1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
6 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
8 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
9 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
10 "mi1", can be enabled by sepcifying the option "-i=mi1".
12 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
15 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
16 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
17 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
18 in a subsequent -var-update.
20 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
22 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
23 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
24 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
27 * REMOVED configurations and files
30 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
31 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
32 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
33 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
34 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
35 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
37 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
38 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
39 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
40 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
41 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
42 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
44 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
46 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
47 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
48 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
49 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
50 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
52 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
54 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
56 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
57 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
58 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
59 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
60 shared libs like mad''.
62 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
64 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
65 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
66 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
67 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
69 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
71 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
72 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
75 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
76 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
78 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
79 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
81 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
82 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
83 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
84 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
86 * Multi-arched targets.
88 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
89 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
91 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
92 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
93 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
97 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
100 * New native configurations
102 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
103 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
104 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
105 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
107 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
109 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
110 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
111 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
114 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
115 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
116 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
117 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
118 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
119 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
120 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
121 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
122 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
123 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
125 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
126 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
130 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
132 * REMOVED configurations and files
134 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
135 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
136 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
137 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
138 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
140 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
142 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
144 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
145 commands. The default is 1024.
147 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
149 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
151 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
153 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
154 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
155 from a file into memory (restore).
157 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
159 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
160 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
161 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
163 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
171 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
172 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
173 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
175 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
176 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
177 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
179 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
180 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
181 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
183 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
184 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
185 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
187 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
189 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
191 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
192 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
193 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
194 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
195 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
196 (notably embedded) targets.
198 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
200 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
201 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
202 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
203 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
205 * New command line option
207 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
209 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
211 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
212 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
213 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
214 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
215 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
216 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
217 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
218 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
219 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
220 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
222 * Changes in ARM configurations.
224 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
225 configuration is fully multi-arch.
227 * New native configurations
229 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
230 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
231 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
232 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
236 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
238 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
240 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
241 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
242 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
245 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
246 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
247 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
248 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
249 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
251 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
253 * REMOVED configurations and files
255 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
257 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
258 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
259 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
260 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
261 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
262 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
263 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
264 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
265 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
266 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
267 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
269 * Changes to command line processing
271 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
272 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
274 * Changes to key bindings
276 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
278 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
280 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
282 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
285 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
287 Numerous documentation fixes.
289 Numerous testsuite fixes.
291 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
293 * New native configurations
295 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
296 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
297 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
298 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
300 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
304 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
306 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
308 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
310 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
311 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
312 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
313 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
314 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
316 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
317 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
318 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
319 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
320 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
321 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
322 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
323 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
325 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
326 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
328 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
329 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
330 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
333 * REMOVED configurations and files
335 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
336 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
338 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
342 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
344 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
345 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
350 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
352 * The MI enabled by default.
354 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
355 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
356 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
357 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
358 which is now deprecated.
360 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
362 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
363 main features are supported:
365 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
367 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
370 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
372 - a Pascal expression parser.
374 However, some important features are not yet supported.
376 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
378 - there are some problems with boolean types;
380 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
381 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
383 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
385 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
387 * Changes in completion.
389 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
390 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
391 users expect at the shell prompt.
393 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
394 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
395 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
396 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
397 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
398 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
399 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
401 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
403 * New platform-independent commands:
405 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
406 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
407 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
409 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
411 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
412 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
413 many threads as your system allows you to have.
415 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
417 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
418 multi-threaded programs though.
420 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
422 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
424 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
425 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
428 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
430 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
431 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
432 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
433 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
434 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
437 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
438 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
439 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
441 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
443 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
444 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
446 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
447 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
450 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
451 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
452 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
453 a given linear address.
455 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
456 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
457 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
459 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
461 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
463 * Changes in documentation.
465 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
466 Documentation License.
468 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
471 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
473 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
476 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
477 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
478 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
480 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
482 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
483 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
484 contents of this file.
488 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
490 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
492 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
494 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
495 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
496 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
497 greater level of detail.
499 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
501 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
502 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
503 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
506 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
508 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
509 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
510 machines ``out of the box''.
512 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
513 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
514 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
515 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
516 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
518 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
519 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
520 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
521 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
522 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
524 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
525 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
528 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
531 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
532 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
533 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
534 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
536 * New native configurations
538 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
539 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
543 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
544 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
545 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
546 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
548 * OBSOLETE configurations
550 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
551 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
553 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
556 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
557 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
558 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
559 be permanently REMOVED.
561 * Gould support removed
563 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
565 * New features for SVR4
567 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
568 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
569 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
571 * Many C++ enhancements
573 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
574 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
576 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
578 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
579 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
580 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
581 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
583 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
584 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
586 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
588 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
589 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
590 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
592 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
593 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
595 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
597 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
598 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
599 include ``set remote P-packet''.
601 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
603 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
604 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
605 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
607 * ``apropos'' command added.
609 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
610 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
611 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
615 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
616 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
617 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
618 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
619 enabled by configuring with:
621 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
623 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
625 * New native configurations
627 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
628 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
629 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
633 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
634 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
635 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
637 * OBSOLETE configurations
639 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
641 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
642 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
643 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
644 be permanently REMOVED.
648 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
649 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
650 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
651 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
652 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
653 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
654 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
659 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
661 * set extension-language
663 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
664 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
665 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
666 set extension-language .c c++
667 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
668 and their associated languages.
670 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
672 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
673 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
674 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
678 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
679 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
681 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
682 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
684 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
685 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
686 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
687 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
688 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
689 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
690 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
691 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
693 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
694 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
695 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
696 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
700 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
701 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
702 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
703 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
704 for xdb and dbx commands.
708 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
709 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
710 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
712 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
713 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
714 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
716 * Debugging across forks
718 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
723 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
724 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
725 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
727 * GDB remote protocol additions
729 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
730 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
731 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
732 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
734 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
735 full 64-bit address. The command
737 set remoteaddresssize 32
739 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
740 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
743 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
744 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
746 maint packet heythere
748 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
749 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
752 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
753 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
754 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
756 * Tracing can collect general expressions
758 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
759 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
760 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
762 * mask-address variable for Mips
764 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
765 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
766 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
768 * Higher serial baud rates
770 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
771 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
772 to achieve all of these rates.)
776 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
777 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
780 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
782 * New native configurations
784 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
785 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
786 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
787 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
788 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
789 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
790 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
794 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
795 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
796 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
797 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
798 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
799 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
800 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
801 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
802 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
803 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
804 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
806 * New debugging protocols
808 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
809 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
810 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
811 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
812 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
813 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
817 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
818 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
823 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
824 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
826 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
828 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
829 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
830 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
832 * Live range splitting
834 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
835 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
836 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
840 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
841 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
845 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
846 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
847 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
852 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
857 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
858 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
859 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
860 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
861 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
862 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
866 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
867 the symbol at the specified address.
871 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
872 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
873 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
874 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
875 file tracepoint.c for more details.
879 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
880 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
881 of most MIPS variants.
885 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
886 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
887 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
891 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
892 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
893 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
894 the possible architectures.
896 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
898 * New native configurations
900 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
901 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
902 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
903 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
904 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
905 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
909 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
910 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
911 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
912 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
913 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
915 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
919 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
920 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
921 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
922 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
923 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
927 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
929 * Windows 95/NT native
931 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
932 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
933 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
934 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
935 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
937 * dont-repeat command
939 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
940 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
941 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
942 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
944 * Send break instead of ^C
946 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
947 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
948 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
950 * Remote protocol timeout
952 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
953 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
954 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
956 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
958 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
959 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
960 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
961 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
962 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
964 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
965 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
966 automatically on hpux10.
968 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
970 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
972 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
974 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
975 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
976 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
977 every character. The default value is 1050.
979 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
981 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
982 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
983 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
984 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
985 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
986 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
988 * Speedups for remote debugging
990 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
991 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
992 and more efficient S-record downloading.
994 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
996 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
997 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
999 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1001 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1003 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1004 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1006 * Remote targets use caching
1008 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1009 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1010 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1011 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1012 off' turns the the data cache off.
1014 * Remote targets may have threads
1016 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1017 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1018 gdb/remote.c for details.
1022 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1023 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1024 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1025 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1026 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1027 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1028 sequence is something like
1030 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1032 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1036 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1037 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1038 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1039 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1040 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1041 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1042 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1043 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1047 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1048 but does simplify configuration and building.
1052 GDB now supports hpux10.
1054 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1056 * New native configurations
1058 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1059 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1060 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1061 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1065 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1066 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1067 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1068 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1071 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1073 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1074 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1075 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1076 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1077 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1079 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1081 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1082 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1085 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1087 To execute the command use:
1090 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1091 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1092 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1094 * New `if' and `while' commands
1096 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1097 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1098 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1099 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1100 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1101 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1102 if the expression is zero.
