1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
8 * New native configurations
10 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
15 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
17 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
18 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
20 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
21 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
23 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
24 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
25 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
28 * REMOVED configurations
30 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
33 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
38 * All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
40 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
44 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
46 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
48 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
50 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
51 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
52 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
53 greater level of detail.
55 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
57 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
58 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
59 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
62 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
64 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
65 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
66 machines ``out of the box''.
68 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
69 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
70 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
71 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
72 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
74 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
75 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
76 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
77 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
78 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
80 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
81 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
84 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
87 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
88 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
89 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
90 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
92 * New native configurations
94 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
95 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
99 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
100 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
101 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
102 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
104 * OBSOLETE configurations
106 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
107 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
109 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
112 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
113 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
114 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
115 be permanently REMOVED.
117 * Gould support removed
119 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
121 * New features for SVR4
123 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
124 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
125 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
127 * Many C++ enhancements
129 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
130 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
132 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
134 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
135 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
136 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
137 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
139 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
140 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
142 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
144 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
145 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
146 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
148 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
149 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
151 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
153 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
154 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
155 include ``set remote P-packet''.
157 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
159 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
160 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
161 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
163 * ``apropos'' command added.
165 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
166 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
167 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
171 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
172 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
173 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
174 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
175 enabled by configuring with:
177 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
179 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
181 * New native configurations
183 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
184 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
185 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
189 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
190 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
191 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
193 * OBSOLETE configurations
195 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
197 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
198 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
199 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
200 be permanently REMOVED.
204 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
205 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
206 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
207 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
208 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
209 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
210 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
215 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
217 * set extension-language
219 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
220 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
221 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
222 set extension-language .c c++
223 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
224 and their associated languages.
226 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
228 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
229 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
230 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
234 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
235 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
237 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
238 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
240 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
241 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
242 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
243 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
244 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
245 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
246 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
247 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
249 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
250 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
251 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
252 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
256 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
257 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
258 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
259 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
260 for xdb and dbx commands.
264 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
265 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
266 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
268 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
269 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
270 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
272 * Debugging across forks
274 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
279 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
280 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
281 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
283 * GDB remote protocol additions
285 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
286 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
287 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
288 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
290 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
291 full 64-bit address. The command
293 set remoteaddresssize 32
295 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
296 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
299 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
300 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
302 maint packet heythere
304 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
305 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
308 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
309 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
310 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
312 * Tracing can collect general expressions
314 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
315 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
316 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
318 * mask-address variable for Mips
320 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
321 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
322 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
324 * Higher serial baud rates
326 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
327 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
328 to achieve all of these rates.)
332 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
333 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
336 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
338 * New native configurations
340 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
341 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
342 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
343 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
344 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
345 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
346 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
350 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
351 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
352 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
353 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
354 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
355 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
356 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
357 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
358 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
359 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
360 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
362 * New debugging protocols
364 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
365 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
366 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
367 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
368 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
369 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
373 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
374 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
379 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
380 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
382 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
384 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
385 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
386 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
388 * Live range splitting
390 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
391 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
392 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
396 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
397 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
401 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
402 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
403 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
408 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
413 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
414 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
415 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
416 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
417 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
418 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
422 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
423 the symbol at the specified address.
427 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
428 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
429 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
430 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
431 file tracepoint.c for more details.
435 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
436 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
437 of most MIPS variants.
441 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
442 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
443 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
447 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
448 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
449 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
450 the possible architectures.
452 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
454 * New native configurations
456 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
457 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
458 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
459 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
460 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
461 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
465 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
466 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
467 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
468 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
469 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
471 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
475 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
476 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
477 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
478 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
479 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
483 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
485 * Windows 95/NT native
487 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
488 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
489 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
490 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
491 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
493 * dont-repeat command
495 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
496 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
497 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
498 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
500 * Send break instead of ^C
502 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
503 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
504 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
506 * Remote protocol timeout
508 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
509 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
510 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
512 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
514 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
515 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
516 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
517 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
518 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
520 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
521 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
522 automatically on hpux10.
524 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
526 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
528 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
530 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
531 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
532 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
533 every character. The default value is 1050.
535 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
537 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
538 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
539 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
540 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
541 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
542 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
544 * Speedups for remote debugging
546 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
547 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
548 and more efficient S-record downloading.
550 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
552 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
553 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
555 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
559 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
560 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
562 * Remote targets use caching
564 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
565 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
566 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
567 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
568 off' turns the the data cache off.
570 * Remote targets may have threads
572 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
573 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
574 gdb/remote.c for details.
578 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
579 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
580 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
581 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
582 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
583 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
584 sequence is something like
586 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
588 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
592 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
593 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
594 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
595 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
596 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
597 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
598 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
599 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
603 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
604 but does simplify configuration and building.
608 GDB now supports hpux10.
610 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
612 * New native configurations
614 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
615 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
616 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
617 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
621 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
622 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
623 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
624 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
627 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
629 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
630 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
631 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
632 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
633 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
635 * Arguments to user-defined commands
637 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
638 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
641 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
643 To execute the command use:
646 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
647 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
648 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
650 * New `if' and `while' commands
652 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
653 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
654 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
655 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
656 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
657 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
658 if the expression is zero.
660 * Fortran source language mode
662 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
663 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
664 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
665 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
668 * Better HPUX support
670 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
671 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
672 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
673 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
674 that behavior do the following before running the program:
680 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
681 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
687 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
688 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
691 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
692 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
694 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
696 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
697 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
698 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
699 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
700 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
701 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
703 * New DOS host serial code
705 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
706 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
709 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
711 * New "complete" command
713 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
714 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
716 * Trailing space optional in prompt
718 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
719 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
721 * Breakpoint hit counts
723 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
724 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
725 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
726 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
727 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
730 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
732 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
733 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
734 arrays actually contain only short strings.
736 * Shared library breakpoints
738 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
739 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
741 * Hardware watchpoints
743 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
744 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
746 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
750 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
751 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
753 * Improved Irix 5 support
755 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
757 * Improved HPPA support
759 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
761 * New native configurations
763 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
764 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
765 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
766 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
770 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
771 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
774 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
776 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
777 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
781 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
782 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
784 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
786 * Irix 5 is now supported
790 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
791 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
792 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
793 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
794 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
797 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
799 * User visible changes:
803 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
804 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
805 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
806 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
807 debugging info for the mips target).
809 * DEC Alpha native support
811 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
812 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
813 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
814 Alpha-specific notes.
816 * Preliminary thread implementation
818 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
820 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
822 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
823 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
826 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
828 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
829 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
830 call methods, ...etc.
832 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
834 * User visible changes:
836 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
837 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
838 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
839 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
841 Filename completion now works.
843 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
844 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
845 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
847 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
848 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
849 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
850 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
851 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
855 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
856 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
859 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
863 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
864 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
865 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
869 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
870 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
871 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
872 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
873 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
877 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
878 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
879 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
881 * New targets supported
883 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
884 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
885 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
886 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
887 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
889 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
890 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
891 GO32 memory extender.
893 * New remote protocols
895 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
897 * New source languages supported
899 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
900 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
901 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
904 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
906 * HP Precision Architecture supported
908 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
909 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
910 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
911 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
912 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
913 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
915 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
917 * Faster and better demangling
919 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
920 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
921 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
922 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
923 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
924 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
927 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
928 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
929 compiler does not actually implement.
931 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
933 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
934 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
935 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
936 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
937 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
938 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
941 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
942 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
944 * Improved configure script
946 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
947 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
948 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
949 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
951 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
952 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
953 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
954 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
955 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
956 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
958 * Documentation improvements
960 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
961 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
962 before submitting changes.
964 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
965 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
966 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
967 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
968 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
970 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
971 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
972 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
973 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
974 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
979 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
980 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
981 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
984 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
985 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
987 * New native hosts supported
989 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
990 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
992 * New targets supported
994 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
996 * New file formats supported
998 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
999 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1003 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1005 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1006 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1008 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1009 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1010 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1012 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1013 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1015 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1016 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1017 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1020 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1021 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1022 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1023 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1024 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1026 * Internal improvements
1028 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1029 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1031 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1032 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1033 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1034 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1035 shared code that handles any of them.
1037 * New command line options
1039 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1043 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1044 General Public License.
1046 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1048 * Host/native/target split
1050 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1051 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1052 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1053 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1054 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1056 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1057 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1058 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1059 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1060 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1061 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1062 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1064 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1065 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1066 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1068 * New hosts supported
1070 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1071 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1072 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1074 * New targets supported
1076 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1077 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1079 * New native hosts supported
1081 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1082 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1083 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1085 * New file formats supported
1087 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1088 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1089 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1093 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1094 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1095 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1097 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1099 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1100 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1101 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1102 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1106 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1107 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1108 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1110 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1114 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1115 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1118 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1119 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1121 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1122 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1123 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1124 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1125 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1126 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1128 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1129 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1130 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1131 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1135 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1136 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1137 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1138 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1139 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1141 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1142 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1143 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1144 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1148 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1149 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1150 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1151 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1152 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1153 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1154 each instruction being stepped through.
1156 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1157 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1159 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1160 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1161 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1162 processor with a serial port.
1166 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1167 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1168 supported, and what files each one uses.
1172 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1173 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1174 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1175 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1177 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1178 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1179 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1180 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1184 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1185 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1186 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1187 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1188 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1189 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1191 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1194 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1196 * Better support for C++ function names
1198 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1199 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1200 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1201 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1202 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1204 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1205 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1206 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1207 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1208 for the list of formats.
1210 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1212 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1213 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1214 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1215 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1216 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1217 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1220 * New 'maintenance' command
1222 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1223 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1224 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1226 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1227 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1228 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1229 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1230 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1231 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1233 The following commands are new:
1235 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1236 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1237 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1239 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1241 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1242 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1243 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1244 read after argv processing.
1246 * New hosts supported
1248 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1250 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1252 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1253 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1254 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1255 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1256 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1259 * New targets supported
1261 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1263 * More smarts about finding #include files
1265 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1266 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1267 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1268 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1269 the one that contains your sources.
1271 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1272 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1273 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1275 * Interesting infernals change
1277 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1278 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1279 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1280 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1282 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1284 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1285 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1286 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1288 See the ChangeLog for details.
1290 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1292 * New machines supported (host and target)
1294 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1296 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1298 * New malloc package
1300 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1301 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1302 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1303 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1304 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1305 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1309 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1310 'help info proc' for details.
1312 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1314 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1315 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1318 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1320 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1321 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1322 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1323 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1324 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1325 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1327 * Cross byte order fixes
1329 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1330 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1332 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1334 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1335 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1336 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1337 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1338 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1339 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1340 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1341 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1342 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1343 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1345 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1346 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1347 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1348 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1350 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1351 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1352 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1355 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1357 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1358 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1359 shared across multiple host platforms.
1361 * longjmp() handling
1363 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1364 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1365 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1366 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1370 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1371 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1376 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1377 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1378 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1380 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1382 * New machines supported (host and target)
1384 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1386 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1387 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1389 * New machines supported (target)
1391 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1395 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1396 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1397 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1399 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1400 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1401 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1402 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1403 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1406 * New features for SVR4
1408 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1409 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1410 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1412 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1413 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1414 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1416 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1417 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1419 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1421 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1422 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1423 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1424 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1425 same code linked statically.
1429 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1430 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1431 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1432 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1433 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1434 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1438 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1439 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1440 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1443 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1445 * New machines supported (host and target)
1447 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1448 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1449 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1451 * Almost SCO Unix support
1453 We had hoped to support:
1454 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1455 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1456 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1457 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1459 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1461 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1462 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1463 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1464 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1469 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1470 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1471 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1475 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1476 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1477 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1479 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1481 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1482 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1483 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1485 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1486 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1487 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1488 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1491 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1492 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1493 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1494 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1497 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1498 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1501 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1502 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1503 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1506 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1508 * Improved configuration
1510 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1511 Porting BFD is simpler.
1515 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1516 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1517 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1518 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1522 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1524 * New host supported (not target)
1526 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1529 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1531 * Multiple source language support
1533 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1534 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1535 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1536 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1537 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1538 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1542 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1543 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1544 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1545 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1547 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1548 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1549 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1551 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1552 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1556 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1557 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1558 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1559 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1562 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1564 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1565 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1566 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1567 examining core files.
1571 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1574 * New machines supported (host and target)
1576 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1577 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1578 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1580 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1582 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1584 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1586 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1587 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1588 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1590 * New remote interfaces
1596 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1600 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1602 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1603 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1604 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1605 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1606 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1607 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1608 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1609 stub on the target system.
1611 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1613 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1614 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1615 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1617 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1618 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1621 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1623 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1624 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1626 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1627 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1628 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1630 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1631 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1632 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1633 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1635 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1636 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1637 it is already running. Default is ON.
1639 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1640 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1641 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1642 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1645 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1646 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1647 or the value of the environment variable
1650 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1651 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1654 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1655 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1656 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1658 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1659 history expansion will be performed on
1660 command line input. The default is OFF.
1662 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1663 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1664 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1666 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1667 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1668 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1671 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1672 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1673 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1676 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1677 ``set width'' instead.
1679 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1680 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1681 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1682 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1684 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1687 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1690 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1693 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1696 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1698 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1699 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1700 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1704 * Support for Shared Libraries
1706 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1707 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1708 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1709 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1710 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1711 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1712 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1713 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1715 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1716 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1717 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1719 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1724 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1725 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1726 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1727 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1728 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1729 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1731 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1733 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1735 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1736 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1737 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1740 * C++ multiple inheritance
1742 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1745 * C++ exception handling
1747 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1748 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1749 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1752 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1753 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1754 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1756 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1757 current stack frame.
1760 * Minor command changes
1762 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1763 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1764 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1766 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1767 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1768 frames without printing.
1770 * New directory command
1772 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1773 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1774 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1775 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1776 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1778 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1780 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1783 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1784 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1785 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1786 where the program that you are debugging will run.