous testsuite fixes.
307 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
309 * New native configurations
311 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
312 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
313 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
314 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
316 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
320 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
322 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
324 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
326 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
327 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
328 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
329 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
330 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
332 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
333 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
334 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
335 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
336 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
337 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
338 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
339 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
341 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
342 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
344 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
345 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
346 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
349 * REMOVED configurations and files
351 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
352 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
354 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
358 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
360 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
361 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
366 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
368 * The MI enabled by default.
370 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
371 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
372 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
373 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
374 which is now deprecated.
376 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
378 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
379 main features are supported:
381 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
383 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
386 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
388 - a Pascal expression parser.
390 However, some important features are not yet supported.
392 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
394 - there are some problems with boolean types;
396 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
397 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
399 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
401 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
403 * Changes in completion.
405 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
406 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
407 users expect at the shell prompt.
409 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
410 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
411 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
412 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
413 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
414 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
415 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
417 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
419 * New platform-independent commands:
421 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
422 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
423 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
425 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
427 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
428 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
429 many threads as your system allows you to have.
431 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
433 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
434 multi-threaded programs though.
436 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
438 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
440 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
441 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
444 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
446 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
447 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
448 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
449 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
450 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
453 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
454 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
455 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
457 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
459 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
460 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
462 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
463 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
466 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
467 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
468 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
469 a given linear address.
471 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
472 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
473 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
475 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
477 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
479 * Changes in documentation.
481 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
482 Documentation License.
484 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
487 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
489 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
492 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
493 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
494 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
496 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
498 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
499 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
500 contents of this file.
504 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
506 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
508 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
510 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
511 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
512 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
513 greater level of detail.
515 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
517 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
518 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
519 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
522 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
524 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
525 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
526 machines ``out of the box''.
528 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
529 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
530 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
531 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
532 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
534 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
535 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
536 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
537 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
538 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
540 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
541 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
544 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
547 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
548 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
549 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
550 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
552 * New native configurations
554 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
555 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
559 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
560 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
561 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
562 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
564 * OBSOLETE configurations
566 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
567 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
569 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
572 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
573 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
574 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
575 be permanently REMOVED.
577 * Gould support removed
579 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
581 * New features for SVR4
583 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
584 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
585 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
587 * Many C++ enhancements
589 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
590 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
592 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
594 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
595 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
596 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
597 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
599 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
600 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
602 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
604 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
605 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
606 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
608 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
609 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
611 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
613 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
614 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
615 include ``set remote P-packet''.
617 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
619 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
620 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
621 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
623 * ``apropos'' command added.
625 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
626 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
627 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
631 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
632 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
633 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
634 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
635 enabled by configuring with:
637 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
639 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
641 * New native configurations
643 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
644 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
645 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
649 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
650 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
651 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
653 * OBSOLETE configurations
655 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
657 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
658 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
659 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
660 be permanently REMOVED.
664 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
665 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
666 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
667 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
668 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
669 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
670 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
675 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
677 * set extension-language
679 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
680 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
681 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
682 set extension-language .c c++
683 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
684 and their associated languages.
686 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
688 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
689 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
690 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
694 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
695 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
697 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
698 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
700 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
701 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
702 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
703 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
704 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
705 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
706 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
707 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
709 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
710 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
711 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
712 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
716 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
717 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
718 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
719 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
720 for xdb and dbx commands.
724 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
725 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
726 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
728 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
729 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
730 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
732 * Debugging across forks
734 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
739 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
740 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
741 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
743 * GDB remote protocol additions
745 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
746 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
747 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
748 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
750 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
751 full 64-bit address. The command
753 set remoteaddresssize 32
755 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
756 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
759 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
760 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
762 maint packet heythere
764 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
765 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
768 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
769 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
770 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
772 * Tracing can collect general expressions
774 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
775 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
776 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
778 * mask-address variable for Mips
780 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
781 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
782 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
784 * Higher serial baud rates
786 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
787 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
788 to achieve all of these rates.)