1104 * Fortran source language mode
1106 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1107 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1108 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1109 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1112 * Better HPUX support
1114 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1115 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1116 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1117 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1118 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1124 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1125 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1131 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1132 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1135 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1136 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1138 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1140 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1141 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1142 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1143 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1144 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1145 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1147 * New DOS host serial code
1149 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1150 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1153 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1155 * New "complete" command
1157 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1158 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1160 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1162 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1163 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1165 * Breakpoint hit counts
1167 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1168 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1169 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1170 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1171 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1174 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1176 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1177 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1178 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1180 * Shared library breakpoints
1182 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1183 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1185 * Hardware watchpoints
1187 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1188 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1190 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1194 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1195 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1197 * Improved Irix 5 support
1199 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1201 * Improved HPPA support
1203 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1205 * New native configurations
1207 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1208 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1209 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1210 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1214 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1215 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1218 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1220 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1221 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1225 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1226 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1228 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1230 * Irix 5 is now supported
1234 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1235 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1236 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1237 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1238 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1241 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1243 * User visible changes:
1247 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1248 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1249 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1250 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1251 debugging info for the mips target).
1253 * DEC Alpha native support
1255 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1256 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1257 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1258 Alpha-specific notes.
1260 * Preliminary thread implementation
1262 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1264 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1266 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1267 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1270 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1272 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1273 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1274 call methods, ...etc.
1276 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1278 * User visible changes:
1280 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1281 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1282 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1283 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1285 Filename completion now works.
1287 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1288 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1289 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1291 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1292 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1293 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1294 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1295 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1299 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1300 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1303 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1307 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1308 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1309 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1313 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1314 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1315 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1316 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1317 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1321 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1322 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1323 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1325 * New targets supported
1327 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1328 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1329 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1330 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1331 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1333 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1334 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1335 GO32 memory extender.
1337 * New remote protocols
1339 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1341 * New source languages supported
1343 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1344 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1345 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1348 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1350 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1352 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1353 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1354 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1355 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1356 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1357 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1359 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1361 * Faster and better demangling
1363 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1364 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1365 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1366 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1367 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1368 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1371 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1372 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1373 compiler does not actually implement.
1375 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1377 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1378 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1379 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1380 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1381 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1382 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1385 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1386 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1388 * Improved configure script
1390 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1391 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1392 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1393 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1395 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1396 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1397 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1398 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1399 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1400 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1402 * Documentation improvements
1404 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1405 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1406 before submitting changes.
1408 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1409 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1410 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1411 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1412 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1414 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1415 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1416 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1417 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1418 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1419 around this problem.
1423 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1424 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1425 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1428 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1429 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1431 * New native hosts supported
1433 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1434 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1436 * New targets supported
1438 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1440 * New file formats supported
1442 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1443 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1447 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1449 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1450 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1452 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1453 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1454 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1456 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1457 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1459 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1460 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1461 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1464 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1465 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1466 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1467 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1468 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1470 * Internal improvements
1472 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1473 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1475 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1476 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1477 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1478 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1479 shared code that handles any of them.
1481 * New command line options
1483 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1487 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1488 General Public License.
1490 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1492 * Host/native/target split
1494 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1495 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1496 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1497 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1498 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1500 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1501 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1502 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1503 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1504 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1505 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1506 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1508 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1509 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1510 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1512 * New hosts supported
1514 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1515 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1516 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1518 * New targets supported
1520 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1521 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1523 * New native hosts supported
1525 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1526 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1527 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1529 * New file formats supported
1531 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1532 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1533 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1537 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1538 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1539 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1541 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1543 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1544 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1545 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1546 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1550 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1551 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1552 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1554 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1558 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1559 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1562 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1563 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1565 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1566 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1567 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1568 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1569 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1570 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1572 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1573 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1574 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1575 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1579 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1580 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1581 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1582 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1583 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1585 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1586 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1587 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1588 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1592 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1593 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1594 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1595 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1596 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1597 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1598 each instruction being stepped through.
1600 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1601 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1603 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1604 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1605 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1606 processor with a serial port.
1610 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1611 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1612 supported, and what files each one uses.
1616 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1617 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1618 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1619 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1621 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1622 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1623 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1624 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1628 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1629 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1630 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1631 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1632 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1633 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1635 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1638 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1640 * Better support for C++ function names
1642 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1643 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1644 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1645 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1646 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1648 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1649 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1650 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1651 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1652 for the list of formats.
1654 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1656 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1657 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1658 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1659 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1660 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1661 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1664 * New 'maintenance' command
1666 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1667 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1668 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1670 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1671 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1672 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1673 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1674 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1675 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1677 The following commands are new:
1679 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1680 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1681 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1683 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1685 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1686 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1687 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1688 read after argv processing.
1690 * New hosts supported
1692 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1694 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1696 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1697 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1698 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1699 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1700 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1703 * New targets supported
1705 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1707 * More smarts about finding #include files
1709 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1710 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1711 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1712 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1713 the one that contains your sources.
1715 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1716 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1717 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1719 * Interesting infernals change
1721 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1722 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1723 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1724 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1726 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1728 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1729 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1730 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1732 See the ChangeLog for details.
1734 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1736 * New machines supported (host and target)
1738 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1740 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1742 * New malloc package
1744 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1745 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1746 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1747 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1748 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1749 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1753 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1754 'help info proc' for details.
1756 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1758 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1759 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1762 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1764 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1765 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1766 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1767 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1768 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1769 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1771 * Cross byte order fixes
1773 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1774 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1776 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1778 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1779 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1780 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1781 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1782 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1783 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1784 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1785 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1786 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1787 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1789 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1790 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1791 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1792 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1794 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1795 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1796 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1799 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1801 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1802 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1803 shared across multiple host platforms.
1805 * longjmp() handling
1807 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1808 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1809 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1810 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1814 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1815 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1820 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1821 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1822 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1824 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1826 * New machines supported (host and target)
1828 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1830 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1831 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1833 * New machines supported (target)
1835 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1839 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1840 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1841 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1843 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1844 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1845 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1846 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1847 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1850 * New features for SVR4
1852 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1853 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1854 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1856 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1857 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1858 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1860 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1861 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1863 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1865 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1866 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1867 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1868 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1869 same code linked statically.
1873 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1874 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1875 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1876 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1877 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1878 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1882 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1883 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1884 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1887 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1889 * New machines supported (host and target)
1891 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1892 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1893 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1895 * Almost SCO Unix support
1897 We had hoped to support:
1898 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1899 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1900 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1901 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1903 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1905 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1906 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1907 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1908 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1913 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1914 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1915 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1919 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1920 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1921 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1923 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1925 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1926 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1927 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1929 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1930 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1931 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1932 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1935 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1936 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1937 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1938 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1941 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1942 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1945 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1946 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1947 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1950 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1952 * Improved configuration
1954 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1955 Porting BFD is simpler.
1959 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1960 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1961 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1962 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1966 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1968 * New host supported (not target)
1970 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1973 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1975 * Multiple source language support
1977 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1978 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1979 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1980 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1981 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1982 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1986 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1987 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1988 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1989 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1991 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1992 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1993 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1995 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1996 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2000 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2001 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2002 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2003 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2006 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2008 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2009 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2010 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2011 examining core files.
2015 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2018 * New machines supported (host and target)
2020 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2021 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2022 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2024 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2026 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2028 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2030 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2031 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2032 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2034 * New remote interfaces
2040 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2044 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2046 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2047 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2048 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2049 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2050 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2051 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2052 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2053 stub on the target system.
2055 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2057 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2058 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2059 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2061 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2062 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2065 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2067 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2068 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2070 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2071 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2072 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2074 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2075 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2076 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2077 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2079 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2080 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2081 it is already running. Default is ON.
2083 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2084 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2085 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2086 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2089 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2090 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2091 or the value of the environment variable
2094 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2095 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2098 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2099 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2100 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2102 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2103 history expansion will be performed on
2104 command line input. The default is OFF.
2106 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2107 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2108 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2110 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2111 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2112 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2115 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2116 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2117 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2120 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2121 ``set width'' instead.
2123 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2124 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2125 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2126 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2128 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2131 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2134 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2137 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2140 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2142 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2143 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2144 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2148 * Support for Shared Libraries
2150 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2151 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2152 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2153 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2154 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2155 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2156 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2157 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2159 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2160 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2161 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2163 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2168 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2169 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2170 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2171 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2172 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2173 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2175 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2177 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2179 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2180 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2181 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2184 * C++ multiple inheritance
2186 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2189 * C++ exception handling
2191 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2192 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2193 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2196 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2197 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2198 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2200 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2201 current stack frame.
2204 * Minor command changes
2206 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2207 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2208 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2210 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2211 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2212 frames without printing.
2214 * New directory command
2216 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2217 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2218 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2219 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2220 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2222 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2224 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2227 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2228 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2229 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2230 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob