1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.2:
6 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
8 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
9 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
12 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
13 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
14 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
15 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
17 Here are the new commands for working with macros:
19 ** macro expand EXPRESSION
21 Expand any macro invocations in expression, and show the result.
23 ** show macro MACRO-NAME
25 Show the definition of the macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was
28 * Multi-arched targets.
36 * New native configurations
38 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
39 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
40 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
42 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
44 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
45 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
46 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
49 * REMOVED configurations and files
51 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
52 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
53 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
54 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
55 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
57 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
59 * Changes in VAX configurations.
61 Multi-arch support is enabled for all VAX configurations.
63 * Changes in Alpha configurations.
65 Multi-arch support is enabled for all Alpha configurations.
67 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
69 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
70 commands. The default is 1024.
72 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
74 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
76 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
78 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
79 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
80 from a file into memory (restore).
82 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
84 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
86 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
87 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
88 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
89 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
90 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
91 (notably embedded) targets.
93 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
95 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
96 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
97 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
98 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
100 * New command line option
102 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
104 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
106 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
107 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
108 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
109 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
110 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
111 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
112 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
113 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
114 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
115 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
117 * Changes in ARM configurations.
119 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
120 configuration is fully multi-arch.
122 * New native configurations
124 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
125 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
126 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
127 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
131 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
133 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
135 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
136 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
137 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
140 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
141 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
142 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
143 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
144 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
146 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
148 * REMOVED configurations and files
150 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
152 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
153 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
154 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
155 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
156 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
157 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
158 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
159 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
160 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
161 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
162 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
164 * Changes to command line processing
166 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
167 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
169 * Changes to key bindings
171 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
173 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
175 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
177 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
180 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
182 Numerous documentation fixes.
184 Numerous testsuite fixes.
186 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
188 * New native configurations
190 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
191 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
192 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
193 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
195 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
199 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
201 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
203 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
205 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
206 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
207 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
208 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
209 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
211 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
212 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
213 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
214 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
215 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
216 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
217 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
218 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
220 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
221 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
223 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
224 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
225 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
228 * REMOVED configurations and files
230 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
231 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
233 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
237 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
239 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
240 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
245 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
247 * The MI enabled by default.
249 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
250 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
251 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
252 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
253 which is now deprecated.
255 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
257 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
258 main features are supported:
260 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
262 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
265 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
267 - a Pascal expression parser.
269 However, some important features are not yet supported.
271 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
273 - there are some problems with boolean types;
275 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
276 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
278 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
280 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
282 * Changes in completion.
284 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
285 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
286 users expect at the shell prompt.
288 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
289 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
290 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
291 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
292 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
293 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
294 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
296 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
298 * New platform-independent commands:
300 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
301 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
302 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
304 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
306 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
307 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
308 many threads as your system allows you to have.
310 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
312 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
313 multi-threaded programs though.
315 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
317 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
319 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
320 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
323 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
325 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
326 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
327 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
328 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
329 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
332 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
333 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
334 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
336 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
338 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
339 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
341 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
342 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
345 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
346 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
347 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
348 a given linear address.
350 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
351 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
352 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
354 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
356 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
358 * Changes in documentation.
360 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
361 Documentation License.
363 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
366 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
368 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
371 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
372 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
373 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
375 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
377 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
378 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
379 contents of this file.
383 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
385 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
387 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
389 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
390 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
391 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
392 greater level of detail.
394 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
396 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
397 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
398 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
401 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
403 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
404 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
405 machines ``out of the box''.
407 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
408 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
409 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
410 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
411 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
413 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
414 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
415 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
416 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
417 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
419 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
420 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
423 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
426 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
427 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
428 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
429 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
431 * New native configurations
433 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
434 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
438 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
439 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
440 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
441 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
443 * OBSOLETE configurations
445 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
446 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
448 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
451 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
452 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
453 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
454 be permanently REMOVED.
456 * Gould support removed
458 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
460 * New features for SVR4
462 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
463 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
464 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
466 * Many C++ enhancements
468 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
469 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
471 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
473 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
474 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
475 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
476 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
478 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
479 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
481 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
483 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
484 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
485 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
487 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
488 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
490 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
492 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
493 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
494 include ``set remote P-packet''.
496 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
498 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
499 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
500 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
502 * ``apropos'' command added.
504 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
505 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
506 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
510 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
511 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
512 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
513 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
514 enabled by configuring with:
516 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
518 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
520 * New native configurations
522 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
523 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
524 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
528 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
529 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
530 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
532 * OBSOLETE configurations
534 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
536 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
537 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
538 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
539 be permanently REMOVED.
543 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
544 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
545 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
546 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
547 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
548 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
549 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
554 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
556 * set extension-language
558 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
559 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
560 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
561 set extension-language .c c++
562 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
563 and their associated languages.
565 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
567 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
568 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
569 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
573 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
574 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
576 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
577 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
579 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
580 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
581 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
582 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
583 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
584 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
585 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
586 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
588 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
589 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
590 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
591 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
595 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
596 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
597 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
598 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
599 for xdb and dbx commands.
603 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
604 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
605 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
607 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
608 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
609 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
611 * Debugging across forks
613 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
618 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
619 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
620 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
622 * GDB remote protocol additions
624 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
625 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
626 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
627 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
629 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
630 full 64-bit address. The command
632 set remoteaddresssize 32
634 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
635 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
638 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
639 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
641 maint packet heythere
643 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
644 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
647 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
648 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
649 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
651 * Tracing can collect general expressions
653 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
654 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
655 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
657 * mask-address variable for Mips
659 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
660 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
661 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
663 * Higher serial baud rates
665 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
666 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
667 to achieve all of these rates.)
671 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
672 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
675 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
677 * New native configurations
679 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
680 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
681 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
682 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
683 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
684 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
685 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
689 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
690 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
691 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
692 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
693 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
694 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
695 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
696 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
697 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
698 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
699 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
701 * New debugging protocols
703 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
704 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
705 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
706 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
707 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
708 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
712 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
713 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
718 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
719 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
721 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
723 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
724 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
725 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
727 * Live range splitting
729 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
730 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
731 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
735 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
736 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
740 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
741 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
742 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
747 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
752 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
753 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
754 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
755 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
756 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
757 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
761 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
762 the symbol at the specified address.
766 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
767 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
768 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
769 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
770 file tracepoint.c for more details.
774 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
775 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
776 of most MIPS variants.
780 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
781 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
782 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
786 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
787 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
788 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
789 the possible architectures.
791 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
793 * New native configurations
795 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
796 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
797 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
798 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
799 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
800 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
804 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
805 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
806 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
807 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
808 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
810 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
814 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
815 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
816 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
817 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
818 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
822 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
824 * Windows 95/NT native
826 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
827 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
828 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
829 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
830 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
832 * dont-repeat command
834 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
835 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
836 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
837 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
839 * Send break instead of ^C
841 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
842 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
843 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
845 * Remote protocol timeout
847 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
848 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
849 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
851 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
853 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
854 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
855 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
856 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
857 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
859 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
860 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
861 automatically on hpux10.
863 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
865 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
867 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
869 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
870 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
871 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
872 every character. The default value is 1050.
874 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
876 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
877 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
878 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
879 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
880 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
881 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
883 * Speedups for remote debugging
885 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
886 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
887 and more efficient S-record downloading.
889 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
891 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
892 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
894 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
898 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
899 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
901 * Remote targets use caching
903 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
904 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
905 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
906 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
907 off' turns the the data cache off.
909 * Remote targets may have threads
911 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
912 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
913 gdb/remote.c for details.
917 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
918 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
919 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
920 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
921 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
922 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
923 sequence is something like
925 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
927 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
931 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
932 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
933 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
934 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
935 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
936 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
937 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
938 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
942 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
943 but does simplify configuration and building.
947 GDB now supports hpux10.
949 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
951 * New native configurations
953 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
954 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
955 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
956 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
960 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
961 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
962 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
963 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
966 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
968 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
969 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
970 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
971 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
972 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
974 * Arguments to user-defined commands
976 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
977 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
980 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
982 To execute the command use:
985 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
986 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
987 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
989 * New `if' and `while' commands
991 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
992 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
993 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
994 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
995 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
996 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
997 if the expression is zero.