792 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
793 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
796 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
798 * New native configurations
800 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
801 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
802 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
803 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
804 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
805 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
806 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
810 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
811 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
812 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
813 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
814 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
815 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
816 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
817 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
818 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
819 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
820 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
822 * New debugging protocols
824 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
825 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
826 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
827 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
828 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
829 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
833 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
834 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
839 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
840 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
842 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
844 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
845 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
846 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
848 * Live range splitting
850 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
851 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
852 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
856 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
857 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
861 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
862 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
863 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
868 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
873 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
874 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
875 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
876 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
877 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
878 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
882 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
883 the symbol at the specified address.
887 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
888 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
889 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
890 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
891 file tracepoint.c for more details.
895 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
896 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
897 of most MIPS variants.
901 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
902 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
903 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
907 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
908 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
909 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
910 the possible architectures.
912 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
914 * New native configurations
916 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
917 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
918 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
919 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
920 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
921 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
925 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
926 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
927 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
928 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
929 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
931 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
935 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
936 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
937 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
938 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
939 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
943 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
945 * Windows 95/NT native
947 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
948 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
949 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
950 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
951 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
953 * dont-repeat command
955 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
956 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
957 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
958 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
960 * Send break instead of ^C
962 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
963 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
964 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
966 * Remote protocol timeout
968 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
969 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
970 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
972 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
974 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
975 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
976 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
977 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
978 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
980 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
981 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
982 automatically on hpux10.
984 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
986 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
988 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
990 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
991 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
992 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
993 every character. The default value is 1050.
995 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
997 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
998 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
999 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1000 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1001 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1002 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1004 * Speedups for remote debugging
1006 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1007 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1008 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1010 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1012 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1013 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1015 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1017 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1019 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1020 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1022 * Remote targets use caching
1024 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1025 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1026 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1027 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1028 off' turns the the data cache off.
1030 * Remote targets may have threads
1032 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1033 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1034 gdb/remote.c for details.
1038 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1039 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1040 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1041 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1042 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1043 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1044 sequence is something like
1046 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1048 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1052 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1053 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1054 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1055 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1056 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1057 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1058 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1059 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1063 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1064 but does simplify configuration and building.
1068 GDB now supports hpux10.
1070 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1072 * New native configurations
1074 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1075 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1076 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1077 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1081 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1082 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1083 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1084 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1087 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1089 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1090 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1091 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1092 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1093 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1095 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1097 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1098 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1101 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1103 To execute the command use:
1106 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1107 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1108 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1110 * New `if' and `while' commands
1112 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1113 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1114 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1115 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1116 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1117 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1118 if the expression is zero.
1120 * Fortran source language mode
1122 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1123 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1124 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1125 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1128 * Better HPUX support
1130 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1131 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1132 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1133 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1134 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1140 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1141 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1147 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1148 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1151 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1152 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1154 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1156 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1157 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1158 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1159 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1160 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1161 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1163 * New DOS host serial code
1165 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1166 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1169 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1171 * New "complete" command
1173 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1174 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1176 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1178 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1179 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1181 * Breakpoint hit counts
1183 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1184 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1185 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1186 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1187 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1190 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1192 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1193 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1194 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1196 * Shared library breakpoints
1198 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1199 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1201 * Hardware watchpoints
1203 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1204 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1206 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1210 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1211 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1213 * Improved Irix 5 support
1215 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1217 * Improved HPPA support
1219 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1221 * New native configurations
1223 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1224 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1225 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1226 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1230 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1231 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1234 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1236 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1237 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1241 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1242 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1244 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1246 * Irix 5 is now supported
1250 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1251 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1252 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1253 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1254 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1257 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1259 * User visible changes:
1263 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1264 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1265 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1266 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1267 debugging info for the mips target).
1269 * DEC Alpha native support
1271 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1272 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1273 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1274 Alpha-specific notes.
1276 * Preliminary thread implementation
1278 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1280 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1282 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1283 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1286 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1288 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1289 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1290 call methods, ...etc.
1292 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1294 * User visible changes:
1296 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1297 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1298 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1299 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1301 Filename completion now works.
1303 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1304 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1305 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1307 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1308 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1309 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1310 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1311 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1315 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1316 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1319 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1323 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1324 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1325 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1329 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1330 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1331 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1332 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1333 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1337 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1338 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1339 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1341 * New targets supported
1343 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1344 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1345 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1346 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1347 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1349 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1350 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1351 GO32 memory extender.
1353 * New remote protocols
1355 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1357 * New source languages supported
1359 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1360 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1361 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1364 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1366 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1368 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1369 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1370 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1371 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1372 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1373 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1375 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1377 * Faster and better demangling
1379 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1380 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1381 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1382 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1383 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1384 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1387 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1388 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1389 compiler does not actually implement.
1391 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1393 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1394 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1395 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1396 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1397 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1398 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1401 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1402 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1404 * Improved configure script
1406 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1407 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1408 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1409 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1411 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1412 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1413 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1414 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1415 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1416 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1418 * Documentation improvements
1420 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1421 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1422 before submitting changes.
1424 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1425 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1426 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1427 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1428 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1430 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1431 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1432 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1433 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1434 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1435 around this problem.
1439 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1440 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1441 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1444 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1445 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1447 * New native hosts supported
1449 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1450 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1452 * New targets supported
1454 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1456 * New file formats supported
1458 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1459 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1463 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1465 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1466 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1468 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1469 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1470 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1472 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1473 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1475 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1476 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1477 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1480 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1481 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1482 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1483 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1484 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1486 * Internal improvements
1488 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1489 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1491 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1492 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1493 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1494 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1495 shared code that handles any of them.
1497 * New command line options
1499 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1503 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1504 General Public License.
1506 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1508 * Host/native/target split
1510 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1511 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1512 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1513 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1514 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1516 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1517 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1518 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1519 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1520 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1521 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1522 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1524 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1525 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1526 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1528 * New hosts supported
1530 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1531 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1532 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1534 * New targets supported
1536 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1537 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1539 * New native hosts supported
1541 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1542 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1543 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1545 * New file formats supported
1547 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1548 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1549 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1553 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1554 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1555 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1557 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1559 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1560 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1561 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1562 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1566 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1567 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1568 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1570 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1574 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1575 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1578 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1579 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1581 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1582 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1583 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1584 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1585 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1586 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1588 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1589 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1590 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1591 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1595 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1596 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1597 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1598 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1599 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1601 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1602 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1603 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1604 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1608 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1609 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1610 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1611 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1612 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1613 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1614 each instruction being stepped through.
1616 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1617 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1619 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1620 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1621 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1622 processor with a serial port.
1626 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1627 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1628 supported, and what files each one uses.
1632 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1633 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1634 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1635 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1637 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1638 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1639 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1640 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1644 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1645 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1646 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1647 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1648 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1649 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1651 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1654 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1656 * Better support for C++ function names
1658 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1659 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1660 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1661 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1662 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1664 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1665 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1666 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1667 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1668 for the list of formats.
1670 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1672 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1673 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1674 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1675 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1676 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1677 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1680 * New 'maintenance' command
1682 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1683 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1684 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1686 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1687 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1688 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1689 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1690 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1691 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1693 The following commands are new:
1695 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1696 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1697 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1699 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1701 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1702 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1703 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1704 read after argv processing.
1706 * New hosts supported
1708 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1710 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1712 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1713 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1714 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1715 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1716 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1719 * New targets supported
1721 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1723 * More smarts about finding #include files
1725 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1726 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1727 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1728 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1729 the one that contains your sources.
1731 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1732 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1733 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1735 * Interesting infernals change
1737 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1738 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1739 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1740 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1742 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1744 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1745 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1746 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1748 See the ChangeLog for details.
1750 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1752 * New machines supported (host and target)
1754 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1756 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1758 * New malloc package
1760 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1761 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1762 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1763 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1764 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1765 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1769 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1770 'help info proc' for details.
1772 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1774 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1775 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1778 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1780 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1781 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1782 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1783 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1784 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1785 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1787 * Cross byte order fixes
1789 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1790 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1792 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1794 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1795 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1796 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1797 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1798 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1799 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1800 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1801 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1802 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1803 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1805 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1806 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1807 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1808 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1810 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1811 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1812 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1815 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1817 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1818 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1819 shared across multiple host platforms.
1821 * longjmp() handling
1823 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1824 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1825 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1826 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1830 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1831 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1836 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1837 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1838 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1840 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1842 * New machines supported (host and target)
1844 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1846 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1847 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1849 * New machines supported (target)
1851 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1855 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1856 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1857 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1859 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1860 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1861 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1862 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1863 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1866 * New features for SVR4
1868 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1869 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1870 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1872 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1873 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1874 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1876 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1877 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1879 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1881 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1882 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1883 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1884 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1885 same code linked statically.
1889 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1890 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1891 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1892 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1893 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1894 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1898 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1899 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1900 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1903 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1905 * New machines supported (host and target)
1907 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1908 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1909 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1911 * Almost SCO Unix support
1913 We had hoped to support:
1914 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1915 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1916 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1917 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1919 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1921 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1922 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1923 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1924 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1929 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1930 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1931 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1935 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1936 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1937 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1939 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1941 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1942 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1943 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1945 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1946 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1947 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1948 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1951 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1952 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1953 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1954 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1957 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1958 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1961 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1962 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1963 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1966 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1968 * Improved configuration
1970 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1971 Porting BFD is simpler.
1975 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1976 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1977 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1978 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1982 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1984 * New host supported (not target)
1986 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1989 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1991 * Multiple source language support
1993 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1994 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1995 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1996 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1997 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1998 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2002 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2003 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2004 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2005 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2007 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2008 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2009 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2011 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2012 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2016 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2017 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2018 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2019 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2022 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2024 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2025 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2026 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2027 examining core files.
2031 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2034 * New machines supported (host and target)
2036 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2037 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2038 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2040 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2042 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2044 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2046 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2047 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2048 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2050 * New remote interfaces
2056 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2060 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2062 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2063 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2064 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2065 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2066 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2067 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2068 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2069 stub on the target system.
2071 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2073 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2074 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2075 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2077 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2078 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2081 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2083 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2084 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2086 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2087 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2088 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2090 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2091 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2092 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2093 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2095 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2096 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2097 it is already running. Default is ON.
2099 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2100 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2101 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2102 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2105 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2106 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2107 or the value of the environment variable
2110 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2111 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2114 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2115 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2116 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2118 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2119 history expansion will be performed on
2120 command line input. The default is OFF.
2122 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2123 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2124 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2126 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2127 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2128 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2131 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2132 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2133 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2136 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2137 ``set width'' instead.
2139 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2140 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2141 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2142 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2144 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2147 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2150 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2153 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2156 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2158 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2159 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2160 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2164 * Support for Shared Libraries
2166 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2167 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2168 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2169 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2170 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2171 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2172 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2173 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2175 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2176 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2177 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2179 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2184 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2185 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2186 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2187 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2188 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2189 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2191 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2193 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2195 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2196 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2197 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2200 * C++ multiple inheritance
2202 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2205 * C++ exception handling
2207 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2208 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2209 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2212 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2213 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2214 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2216 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2217 current stack frame.
2220 * Minor command changes
2222 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2223 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2224 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2226 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2227 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2228 frames without printing.
2230 * New directory command
2232 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2233 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2234 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2235 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2236 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2238 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2240 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2243 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2244 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2245 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2246 where the program that you are debugging will run.