1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.3.1
6 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
7 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
9 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
10 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
11 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
12 target hardware watchpoint.
14 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
15 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
16 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
17 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
21 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
22 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
25 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
26 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
27 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
30 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
33 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
34 modules library. This module provides functionality for
35 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
36 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
39 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
40 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
41 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
44 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
45 static_block will return the global and static blocks
46 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
47 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
49 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
51 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
54 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
55 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
56 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
59 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
62 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
63 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
64 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
65 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
68 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
69 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
70 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
73 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
74 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
75 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
76 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
77 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
79 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
80 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
82 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
83 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
84 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
85 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
86 use this option to specify where to find it.
88 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
89 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
90 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
91 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
92 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
93 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
94 section in the user manual for more details.
96 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
97 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
98 become available after that.
100 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
102 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
103 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
109 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
110 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
114 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
115 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
116 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
118 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
119 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
120 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
122 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
123 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
124 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
125 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
126 name starts with a hyphen.
128 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
129 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
130 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
131 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
132 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
133 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
134 number of bytes that will be collected.
136 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
137 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
138 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
139 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
140 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
143 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
144 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
145 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
151 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
152 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
153 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
154 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
157 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
158 show print entry-values
159 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
160 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
161 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
163 set debug entry-values
164 show debug entry-values
165 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
166 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
168 set basenames-may-differ
169 show basenames-may-differ
170 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
171 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
172 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
173 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
174 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
175 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
176 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
177 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
183 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
187 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
191 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
194 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
195 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
199 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
201 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
203 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
205 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
207 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
208 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
209 matches the given regular expression.
211 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
213 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
214 dumping the instruction opcodes.
216 * New command line options
218 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
219 This is mostly for testing purposes.
221 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
222 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
224 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
225 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
226 source path list instead of augmenting it.
228 * GDB now understands thread names.
230 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
231 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
233 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
234 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
237 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
238 has been integrated into GDB.
242 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
243 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
244 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
246 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
247 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
248 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
249 and allows for more dynamic content.
251 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
252 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
253 have an is_valid method.
255 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
256 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
257 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
259 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
261 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
262 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
263 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
264 that function like so:
266 result = some_value (10,20)
268 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
269 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
270 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
272 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
273 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
274 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
275 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
276 New function: register_pretty_printer.
278 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
279 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
281 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
283 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
286 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
287 holds the thread's name.
289 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
290 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
291 occurring in the process being debugged.
292 The following events are currently supported:
293 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
294 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
295 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
299 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
300 instantiation. For example, if you have:
302 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
304 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
305 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
306 was added to GCC 4.5.
308 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
309 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
310 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
311 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
312 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
313 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
315 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
316 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
317 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
318 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
319 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
321 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
322 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
323 execution to a label.
325 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
326 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
327 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
328 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
330 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
331 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
332 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
335 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
337 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
338 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
339 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
340 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
341 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
342 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
345 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
347 While now you see this:
350 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
352 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
355 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
356 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
357 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
358 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
360 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
361 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
362 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
363 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
364 section in the user manual for more details.
366 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
368 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
369 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
371 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
373 * New native configurations
375 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
379 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
381 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
382 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
383 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
384 in the GDB user manual.
386 * Guile support was removed.
388 * New features in the GNU simulator
390 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
392 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
394 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
396 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
398 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
399 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
400 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
401 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
402 was always disabled for such configurations.
406 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
408 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
409 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
419 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
420 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
421 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
423 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
425 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
426 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
427 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
428 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
430 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
431 mentioned flavors of operators.
433 ** static const class members
435 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
436 class definition has been fixed.
438 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
440 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
441 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
442 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
443 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
444 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
445 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
449 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
450 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
451 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
452 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
453 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
454 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
455 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
456 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
457 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
458 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
459 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
460 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
461 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
462 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
463 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
464 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
465 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
466 the "New remote packets" section below.
468 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
470 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
471 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
472 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
473 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
477 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
478 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
479 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
480 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
481 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
482 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
483 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
485 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
492 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
496 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
497 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
498 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
499 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
500 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
501 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
505 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
509 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
512 qXfer:statictrace:read
514 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
515 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
516 to gdb's qSupported query.
520 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
524 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
525 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
527 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
528 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
531 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
533 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
534 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
535 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
536 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
538 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
539 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
540 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
541 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
542 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
543 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
544 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
546 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
547 for static tracepoints support.
549 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
551 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
552 it understands register description.
554 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
556 * X86 general purpose registers
558 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
559 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
560 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
561 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
562 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
564 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
565 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
566 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
567 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
568 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
569 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
571 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
572 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
573 in the specified file.
575 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
576 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
577 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
578 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
579 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
580 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
581 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
582 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
583 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
584 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
588 eval template, expressions...
589 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
590 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
592 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
593 show target-file-system-kind
594 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
597 save breakpoints <filename>
598 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
599 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
600 definitions, use the `source' command.
602 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
605 info static-tracepoint-markers
606 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
608 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
609 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
610 function, line, address, or marker ID.
614 Enable and disable observer mode.
616 set may-write-registers on|off
617 set may-write-memory on|off
618 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
619 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
620 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
621 set may-interrupt on|off
622 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
623 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
624 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
625 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
626 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
627 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
628 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
630 set record memory-query on|off
631 show record memory-query
632 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
633 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
638 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
642 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
643 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
644 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
645 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
646 GDB using Python' in the manual.
648 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
649 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
650 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
651 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
653 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
654 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
656 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
658 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
660 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
662 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
663 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
664 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
666 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
667 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
668 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
673 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
675 * D language support.
676 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
679 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
680 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
681 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
682 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
683 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
685 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
686 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
687 conditions of the form:
689 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
691 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
692 interface mentioned above.
694 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
700 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
701 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
702 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
703 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
704 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
708 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
709 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
714 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
715 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
719 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
724 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
727 * Multi-program debugging.
729 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
730 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
731 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
732 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
733 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
734 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
735 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
736 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
738 * New tracing features
740 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
742 ** Trace state variables
744 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
745 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
746 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
747 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
748 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
749 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
750 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
751 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
752 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
753 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
757 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
758 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
759 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
760 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
761 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
762 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
763 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
764 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
765 the regular trace command.
767 ** Disconnected tracing
769 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
770 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
771 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
772 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
773 connection is lost unexpectedly.
777 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
778 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
779 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
780 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
781 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
782 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
785 ** Circular trace buffer
787 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
788 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
789 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
790 not be available for all target agents.
795 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
796 the arguments to be comma-separated.
799 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
800 which only declare a variable are not shown.
803 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
804 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
807 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
808 "set script-extension" (see below).
810 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
812 record save [<FILENAME>]
813 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
814 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
816 record restore <FILENAME>
817 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
818 earlier time, for replay debugging.
820 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
823 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
824 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
830 maint info program-spaces
831 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
833 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
834 show remote interrupt-sequence
835 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
836 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
837 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
838 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
839 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
841 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
842 show remote interrupt-on-connect
843 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
844 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
847 set remotebreak [on | off]
849 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
851 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
852 Create or modify a trace state variable.
855 List trace state variables and their values.
857 delete tvariable $NAME ...
858 Delete one or more trace state variables.
861 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
862 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
864 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
865 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
867 * New expression syntax
869 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
870 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
874 set follow-exec-mode new|same
875 show follow-exec-mode
876 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
877 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
878 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
880 set default-collect EXPR, ...
882 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
883 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
884 such as registers or a critical global variable.
886 set disconnected-tracing
887 show disconnected-tracing
888 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
889 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
892 set circular-trace-buffer
893 show circular-trace-buffer
894 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
895 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
896 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
897 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
899 set script-extension off|soft|strict
900 show script-extension
901 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
902 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
903 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
904 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
906 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
908 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
909 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
910 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
911 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
912 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
913 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
914 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
917 * Python API Improvements
919 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
920 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
921 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
923 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
924 `is_base_class' attribute.
926 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
928 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
929 evaluate an expression.
934 Define a trace state variable.
937 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
940 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
943 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
946 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
950 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
952 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
953 much more reliable. In particular:
954 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
955 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
956 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
957 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
958 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
959 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
960 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
961 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
962 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
963 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
964 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
965 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
966 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
967 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
968 non-threaded programs.
970 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
971 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
972 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
975 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
977 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
978 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
979 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
980 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
981 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
983 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
984 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
985 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
986 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
987 for tracepoint actions.
989 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
990 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
991 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
993 * Process record and replay
995 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
996 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
997 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1000 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1001 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1002 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1005 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1006 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1009 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1010 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1011 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1012 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1013 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1014 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1015 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1016 the installation instructions for more information.
1018 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1019 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1020 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1021 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1023 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1024 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
1026 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
1027 now complete on file names.
1029 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
1030 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
1031 For instance, consider:
1033 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
1034 # struct example variable;
1037 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
1038 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
1040 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
1041 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
1043 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
1044 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
1047 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
1048 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
1049 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
1051 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
1052 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
1053 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
1054 and simulator targets may also provide them.
1056 * New remote packets
1059 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1062 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
1063 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
1064 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
1067 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
1068 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
1071 Obtains additional operating system information
1075 Read or write additional signal information.
1077 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
1079 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
1080 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
1081 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
1083 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
1084 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
1086 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
1087 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
1088 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
1090 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
1091 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
1093 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
1095 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
1097 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
1098 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
1100 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
1101 list of section offsets.
1103 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
1104 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
1105 have also been fixed.
1107 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
1108 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
1109 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
1111 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
1114 template<typename T> class C { };
1117 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
1119 ptype C<char const *>
1120 ptype C<char const*>
1121 ptype C<const char *>
1122 ptype C<const char*>
1124 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
1126 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
1127 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1129 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1130 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1131 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1133 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1134 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1136 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1139 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1140 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1142 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1143 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1148 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1149 available is determined at configure time.
1151 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1153 * Ada tasking support
1155 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1159 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1161 Print detailed information about task number N.
1163 Print the task number of the current task.
1165 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1167 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1168 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1170 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1172 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1173 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1174 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1175 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1176 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1177 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1180 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1181 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1184 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1185 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1186 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1187 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1190 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1192 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1193 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1194 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1195 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1196 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1198 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1199 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1200 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1201 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1202 --enable-targets configure option.
1204 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1206 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1207 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1208 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1209 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1210 section in the user manual for more information.
1212 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1213 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1214 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1215 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1216 extensions on linux targets.
1218 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1220 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1221 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1222 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1223 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1224 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1225 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1226 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1227 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1228 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1230 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1232 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1234 maint set python print-stack
1235 maint show python print-stack
1236 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1239 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1244 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1248 Show operating system information about processes.
1251 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1254 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1257 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1260 Kill inferior number NUM.
1264 set spu stop-on-load
1265 show spu stop-on-load
1266 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1268 set spu auto-flush-cache
1269 show spu auto-flush-cache
1270 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1271 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1273 set sh calling-convention
1274 show sh calling-convention
1275 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1278 show debug timestamp
1279 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1281 set disassemble-next-line
1282 show disassemble-next-line
1283 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1286 set remote noack-packet
1287 show remote noack-packet
1288 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1289 under "New remote packets."
1291 set remote query-attached-packet
1292 show remote query-attached-packet
1293 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1295 set remote read-siginfo-object
1296 show remote read-siginfo-object
1297 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1300 set remote write-siginfo-object
1301 show remote write-siginfo-object
1302 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1305 set remote reverse-continue
1306 show remote reverse-continue
1307 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1309 set remote reverse-step
1310 show remote reverse-step
1311 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1313 set displaced-stepping
1314 show displaced-stepping
1315 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1316 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1317 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1320 show debug displaced
1321 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1323 maint set internal-error
1324 maint show internal-error
1325 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1327 maint set internal-warning
1328 maint show internal-warning
1329 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1334 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1336 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1337 show multiple-symbols
1338 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1339 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1340 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1342 set breakpoint always-inserted
1343 show breakpoint always-inserted
1344 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1345 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1346 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1348 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1349 show arm fallback-mode
1350 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1352 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1353 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1354 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1355 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1357 set disable-randomization
1358 show disable-randomization
1359 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1360 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1361 multiple debugging sessions.
1365 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1370 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1371 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1372 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1373 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1375 set target-wide-charset
1376 show target-wide-charset
1377 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1378 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1380 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1382 set tcp connect-timeout
1383 show tcp connect-timeout
1384 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1385 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1386 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1388 set libthread-db-search-path
1389 show libthread-db-search-path
1390 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1393 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1394 show schedule-multiple
1395 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1396 the current process.
1400 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1401 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1402 affecting correctness.
1404 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1405 show interactive-mode
1406 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1407 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1408 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1409 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1410 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1415 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1416 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1417 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1421 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1422 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1423 alias for the `fork' command.
1426 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1427 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1428 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1431 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1432 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1433 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1437 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1438 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1439 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1442 * New native configurations
1444 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1446 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1450 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1451 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1452 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1455 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1456 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1462 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1464 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1466 * New native configurations
1468 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1469 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1473 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1474 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1476 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1478 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1479 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1480 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1481 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1483 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1484 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1486 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1489 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1490 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1491 and in inlined functions.
1493 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1494 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1495 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1497 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1499 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1500 registers on PowerPC targets.
1502 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1503 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1505 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1506 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1508 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1509 extended-remote mode.
1511 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1512 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1513 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1514 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1516 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1517 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1518 target architectures.
1520 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1521 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1522 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1523 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1525 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1528 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1529 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1531 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1532 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1533 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1534 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1536 - Improved command completion in Ada
1539 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1544 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1545 show print frame-arguments
1546 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1547 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1552 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1559 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1561 * New remote packets
1568 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1571 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1575 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1577 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1579 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1580 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1581 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1583 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1584 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1585 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1587 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1588 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1591 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1592 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1594 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1595 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1597 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1599 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1600 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1601 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1603 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1604 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1606 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1607 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1610 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1611 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1612 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1614 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1617 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1618 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1619 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1621 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1623 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1625 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1626 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1627 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1629 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1630 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1632 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1633 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1634 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1635 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1636 Windows and SymbianOS).
1638 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1639 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1641 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1642 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1648 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1649 when debugging using remote targets.
1651 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1652 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1653 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1654 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1655 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1656 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1657 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1659 set breakpoint auto-hw
1660 show breakpoint auto-hw
1661 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1662 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1663 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1664 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1665 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1666 including "next" and "finish".
1669 catch exception unhandled
1670 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1673 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1677 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1678 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1679 an alias to "set sysroot".
1682 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1683 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1686 * New native configurations
1688 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1691 unset tdesc filename
1693 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1694 not query the target for its built-in description.
1698 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1699 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1700 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1702 * New remote packets
1705 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1706 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1708 qXfer:features:read:
1709 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1714 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1715 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1717 qXfer:libraries:read:
1718 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1719 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1720 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1721 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1725 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1733 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1734 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1735 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1736 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1738 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1741 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1742 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1751 * Other removed features
1758 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1765 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1770 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1771 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1776 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1777 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1779 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1781 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1782 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1783 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1784 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1786 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1788 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1789 in debugging information.
1793 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1794 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1796 set mips stack-arg-size
1797 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1799 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1801 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1806 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1808 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1809 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1810 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1812 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1813 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1816 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1817 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1819 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1820 stub provides the required support.
1822 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1823 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1828 unset substitute-path
1829 show substitute-path
1830 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1831 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1832 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1833 between compilation and debugging.
1837 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1838 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1839 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1843 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1845 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1846 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1848 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1850 * New remote packets
1853 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1854 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1855 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1856 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1860 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1861 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1863 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1864 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1865 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1870 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1872 * Removed remote packets
1875 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1876 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1878 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1882 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1884 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1888 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1889 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1891 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1893 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1895 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1896 previously saved state.
1898 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1900 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1902 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1903 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1905 info forks List forks of the user program that
1906 are available to be debugged.
1908 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1909 forks of the user program that are
1910 available to be debugged.
1912 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1913 that are available to be debugged (and
1914 kill the forked process).
1916 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1917 that are available to be debugged (and
1918 allow the process to continue).
1922 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1924 * Improved Windows host support
1926 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1927 native console support, and remote communications using either
1928 network sockets or serial ports.
1930 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1932 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1933 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1934 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1935 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1936 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1937 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1941 The ARM rdi-share module.
1943 The Netware NLM debug server.
1945 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1947 * New native configurations
1949 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1950 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1954 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1956 * New command line options
1958 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1959 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1960 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1961 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1962 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1963 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1964 with the --command (-x) option.
1966 * Deprecated commands removed
1968 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1972 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1973 othernames set arm disassembler
1974 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1975 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1976 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1979 * New BSD user-level threads support
1981 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1982 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1985 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1986 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1987 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1989 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1990 are not yet supported.
1992 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1993 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1995 * REMOVED configurations and files
1997 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1998 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1999 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2001 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2003 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2004 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2007 * VAX floating point support
2009 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2011 * User-defined command support
2013 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2014 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2015 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2017 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2019 * New command line option
2021 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2024 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
2026 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
2027 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
2028 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
2029 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
2030 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
2032 * Internationalization
2034 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
2035 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
2036 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
2040 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
2041 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
2042 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
2044 * New native configurations
2046 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
2050 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
2051 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
2053 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
2055 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2056 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
2057 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
2060 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
2061 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
2062 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
2072 powerpc bdm protocol
2074 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2075 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
2077 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2079 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2080 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2081 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2082 permanently REMOVED.
2091 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
2093 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
2095 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
2096 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
2099 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
2101 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
2102 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
2103 IRIX long double values).
2107 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
2108 command. This problem has been fixed.
2110 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
2112 * Fix for ``many threads''
2114 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
2115 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
2118 ptrace: No such process.
2119 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
2121 This problem has been fixed.
2123 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
2125 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
2128 * New ``start'' command.
2130 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2132 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2134 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2135 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2136 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2138 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2139 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2140 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2141 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2142 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2143 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2144 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2145 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2146 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2148 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2150 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2151 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2152 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2153 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2154 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2156 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2157 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2158 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2160 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2162 * New native configurations
2164 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2165 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2166 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2167 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2168 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2169 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2170 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2172 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2174 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2175 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2176 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2177 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2178 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2179 work, was also included.
2181 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2182 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2192 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2193 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2195 * REMOVED configurations and files
2197 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2198 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2199 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2200 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2201 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2202 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2203 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2204 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2205 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2206 sonymips mips-sony-*
2207 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2209 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2211 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2213 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2214 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2215 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2216 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2219 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2221 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2222 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2223 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2224 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2225 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2226 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2229 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2231 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2233 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2234 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2235 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2237 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2239 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2240 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2242 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2244 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2245 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2246 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2248 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2250 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2251 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2253 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2255 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2256 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2257 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2259 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2261 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2262 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2263 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2265 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2267 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2269 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2270 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2272 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2274 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2275 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2276 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2277 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2279 * Revised SPARC target
2281 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2282 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2283 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2284 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2285 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2289 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2290 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2291 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2294 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2296 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2297 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2300 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2302 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2303 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2304 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2305 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2306 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2307 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2308 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2309 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2310 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2312 * New native configurations
2314 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2315 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2316 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2317 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2318 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2320 * New debugging protocols
2322 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2324 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2326 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2327 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2328 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2330 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2332 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2333 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2334 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2335 permanently REMOVED.
2337 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2338 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2339 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2340 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2341 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2342 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2343 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2344 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2345 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2346 sonymips mips-sony-*
2347 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2349 * REMOVED configurations and files
2351 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2352 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2353 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2354 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2355 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2356 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2357 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2358 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2359 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2360 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2361 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2362 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2363 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2364 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2365 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2366 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2367 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2369 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2373 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2374 integrated into GDB.
2376 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2378 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2379 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2380 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2383 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2384 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2385 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2389 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2390 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2391 remote protocol documentation for details.
2393 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2395 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2396 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2397 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2400 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2402 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2403 per-thread variables.
2405 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2407 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2408 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2410 * Separate debug info.
2412 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2413 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2414 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2415 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2416 and optional debug files.
2418 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2420 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2421 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2424 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2425 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2429 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2430 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2431 considered "useable".
2433 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2435 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2436 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2439 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2441 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2442 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2444 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2446 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2447 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2450 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2452 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2453 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2457 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2458 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2459 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2460 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2461 data, for more informative profiling results.
2463 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2465 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2466 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2467 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2469 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2472 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2473 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2474 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2475 in a subsequent -var-update.
2477 * New native configurations.
2479 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2481 * Multi-arched targets.
2483 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2484 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2486 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2488 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2489 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2490 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2491 permanently REMOVED.
2493 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2494 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2495 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2496 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2497 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2498 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2499 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2500 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2501 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2502 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2503 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2504 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2506 * REMOVED configurations and files
2509 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2510 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2511 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2512 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2513 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2514 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2516 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2517 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2518 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2519 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2520 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2521 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2523 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2525 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2526 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2527 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2528 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2529 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2531 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2533 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2535 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2536 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2537 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2538 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2539 shared libs like mad''.
2541 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2543 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2544 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2545 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2546 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2548 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2550 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2551 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2554 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2555 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2557 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2558 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2560 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2561 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2562 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2563 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2565 * Multi-arched targets.
2567 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2568 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2570 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2571 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2572 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2576 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2579 * New native configurations
2581 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2582 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2583 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2584 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2586 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2588 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2589 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2590 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2591 permanently REMOVED.
2593 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2594 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2595 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2596 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2597 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2598 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2599 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2600 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2601 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2602 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2604 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2605 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2607 * OBSOLETE languages
2609 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2611 * REMOVED configurations and files
2613 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2614 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2615 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2616 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2617 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2619 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2621 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2623 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2624 commands. The default is 1024.
2626 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2628 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2630 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2632 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2633 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2634 from a file into memory (restore).
2636 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2638 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2639 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2640 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2642 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2650 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2651 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2652 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2654 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2655 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2656 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2658 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2659 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2660 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2662 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2663 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2664 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2666 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2668 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2670 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2671 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2672 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2673 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2674 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2675 (notably embedded) targets.
2677 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2679 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2680 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2681 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2682 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2684 * New command line option
2686 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2688 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2690 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2691 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2692 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2693 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2694 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2695 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2696 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2697 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2698 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2699 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2701 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2703 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2704 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2706 * New native configurations
2708 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2709 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2710 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2711 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2715 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2717 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2719 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2720 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2721 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2722 permanently REMOVED.
2724 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2725 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2726 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2727 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2728 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2730 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2732 * REMOVED configurations and files
2734 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2736 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2737 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2738 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2739 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2740 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2741 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2742 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2743 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2744 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2745 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2746 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2748 * Changes to command line processing
2750 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2751 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2753 * Changes to key bindings
2755 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2757 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2759 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2761 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2764 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2766 Numerous documentation fixes.
2768 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2770 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2772 * New native configurations
2774 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2775 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2776 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2777 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2778 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2779 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2783 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2785 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2787 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2789 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2790 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2791 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2792 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2793 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2795 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2796 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2797 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2798 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2799 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2800 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2801 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2802 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2804 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2805 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2807 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2808 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2809 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2810 permanently REMOVED.
2812 * REMOVED configurations and files
2814 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2815 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2817 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2821 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2823 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2824 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2829 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2831 * The MI enabled by default.
2833 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2834 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2835 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2836 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2837 which is now deprecated.
2839 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2841 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2842 main features are supported:
2844 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2846 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2849 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2851 - a Pascal expression parser.
2853 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2855 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2857 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2859 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2860 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2862 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2864 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2866 * Changes in completion.
2868 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2869 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2870 users expect at the shell prompt.
2872 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2873 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2874 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2875 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2876 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2877 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2878 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2880 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2882 * New platform-independent commands:
2884 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2885 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2886 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2888 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2890 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2891 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2892 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2894 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2896 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2897 multi-threaded programs though.
2899 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2901 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2903 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2904 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2907 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2909 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2910 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2911 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2912 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2913 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2916 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2917 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2918 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2920 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2922 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2923 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2925 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2926 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2929 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2930 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2931 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2932 a given linear address.
2934 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2935 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2936 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2938 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2940 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2942 * Changes in documentation.
2944 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2945 Documentation License.
2947 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2950 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2952 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2955 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2956 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2957 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2959 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2961 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2962 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2963 contents of this file.
2967 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2969 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2971 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2973 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2974 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2975 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2976 greater level of detail.
2978 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2980 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2981 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2982 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2985 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2987 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2988 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2989 machines ``out of the box''.
2991 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2992 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2993 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2994 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2995 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2997 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2998 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2999 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3000 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3001 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3003 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3004 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3007 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3010 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3011 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3012 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3013 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3015 * New native configurations
3017 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3018 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3022 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3023 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3024 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
3025 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3027 * OBSOLETE configurations
3029 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3030 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3032 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3035 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3036 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3037 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3038 be permanently REMOVED.
3040 * Gould support removed
3042 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
3044 * New features for SVR4
3046 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
3047 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
3048 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
3050 * Many C++ enhancements
3052 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
3053 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
3055 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
3057 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
3058 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
3059 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
3060 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
3062 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
3063 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
3065 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
3067 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
3068 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
3069 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
3071 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
3072 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
3074 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
3076 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
3077 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
3078 include ``set remote P-packet''.
3080 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
3082 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
3083 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
3084 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
3086 * ``apropos'' command added.
3088 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
3089 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
3090 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
3094 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
3095 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
3096 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
3097 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
3098 enabled by configuring with:
3100 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
3102 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
3104 * New native configurations
3106 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
3107 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
3108 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
3112 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3113 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
3114 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3116 * OBSOLETE configurations
3118 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
3120 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
3121 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
3122 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
3123 be permanently REMOVED.
3127 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
3128 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
3129 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3130 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3131 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3132 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3133 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3138 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3140 * set extension-language
3142 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3143 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3144 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3145 set extension-language .c c++
3146 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3147 and their associated languages.
3149 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3151 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3152 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3153 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3157 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3158 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3160 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3161 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3163 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3164 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3165 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3166 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3167 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3168 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3169 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3170 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3172 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3173 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3174 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3175 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3179 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3180 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3181 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3182 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3183 for xdb and dbx commands.
3187 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3188 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3189 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3191 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3192 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3193 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3195 * Debugging across forks
3197 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3202 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3203 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3204 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3206 * GDB remote protocol additions
3208 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3209 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3210 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3211 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3213 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3214 full 64-bit address. The command
3216 set remoteaddresssize 32
3218 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3219 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3222 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3223 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3225 maint packet heythere
3227 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3228 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3231 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3232 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3233 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3235 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3237 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3238 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3239 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3241 * mask-address variable for Mips
3243 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3244 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3245 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3247 * Higher serial baud rates
3249 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3250 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3251 to achieve all of these rates.)
3255 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3256 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3259 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3261 * New native configurations
3263 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3264 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3265 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3266 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3267 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3268 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3269 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3273 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3274 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3275 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3276 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3277 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3278 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3279 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3280 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3281 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3282 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3283 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3285 * New debugging protocols
3287 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3288 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3289 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3290 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3291 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3292 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3296 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3297 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3302 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3303 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3305 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3307 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3308 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3309 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3311 * Live range splitting
3313 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3314 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3315 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3319 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3320 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3324 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3325 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3326 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3331 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3336 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3337 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3338 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3339 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3340 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3341 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3345 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3346 the symbol at the specified address.
3350 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3351 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3352 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3353 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3354 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3358 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3359 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3360 of most MIPS variants.
3364 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3365 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3366 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3370 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3371 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3372 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3373 the possible architectures.
3375 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3377 * New native configurations
3379 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3380 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3381 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3382 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3383 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3384 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3388 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3389 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3390 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3391 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3392 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3394 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3398 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3399 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3400 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3401 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3402 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3406 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3408 * Windows 95/NT native
3410 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3411 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3412 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3413 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3414 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3416 * dont-repeat command
3418 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3419 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3420 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3421 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3423 * Send break instead of ^C
3425 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3426 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3427 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3429 * Remote protocol timeout
3431 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3432 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3433 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3435 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3437 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3438 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3439 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3440 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3441 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3443 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3444 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3445 automatically on hpux10.
3447 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3449 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3451 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3453 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3454 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3455 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3456 every character. The default value is 1050.
3458 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3460 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3461 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3462 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3463 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3464 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3465 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3467 * Speedups for remote debugging
3469 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3470 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3471 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3473 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3475 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3476 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3478 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3480 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3482 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3483 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3485 * Remote targets use caching
3487 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3488 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3489 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3490 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3491 off' turns the the data cache off.
3493 * Remote targets may have threads
3495 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3496 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3497 gdb/remote.c for details.
3501 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3502 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3503 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3504 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3505 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3506 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3507 sequence is something like
3509 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3511 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3515 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3516 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3517 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3518 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3519 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3520 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3521 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3522 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3526 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3527 but does simplify configuration and building.
3531 GDB now supports hpux10.
3533 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3535 * New native configurations
3537 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3538 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3539 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3540 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3544 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3545 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3546 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3547 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3550 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3552 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3553 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3554 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3555 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3556 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3558 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3560 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3561 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3564 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3566 To execute the command use:
3569 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3570 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3571 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3573 * New `if' and `while' commands
3575 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3576 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3577 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3578 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3579 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3580 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3581 if the expression is zero.
3583 * Fortran source language mode
3585 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3586 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3587 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3588 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3591 * Better HPUX support
3593 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3594 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3595 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3596 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3597 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3603 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3604 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3610 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3611 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3614 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3615 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3617 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3619 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3620 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3621 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3622 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3623 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3624 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3626 * New DOS host serial code
3628 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3629 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3632 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3634 * New "complete" command
3636 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3637 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3639 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3641 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3642 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3644 * Breakpoint hit counts
3646 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3647 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3648 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3649 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3650 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3653 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3655 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3656 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3657 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3659 * Shared library breakpoints
3661 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3662 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3664 * Hardware watchpoints
3666 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3667 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3669 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3673 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3674 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3676 * Improved Irix 5 support
3678 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3680 * Improved HPPA support
3682 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3684 * New native configurations
3686 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3687 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3688 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3689 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3693 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3694 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3697 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3699 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3700 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3704 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3705 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3707 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3709 * Irix 5 is now supported
3713 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3714 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3715 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3716 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3717 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3720 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3722 * User visible changes:
3726 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3727 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3728 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3729 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3730 debugging info for the mips target).
3732 * DEC Alpha native support
3734 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3735 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3736 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3737 Alpha-specific notes.
3739 * Preliminary thread implementation
3741 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3743 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3745 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3746 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3749 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3751 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3752 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3753 call methods, ...etc.
3755 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3757 * User visible changes:
3759 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3760 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3761 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3762 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3764 Filename completion now works.
3766 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3767 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3768 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3770 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3771 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3772 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3773 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3774 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3778 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3779 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3782 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3786 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3787 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3788 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3792 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3793 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3794 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3795 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3796 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3800 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3801 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3802 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3804 * New targets supported
3806 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3807 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3808 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3809 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3810 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3812 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3813 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3814 GO32 memory extender.
3816 * New remote protocols
3818 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3820 * New source languages supported
3822 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3823 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3824 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3827 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3829 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3831 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3832 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3833 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3834 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3835 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3836 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3838 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3840 * Faster and better demangling
3842 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3843 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3844 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3845 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3846 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3847 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3850 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3851 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3852 compiler does not actually implement.
3854 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3856 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3857 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3858 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3859 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3860 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3861 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3864 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3865 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3867 * Improved configure script
3869 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3870 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3871 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3872 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3874 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3875 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3876 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3877 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3878 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3879 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3881 * Documentation improvements
3883 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3884 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3885 before submitting changes.
3887 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3888 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3889 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3890 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3891 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3893 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3894 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3895 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3896 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3897 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3898 around this problem.
3902 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3903 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3904 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3907 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3908 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3910 * New native hosts supported
3912 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3913 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3915 * New targets supported
3917 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3919 * New file formats supported
3921 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3922 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3926 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3928 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3929 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3931 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3932 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3933 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3935 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3936 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3938 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3939 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3940 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3943 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3944 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3945 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3946 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3947 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3949 * Internal improvements
3951 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3952 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3954 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3955 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3956 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3957 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3958 shared code that handles any of them.
3960 * New command line options
3962 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3966 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3967 General Public License.
3969 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3971 * Host/native/target split
3973 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3974 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3975 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3976 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3977 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3979 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3980 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3981 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3982 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3983 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3984 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3985 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3987 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3988 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3989 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3991 * New hosts supported
3993 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3994 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3995 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3997 * New targets supported
3999 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4000 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4002 * New native hosts supported
4004 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4005 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4006 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4008 * New file formats supported
4010 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4011 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4012 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4016 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4017 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4018 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4020 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4022 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4023 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4024 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
4025 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
4029 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
4030 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
4031 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
4033 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
4037 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
4038 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
4041 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
4042 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
4044 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
4045 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
4046 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
4047 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
4048 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
4049 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
4051 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
4052 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
4053 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
4054 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
4058 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
4059 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
4060 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
4061 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
4062 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
4064 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
4065 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
4066 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
4067 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
4071 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
4072 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
4073 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
4074 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
4075 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
4076 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
4077 each instruction being stepped through.
4079 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
4080 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
4082 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
4083 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
4084 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
4085 processor with a serial port.
4089 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
4090 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
4091 supported, and what files each one uses.
4095 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
4096 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
4097 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
4098 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
4100 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
4101 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
4102 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
4103 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
4107 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
4108 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
4109 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
4110 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
4111 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
4112 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
4114 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
4117 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
4119 * Better support for C++ function names
4121 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
4122 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
4123 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
4124 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
4125 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
4127 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
4128 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
4129 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4130 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4131 for the list of formats.
4133 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4135 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4136 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4137 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4138 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4139 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4140 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4143 * New 'maintenance' command
4145 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4146 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4147 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4149 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4150 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4151 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4152 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4153 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4154 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4156 The following commands are new:
4158 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4159 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4160 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4162 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4164 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4165 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4166 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4167 read after argv processing.
4169 * New hosts supported
4171 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4173 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4175 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4176 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4177 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4178 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4179 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4182 * New targets supported
4184 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4186 * More smarts about finding #include files
4188 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4189 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4190 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4191 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4192 the one that contains your sources.
4194 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4195 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4196 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4198 * Interesting infernals change
4200 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4201 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4202 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4203 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4205 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4207 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4208 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4209 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4211 See the ChangeLog for details.
4213 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4215 * New machines supported (host and target)
4217 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4219 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4221 * New malloc package
4223 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4224 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4225 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4226 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4227 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4228 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4232 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4233 'help info proc' for details.
4235 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4237 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4238 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4241 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4243 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4244 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4245 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4246 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4247 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4248 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4250 * Cross byte order fixes
4252 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4253 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4255 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4257 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4258 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4259 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4260 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4261 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4262 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4263 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4264 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4265 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4266 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4268 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4269 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4270 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4271 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4273 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4274 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4275 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4278 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4280 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4281 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4282 shared across multiple host platforms.
4284 * longjmp() handling
4286 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4287 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4288 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4289 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4293 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4294 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4299 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4300 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4301 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4303 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4305 * New machines supported (host and target)
4307 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4309 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4310 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4312 * New machines supported (target)
4314 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4318 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4319 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4320 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4322 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4323 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4324 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4325 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4326 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4329 * New features for SVR4
4331 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4332 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4333 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4335 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4336 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4337 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4339 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4340 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4342 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4344 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4345 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4346 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4347 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4348 same code linked statically.
4352 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4353 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4354 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4355 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4356 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4357 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4361 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4362 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4363 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4366 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4368 * New machines supported (host and target)
4370 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4371 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4372 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4374 * Almost SCO Unix support
4376 We had hoped to support:
4377 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4378 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4379 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4380 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4382 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4384 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4385 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4386 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4387 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4392 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4393 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4394 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4398 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4399 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4400 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4402 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4404 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4405 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4406 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4408 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4409 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4410 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4411 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4414 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4415 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4416 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4417 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4420 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4421 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4424 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4425 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4426 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4429 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4431 * Improved configuration
4433 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4434 Porting BFD is simpler.
4438 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4439 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4440 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4441 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4445 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4447 * New host supported (not target)
4449 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4452 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4454 * Multiple source language support
4456 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4457 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4458 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4459 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4460 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4461 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4465 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4466 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4467 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4468 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4470 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4471 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4472 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4474 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4475 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4479 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4480 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4481 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4482 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4485 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4487 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4488 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4489 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4490 examining core files.
4494 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4497 * New machines supported (host and target)
4499 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4500 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4501 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4503 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4505 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4507 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4509 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4510 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4511 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4513 * New remote interfaces
4519 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4523 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4525 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4526 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4527 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4528 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4529 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4530 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4531 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4532 stub on the target system.
4534 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4536 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4537 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4538 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4540 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4541 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4544 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4546 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4547 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4549 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4550 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4551 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4553 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4554 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4555 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4556 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4558 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4559 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4560 it is already running. Default is ON.
4562 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4563 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4564 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4565 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4568 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4569 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4570 or the value of the environment variable
4573 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4574 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4577 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4578 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4579 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4581 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4582 history expansion will be performed on
4583 command line input. The default is OFF.
4585 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4586 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4587 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4589 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4590 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4591 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4594 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4595 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4596 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4599 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4600 ``set width'' instead.
4602 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4603 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4604 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4605 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4607 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4610 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4613 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4616 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4619 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4621 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4622 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4623 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4627 * Support for Shared Libraries
4629 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4630 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4631 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4632 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4633 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4634 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4635 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4636 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4638 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4639 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4640 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4642 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4647 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4648 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4649 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4650 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4651 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4652 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4654 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4656 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4658 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4659 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4660 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4663 * C++ multiple inheritance
4665 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4668 * C++ exception handling
4670 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4671 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4672 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4675 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4676 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4677 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4679 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4680 current stack frame.
4683 * Minor command changes
4685 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4686 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4687 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4689 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4690 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4691 frames without printing.
4693 * New directory command
4695 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4696 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4697 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4698 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4699 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4701 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4703 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4706 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4707 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4708 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4709 where the program that you are debugging will run.