999 * Fortran source language mode
1001 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1002 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1003 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1004 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1007 * Better HPUX support
1009 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1010 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1011 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1012 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1013 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1019 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1020 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1026 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1027 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1030 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1031 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1033 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1035 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1036 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1037 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1038 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1039 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1040 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1042 * New DOS host serial code
1044 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1045 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1048 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1050 * New "complete" command
1052 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1053 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1055 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1057 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1058 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1060 * Breakpoint hit counts
1062 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1063 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1064 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1065 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1066 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1069 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1071 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1072 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1073 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1075 * Shared library breakpoints
1077 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1078 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1080 * Hardware watchpoints
1082 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1083 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1085 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1089 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1090 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1092 * Improved Irix 5 support
1094 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1096 * Improved HPPA support
1098 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1100 * New native configurations
1102 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1103 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1104 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1105 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1109 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1110 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1113 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1115 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1116 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1120 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1121 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1123 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1125 * Irix 5 is now supported
1129 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1130 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1131 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1132 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1133 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1136 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1138 * User visible changes:
1142 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1143 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1144 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1145 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1146 debugging info for the mips target).
1148 * DEC Alpha native support
1150 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1151 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1152 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1153 Alpha-specific notes.
1155 * Preliminary thread implementation
1157 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1159 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1161 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1162 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1165 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1167 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1168 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1169 call methods, ...etc.
1171 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1173 * User visible changes:
1175 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1176 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1177 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1178 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1180 Filename completion now works.
1182 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1183 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1184 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1186 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1187 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1188 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1189 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1190 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1194 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1195 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1198 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1202 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1203 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1204 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1208 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1209 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1210 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1211 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1212 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1216 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1217 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1218 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1220 * New targets supported
1222 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1223 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1224 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1225 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1226 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1228 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1229 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1230 GO32 memory extender.
1232 * New remote protocols
1234 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1236 * New source languages supported
1238 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1239 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1240 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1243 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1245 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1247 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1248 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1249 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1250 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1251 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1252 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1254 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1256 * Faster and better demangling
1258 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1259 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1260 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1261 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1262 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1263 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1266 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1267 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1268 compiler does not actually implement.
1270 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1272 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1273 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1274 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1275 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1276 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1277 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1280 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1281 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1283 * Improved configure script
1285 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1286 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1287 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1288 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1290 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1291 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1292 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1293 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1294 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1295 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1297 * Documentation improvements
1299 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1300 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1301 before submitting changes.
1303 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1304 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1305 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1306 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1307 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1309 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1310 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1311 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1312 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1313 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1314 around this problem.
1318 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1319 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1320 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1323 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1324 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1326 * New native hosts supported
1328 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1329 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1331 * New targets supported
1333 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1335 * New file formats supported
1337 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1338 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1342 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1344 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1345 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1347 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1348 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1349 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1351 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1352 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1354 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1355 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1356 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1359 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1360 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1361 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1362 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1363 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1365 * Internal improvements
1367 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1368 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1370 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1371 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1372 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1373 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1374 shared code that handles any of them.
1376 * New command line options
1378 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1382 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1383 General Public License.
1385 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1387 * Host/native/target split
1389 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1390 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1391 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1392 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1393 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1395 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1396 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1397 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1398 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1399 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1400 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1401 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1403 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1404 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1405 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1407 * New hosts supported
1409 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1410 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1411 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1413 * New targets supported
1415 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1416 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1418 * New native hosts supported
1420 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1421 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1422 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1424 * New file formats supported
1426 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1427 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1428 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1432 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1433 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1434 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1436 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1438 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1439 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1440 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1441 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1445 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1446 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1447 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1449 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1453 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1454 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1457 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1458 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1460 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1461 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1462 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1463 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1464 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1465 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1467 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1468 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1469 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1470 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1474 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1475 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1476 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1477 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1478 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1480 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1481 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1482 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1483 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1487 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1488 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1489 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1490 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1491 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1492 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1493 each instruction being stepped through.
1495 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1496 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1498 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1499 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1500 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1501 processor with a serial port.
1505 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1506 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1507 supported, and what files each one uses.
1511 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1512 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1513 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1514 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1516 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1517 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1518 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1519 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1523 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1524 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1525 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1526 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1527 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1528 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1530 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1533 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1535 * Better support for C++ function names
1537 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1538 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1539 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1540 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1541 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1543 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1544 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1545 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1546 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1547 for the list of formats.
1549 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1551 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1552 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1553 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1554 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1555 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1556 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1559 * New 'maintenance' command
1561 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1562 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1563 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1565 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1566 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1567 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1568 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1569 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1570 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1572 The following commands are new:
1574 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1575 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1576 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1578 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1580 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1581 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1582 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1583 read after argv processing.
1585 * New hosts supported
1587 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1589 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1591 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1592 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1593 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1594 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1595 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1598 * New targets supported
1600 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1602 * More smarts about finding #include files
1604 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1605 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1606 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1607 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1608 the one that contains your sources.
1610 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1611 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1612 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1614 * Interesting infernals change
1616 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1617 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1618 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1619 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1621 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1623 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1624 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1625 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1627 See the ChangeLog for details.
1629 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1631 * New machines supported (host and target)
1633 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1635 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1637 * New malloc package
1639 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1640 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1641 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1642 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1643 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1644 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1648 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1649 'help info proc' for details.
1651 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1653 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1654 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1657 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1659 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1660 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1661 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1662 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1663 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1664 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1666 * Cross byte order fixes
1668 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1669 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1671 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1673 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1674 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1675 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1676 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1677 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1678 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1679 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1680 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1681 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1682 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1684 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1685 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1686 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1687 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1689 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1690 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1691 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1694 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1696 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1697 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1698 shared across multiple host platforms.
1700 * longjmp() handling
1702 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1703 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1704 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1705 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1709 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1710 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1715 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1716 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1717 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1719 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1721 * New machines supported (host and target)
1723 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1725 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1726 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1728 * New machines supported (target)
1730 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1734 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1735 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1736 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1738 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1739 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1740 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1741 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1742 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1745 * New features for SVR4
1747 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1748 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1749 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1751 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1752 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1753 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1755 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1756 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1758 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1760 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1761 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1762 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1763 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1764 same code linked statically.
1768 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1769 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1770 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1771 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1772 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1773 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1777 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1778 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1779 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1782 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1784 * New machines supported (host and target)
1786 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1787 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1788 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1790 * Almost SCO Unix support
1792 We had hoped to support:
1793 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1794 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1795 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1796 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1798 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1800 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1801 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1802 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1803 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1808 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1809 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1810 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1814 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1815 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1816 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1818 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1820 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1821 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1822 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1824 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1825 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1826 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1827 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1830 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1831 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1832 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1833 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1836 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1837 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1840 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1841 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1842 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1845 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1847 * Improved configuration
1849 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1850 Porting BFD is simpler.
1854 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1855 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1856 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1857 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1861 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1863 * New host supported (not target)
1865 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1868 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1870 * Multiple source language support
1872 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1873 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1874 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1875 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1876 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1877 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1881 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1882 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1883 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1884 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1886 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1887 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1888 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1890 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1891 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1895 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1896 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1897 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1898 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1901 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1903 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1904 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1905 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1906 examining core files.
1910 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1913 * New machines supported (host and target)
1915 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1916 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1917 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1919 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1921 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1923 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1925 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1926 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1927 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1929 * New remote interfaces
1935 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1939 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1941 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1942 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1943 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1944 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1945 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1946 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1947 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1948 stub on the target system.
1950 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1952 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1953 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1954 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1956 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1957 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1960 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1962 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1963 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1965 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1966 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1967 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1969 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1970 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1971 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1972 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1974 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1975 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1976 it is already running. Default is ON.
1978 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1979 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1980 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1981 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1984 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1985 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1986 or the value of the environment variable
1989 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1990 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1993 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1994 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1995 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1997 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1998 history expansion will be performed on
1999 command line input. The default is OFF.
2001 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2002 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2003 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2005 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2006 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2007 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2010 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2011 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2012 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2015 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2016 ``set width'' instead.
2018 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2019 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2020 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2021 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2023 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2026 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2029 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2032 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2035 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2037 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2038 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2039 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2043 * Support for Shared Libraries
2045 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2046 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2047 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2048 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2049 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2050 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2051 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2052 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2054 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2055 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2056 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2058 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2063 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2064 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2065 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2066 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2067 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2068 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2070 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2072 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2074 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2075 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2076 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2079 * C++ multiple inheritance
2081 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2084 * C++ exception handling
2086 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2087 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2088 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2091 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2092 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2093 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2095 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2096 current stack frame.
2099 * Minor command changes
2101 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2102 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2103 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2105 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2106 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2107 frames without printing.
2109 * New directory command
2111 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2112 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2113 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2114 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2115 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2117 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2119 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2122 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2123 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2124 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2125 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob