1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.7
6 * New native configurations
8 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
12 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
14 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
16 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
17 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
18 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
19 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
23 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
24 show print frame-arguments
25 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
26 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
28 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
29 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
31 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
34 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
35 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
36 and in inlined functions.
38 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
39 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
40 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
42 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
44 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
45 registers on PowerPC targets.
47 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
48 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
50 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
51 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
53 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
56 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
57 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
58 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
59 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
61 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
62 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
70 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
77 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
86 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
88 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
92 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
96 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
98 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
100 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
101 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
102 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
104 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
105 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
106 -Bsymbolic linker option.
108 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
109 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
112 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
113 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
115 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
116 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
118 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
120 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
121 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
122 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
124 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
125 automatically displayed as character or string data.
127 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
128 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
131 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
132 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
133 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
135 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
138 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
139 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
140 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
142 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
144 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
146 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
147 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
148 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
150 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
151 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
153 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
154 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
155 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
156 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
157 Windows and SymbianOS).
159 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
160 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
162 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
163 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
169 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
170 when debugging using remote targets.
172 set mem inaccessible-by-default
173 show mem inaccessible-by-default
174 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
175 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
176 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
177 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
178 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
180 set breakpoint auto-hw
181 show breakpoint auto-hw
182 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
183 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
184 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
185 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
186 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
187 including "next" and "finish".
190 catch exception unhandled
191 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
194 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
198 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
199 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
200 an alias to "set sysroot".
203 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
204 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
207 * New native configurations
209 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
214 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
215 not query the target for its built-in description.
219 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
220 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
221 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
226 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
227 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
230 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
235 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
236 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
238 qXfer:libraries:read:
239 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
240 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
241 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
242 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
246 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
255 i[34567]86-*-netware*
256 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
257 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
259 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
262 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
263 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
272 * Other removed features
279 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
286 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
291 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
292 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
297 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
298 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
300 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
302 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
303 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
304 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
305 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
309 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
310 in debugging information.
314 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
315 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
317 set mips stack-arg-size
318 set mips saved-gpreg-size
320 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
322 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
327 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
329 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
330 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
331 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
333 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
334 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
337 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
338 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
340 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
341 stub provides the required support.
343 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
344 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
349 unset substitute-path
351 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
352 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
353 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
354 between compilation and debugging.
358 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
359 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
360 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
364 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
366 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
367 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
369 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
374 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
375 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
376 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
377 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
381 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
382 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
384 qXfer:memory-map:read:
385 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
386 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
391 Erase and program a flash memory device.
393 * Removed remote packets
396 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
397 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
399 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
403 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
405 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
409 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
410 only if it doesn't already have a value.
412 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
414 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
416 restart <n> Return the program state to a
417 previously saved state.
419 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
421 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
423 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
424 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
426 info forks List forks of the user program that
427 are available to be debugged.
429 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
430 forks of the user program that are
431 available to be debugged.
433 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
434 that are available to be debugged (and
435 kill the forked process).
437 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
438 that are available to be debugged (and
439 allow the process to continue).
443 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
445 * Improved Windows host support
447 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
448 native console support, and remote communications using either
449 network sockets or serial ports.
451 * Improved Modula-2 language support
453 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
454 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
455 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
456 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
457 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
458 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
462 The ARM rdi-share module.
464 The Netware NLM debug server.
466 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
468 * New native configurations
470 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
471 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
475 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
477 * New command line options
479 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
480 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
481 the child (debugged) program exited with.
482 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
483 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
484 specified multiple times and in conjunction
485 with the --command (-x) option.
487 * Deprecated commands removed
489 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
493 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
494 othernames set arm disassembler
495 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
496 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
497 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
500 * New BSD user-level threads support
502 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
503 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
506 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
507 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
508 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
510 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
511 are not yet supported.
513 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
514 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
516 * REMOVED configurations and files
518 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
519 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
520 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
522 * New "set print array-indexes" command
524 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
525 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
528 * VAX floating point support
530 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
532 * User-defined command support
534 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
535 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
536 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
538 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
540 * New command line option
542 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
545 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
547 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
548 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
549 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
550 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
551 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
553 * Internationalization
555 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
556 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
557 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
561 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
562 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
563 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
565 * New native configurations
567 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
571 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
572 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
574 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
576 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
577 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
578 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
581 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
582 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
583 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
595 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
596 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
598 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
600 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
601 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
602 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
612 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
614 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
616 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
617 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
620 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
622 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
623 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
624 IRIX long double values).
628 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
629 command. This problem has been fixed.
631 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
633 * Fix for ``many threads''
635 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
636 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
639 ptrace: No such process.
640 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
642 This problem has been fixed.
644 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
646 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
649 * New ``start'' command.
651 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
653 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
655 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
656 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
657 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
659 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
660 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
661 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
662 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
663 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
664 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
665 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
666 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
667 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
669 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
671 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
672 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
673 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
674 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
675 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
677 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
678 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
679 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
681 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
683 * New native configurations
685 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
686 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
687 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
688 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
689 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
690 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
691 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
693 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
695 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
696 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
697 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
698 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
699 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
700 work, was also included.
702 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
703 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
713 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
714 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
716 * REMOVED configurations and files
718 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
719 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
720 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
721 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
722 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
723 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
724 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
725 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
726 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
728 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
730 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
732 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
734 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
735 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
736 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
737 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
740 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
742 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
743 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
744 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
745 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
746 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
747 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
750 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
752 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
754 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
755 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
756 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
758 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
760 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
761 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
763 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
765 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
766 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
767 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
769 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
771 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
772 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
774 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
776 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
777 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
778 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
780 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
782 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
783 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
784 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
786 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
788 * Removed --with-mmalloc
790 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
791 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
793 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
795 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
796 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
797 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
798 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
800 * Revised SPARC target
802 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
803 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
804 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
805 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
806 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
810 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
811 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
812 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
815 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
817 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
818 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
821 * C++ nested types and namespaces
823 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
824 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
825 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
826 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
827 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
828 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
829 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
830 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
831 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
833 * New native configurations
835 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
836 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
837 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
838 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
839 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
841 * New debugging protocols
843 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
845 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
847 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
848 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
849 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
851 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
853 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
854 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
855 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
858 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
859 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
860 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
861 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
862 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
863 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
864 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
865 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
866 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
868 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
870 * REMOVED configurations and files
872 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
873 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
874 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
875 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
876 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
877 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
878 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
879 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
880 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
881 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
882 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
883 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
884 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
885 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
886 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
887 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
888 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
890 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
894 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
897 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
899 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
900 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
901 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
904 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
905 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
910 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
911 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
912 remote protocol documentation for details.
914 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
916 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
917 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
918 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
921 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
923 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
924 per-thread variables.
926 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
928 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
929 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
931 * Separate debug info.
933 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
934 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
935 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
936 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
937 and optional debug files.
939 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
941 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
942 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
945 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
946 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
950 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
951 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
952 considered "useable".
954 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
956 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
957 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
960 * GDB supports logging output to a file
962 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
963 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
965 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
967 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
968 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
971 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
973 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
974 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
978 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
979 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
980 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
981 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
982 data, for more informative profiling results.
984 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
986 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
987 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
988 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
990 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
993 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
994 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
995 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
996 in a subsequent -var-update.
998 * New native configurations.
1000 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1002 * Multi-arched targets.
1004 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1005 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1007 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1009 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1010 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1011 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1012 permanently REMOVED.
1014 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1015 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1016 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1017 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1018 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1019 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1020 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1021 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1022 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1023 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1024 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1025 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1027 * REMOVED configurations and files
1030 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1031 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1032 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1033 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1034 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1035 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1037 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1038 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1039 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1040 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1041 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1042 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1044 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1046 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1047 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1048 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1049 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1050 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1052 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1054 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1056 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1057 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1058 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1059 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1060 shared libs like mad''.
1062 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1064 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1065 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1066 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1067 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1069 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1071 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1072 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1075 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1076 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1078 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1079 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1081 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1082 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1083 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1084 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1086 * Multi-arched targets.
1088 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1089 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1091 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1092 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1093 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1097 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1100 * New native configurations
1102 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1103 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1104 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1105 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1107 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1109 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1110 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1111 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1112 permanently REMOVED.
1114 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1115 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1116 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1117 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1118 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1119 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1120 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1121 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1122 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1123 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1125 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1126 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1128 * OBSOLETE languages
1130 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1132 * REMOVED configurations and files
1134 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1135 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1136 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1137 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1138 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1140 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1142 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1144 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1145 commands. The default is 1024.
1147 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1149 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1151 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1153 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1154 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1155 from a file into memory (restore).
1157 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1159 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1160 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1161 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1163 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1171 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1172 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1173 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1175 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1176 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1177 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1179 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1180 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1181 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1183 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1184 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1185 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1187 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1189 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1191 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1192 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1193 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1194 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1195 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1196 (notably embedded) targets.
1198 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1200 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1201 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1202 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1203 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1205 * New command line option
1207 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1209 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1211 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1212 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1213 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1214 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1215 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1216 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1217 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1218 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1219 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1220 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1222 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1224 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1225 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1227 * New native configurations
1229 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1230 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1231 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1232 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1236 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1238 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1240 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1241 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1242 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1243 permanently REMOVED.
1245 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1246 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1247 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1248 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1249 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1251 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1253 * REMOVED configurations and files
1255 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1257 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1258 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1259 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1260 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1261 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1262 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1263 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1264 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1265 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1266 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1267 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1269 * Changes to command line processing
1271 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1272 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1274 * Changes to key bindings
1276 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1278 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1280 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1282 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1285 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1287 Numerous documentation fixes.
1289 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1291 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1293 * New native configurations
1295 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1296 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1297 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1298 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1299 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1300 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1304 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1306 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1308 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1310 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1311 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1312 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1313 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1314 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1316 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1317 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1318 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1319 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1320 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1321 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1322 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1323 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1325 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1326 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1328 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1329 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1330 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1331 permanently REMOVED.
1333 * REMOVED configurations and files
1335 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1336 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1338 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1342 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1344 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1345 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1350 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1352 * The MI enabled by default.
1354 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1355 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1356 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1357 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1358 which is now deprecated.
1360 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1362 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1363 main features are supported:
1365 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1367 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1370 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1372 - a Pascal expression parser.
1374 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1376 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1378 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1380 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1381 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1383 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1385 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1387 * Changes in completion.
1389 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1390 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1391 users expect at the shell prompt.
1393 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1394 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1395 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1396 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1397 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1398 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1399 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1401 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1403 * New platform-independent commands:
1405 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1406 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1407 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1409 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1411 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1412 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1413 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1415 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1417 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1418 multi-threaded programs though.
1420 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1422 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1424 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1425 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1428 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1430 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1431 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1432 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1433 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1434 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1437 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1438 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1439 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1441 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1443 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1444 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1446 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1447 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1450 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1451 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1452 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1453 a given linear address.
1455 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1456 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1457 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1459 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1461 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1463 * Changes in documentation.
1465 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1466 Documentation License.
1468 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1471 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1473 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1476 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1477 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1478 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1480 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1482 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1483 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1484 contents of this file.
1488 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1490 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1492 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1494 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1495 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1496 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1497 greater level of detail.
1499 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1501 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1502 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1503 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1506 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1508 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1509 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1510 machines ``out of the box''.
1512 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1513 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1514 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1515 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1516 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1518 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1519 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1520 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1521 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1522 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1524 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1525 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1528 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1531 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1532 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1533 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1534 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1536 * New native configurations
1538 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1539 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1543 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1544 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1545 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1546 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1548 * OBSOLETE configurations
1550 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1551 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1553 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1556 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1557 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1558 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1559 be permanently REMOVED.
1561 * Gould support removed
1563 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1565 * New features for SVR4
1567 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1568 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1569 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1571 * Many C++ enhancements
1573 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1574 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1576 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1578 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1579 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1580 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1581 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1583 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1584 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1586 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1588 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1589 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1590 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1592 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1593 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1595 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1597 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1598 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1599 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1601 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1603 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1604 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1605 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1607 * ``apropos'' command added.
1609 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1610 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1611 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1615 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1616 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1617 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1618 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1619 enabled by configuring with:
1621 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1623 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1625 * New native configurations
1627 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1628 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1629 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1633 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1634 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1635 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1637 * OBSOLETE configurations
1639 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1641 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1642 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1643 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1644 be permanently REMOVED.
1648 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1649 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1650 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1651 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1652 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1653 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1654 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1659 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1661 * set extension-language
1663 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1664 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1665 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1666 set extension-language .c c++
1667 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1668 and their associated languages.
1670 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1672 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1673 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1674 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1678 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1679 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1681 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1682 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1684 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1685 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1686 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1687 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1688 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1689 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1690 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1691 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1693 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1694 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1695 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1696 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1700 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1701 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1702 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1703 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1704 for xdb and dbx commands.
1708 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1709 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1710 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1712 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1713 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1714 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1716 * Debugging across forks
1718 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1723 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1724 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1725 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1727 * GDB remote protocol additions
1729 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1730 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1731 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1732 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1734 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1735 full 64-bit address. The command
1737 set remoteaddresssize 32
1739 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1740 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1743 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1744 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1746 maint packet heythere
1748 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1749 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1752 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1753 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1754 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1756 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1758 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1759 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1760 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1762 * mask-address variable for Mips
1764 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1765 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1766 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1768 * Higher serial baud rates
1770 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1771 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1772 to achieve all of these rates.)
1776 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1777 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1780 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1782 * New native configurations
1784 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1785 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1786 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1787 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1788 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1789 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1790 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1794 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1795 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1796 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1797 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1798 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1799 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1800 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1801 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1802 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1803 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1804 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1806 * New debugging protocols
1808 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1809 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1810 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1811 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1812 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1813 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1817 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1818 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1823 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1824 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1826 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1828 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1829 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1830 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1832 * Live range splitting
1834 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1835 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1836 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1840 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1841 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1845 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1846 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1847 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1852 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1857 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1858 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1859 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1860 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1861 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1862 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1866 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1867 the symbol at the specified address.
1871 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1872 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1873 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1874 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1875 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1879 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1880 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1881 of most MIPS variants.
1885 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1886 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1887 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1891 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1892 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1893 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1894 the possible architectures.
1896 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1898 * New native configurations
1900 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1901 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1902 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1903 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1904 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1905 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1909 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1910 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1911 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1912 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1913 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1915 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1919 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1920 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1921 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1922 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1923 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1927 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1929 * Windows 95/NT native
1931 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1932 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1933 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1934 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1935 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1937 * dont-repeat command
1939 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1940 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1941 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1942 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1944 * Send break instead of ^C
1946 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1947 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1948 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1950 * Remote protocol timeout
1952 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1953 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1954 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1956 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1958 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1959 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1960 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1961 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1962 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1964 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1965 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1966 automatically on hpux10.
1968 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1970 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1972 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1974 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1975 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1976 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1977 every character. The default value is 1050.
1979 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1981 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1982 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1983 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1984 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1985 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1986 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1988 * Speedups for remote debugging
1990 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1991 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1992 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1994 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1996 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1997 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1999 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2001 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2003 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2004 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2006 * Remote targets use caching
2008 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2009 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2010 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2011 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2012 off' turns the the data cache off.
2014 * Remote targets may have threads
2016 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2017 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2018 gdb/remote.c for details.
2022 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2023 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2024 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2025 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2026 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2027 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2028 sequence is something like
2030 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2032 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2036 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2037 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2038 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2039 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2040 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2041 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2042 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2043 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2047 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2048 but does simplify configuration and building.
2052 GDB now supports hpux10.
2054 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2056 * New native configurations
2058 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2059 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2060 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2061 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2065 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2066 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2067 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2068 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2071 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2073 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2074 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2075 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2076 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2077 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2079 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2081 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2082 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2085 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2087 To execute the command use:
2090 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2091 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2092 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2094 * New `if' and `while' commands
2096 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2097 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2098 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2099 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2100 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2101 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2102 if the expression is zero.
2104 * Fortran source language mode
2106 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2107 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2108 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2109 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2112 * Better HPUX support
2114 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2115 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2116 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2117 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2118 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2124 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2125 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2131 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2132 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2135 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2136 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2138 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2140 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2141 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2142 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2143 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2144 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2145 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2147 * New DOS host serial code
2149 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2150 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2153 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2155 * New "complete" command
2157 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2158 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2160 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2162 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2163 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2165 * Breakpoint hit counts
2167 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2168 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2169 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2170 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2171 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2174 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2176 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2177 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2178 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2180 * Shared library breakpoints
2182 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2183 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2185 * Hardware watchpoints
2187 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2188 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2190 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2194 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2195 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2197 * Improved Irix 5 support
2199 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2201 * Improved HPPA support
2203 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2205 * New native configurations
2207 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2208 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2209 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2210 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2214 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2215 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2218 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2220 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2221 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2225 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2226 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2228 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2230 * Irix 5 is now supported
2234 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2235 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2236 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2237 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2238 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2241 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2243 * User visible changes:
2247 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2248 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2249 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2250 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2251 debugging info for the mips target).
2253 * DEC Alpha native support
2255 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2256 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2257 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2258 Alpha-specific notes.
2260 * Preliminary thread implementation
2262 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2264 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2266 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2267 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2270 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2272 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2273 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2274 call methods, ...etc.
2276 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2278 * User visible changes:
2280 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2281 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2282 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2283 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2285 Filename completion now works.
2287 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2288 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2289 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2291 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2292 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2293 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2294 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2295 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2299 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2300 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2303 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2307 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2308 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2309 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2313 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2314 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2315 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2316 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2317 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2321 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2322 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2323 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2325 * New targets supported
2327 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2328 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2329 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2330 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2331 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2333 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2334 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2335 GO32 memory extender.
2337 * New remote protocols
2339 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2341 * New source languages supported
2343 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2344 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2345 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2348 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2350 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2352 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2353 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2354 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2355 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2356 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2357 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2359 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2361 * Faster and better demangling
2363 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2364 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2365 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2366 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2367 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2368 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2371 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2372 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2373 compiler does not actually implement.
2375 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2377 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2378 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2379 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2380 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2381 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2382 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2385 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2386 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2388 * Improved configure script
2390 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2391 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2392 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2393 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2395 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2396 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2397 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2398 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2399 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2400 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2402 * Documentation improvements
2404 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2405 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2406 before submitting changes.
2408 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2409 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2410 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2411 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2412 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2414 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2415 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2416 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2417 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2418 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2419 around this problem.
2423 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2424 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2425 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2428 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2429 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2431 * New native hosts supported
2433 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2434 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2436 * New targets supported
2438 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2440 * New file formats supported
2442 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2443 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2447 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2449 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2450 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2452 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2453 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2454 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2456 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2457 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2459 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2460 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2461 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2464 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2465 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2466 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2467 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2468 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2470 * Internal improvements
2472 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2473 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2475 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2476 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2477 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2478 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2479 shared code that handles any of them.
2481 * New command line options
2483 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2487 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2488 General Public License.
2490 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2492 * Host/native/target split
2494 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2495 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2496 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2497 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2498 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2500 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2501 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2502 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2503 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2504 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2505 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2506 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2508 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2509 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2510 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2512 * New hosts supported
2514 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2515 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2516 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2518 * New targets supported
2520 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2521 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2523 * New native hosts supported
2525 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2526 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2527 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2529 * New file formats supported
2531 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2532 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2533 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2537 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2538 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2539 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2541 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2543 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2544 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2545 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2546 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2550 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2551 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2552 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2554 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2558 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2559 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2562 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2563 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2565 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2566 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2567 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2568 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2569 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2570 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2572 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2573 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2574 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2575 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2579 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2580 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2581 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2582 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2583 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2585 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2586 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2587 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2588 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2592 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2593 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2594 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2595 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2596 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2597 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2598 each instruction being stepped through.
2600 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2601 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2603 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2604 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2605 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2606 processor with a serial port.
2610 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2611 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2612 supported, and what files each one uses.
2616 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2617 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2618 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2619 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2621 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2622 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2623 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2624 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2628 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2629 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2630 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2631 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2632 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2633 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2635 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2638 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2640 * Better support for C++ function names
2642 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2643 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2644 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2645 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2646 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2648 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2649 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2650 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2651 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2652 for the list of formats.
2654 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2656 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2657 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2658 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2659 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2660 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2661 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2664 * New 'maintenance' command
2666 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2667 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2668 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2670 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2671 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2672 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2673 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2674 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2675 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2677 The following commands are new:
2679 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2680 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2681 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2683 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2685 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2686 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2687 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2688 read after argv processing.
2690 * New hosts supported
2692 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2694 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2696 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2697 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2698 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2699 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2700 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2703 * New targets supported
2705 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2707 * More smarts about finding #include files
2709 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2710 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2711 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2712 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2713 the one that contains your sources.
2715 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2716 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2717 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2719 * Interesting infernals change
2721 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2722 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2723 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2724 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2726 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2728 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2729 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2730 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2732 See the ChangeLog for details.
2734 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2736 * New machines supported (host and target)
2738 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2740 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2742 * New malloc package
2744 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2745 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2746 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2747 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2748 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2749 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2753 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2754 'help info proc' for details.
2756 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2758 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2759 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2762 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2764 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2765 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2766 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2767 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2768 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2769 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2771 * Cross byte order fixes
2773 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2774 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2776 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2778 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2779 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2780 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2781 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2782 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2783 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2784 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2785 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2786 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2787 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2789 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2790 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2791 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2792 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2794 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2795 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2796 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2799 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2801 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2802 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2803 shared across multiple host platforms.
2805 * longjmp() handling
2807 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2808 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2809 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2810 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2814 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2815 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2820 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2821 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2822 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2824 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2826 * New machines supported (host and target)
2828 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2830 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2831 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2833 * New machines supported (target)
2835 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2839 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2840 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2841 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2843 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2844 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2845 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2846 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2847 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2850 * New features for SVR4
2852 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2853 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2854 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2856 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2857 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2858 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2860 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2861 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2863 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2865 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2866 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2867 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2868 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2869 same code linked statically.
2873 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2874 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2875 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2876 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2877 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2878 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2882 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2883 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2884 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2887 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2889 * New machines supported (host and target)
2891 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2892 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2893 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2895 * Almost SCO Unix support
2897 We had hoped to support:
2898 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2899 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2900 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2901 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2903 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2905 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2906 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2907 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2908 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2913 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2914 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2915 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2919 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2920 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2921 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2923 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2925 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2926 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2927 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2929 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2930 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2931 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2932 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2935 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2936 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2937 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2938 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2941 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2942 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2945 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2946 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2947 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2950 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2952 * Improved configuration
2954 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2955 Porting BFD is simpler.
2959 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2960 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2961 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2962 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2966 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2968 * New host supported (not target)
2970 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2973 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2975 * Multiple source language support
2977 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2978 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2979 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2980 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2981 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2982 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2986 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2987 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2988 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2989 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2991 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2992 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2993 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2995 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2996 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3000 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3001 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3002 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3003 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3006 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3008 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3009 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3010 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3011 examining core files.
3015 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3018 * New machines supported (host and target)
3020 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3021 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3022 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3024 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3026 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3028 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3030 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3031 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3032 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3034 * New remote interfaces
3040 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3044 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3046 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3047 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3048 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3049 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3050 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3051 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3052 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3053 stub on the target system.
3055 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3057 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3058 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3059 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3061 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3062 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3065 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3067 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3068 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3070 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3071 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3072 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3074 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3075 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3076 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3077 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3079 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3080 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3081 it is already running. Default is ON.
3083 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3084 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3085 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3086 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3089 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3090 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3091 or the value of the environment variable
3094 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3095 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3098 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3099 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3100 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3102 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3103 history expansion will be performed on
3104 command line input. The default is OFF.
3106 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3107 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3108 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3110 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3111 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3112 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3115 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3116 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3117 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3120 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3121 ``set width'' instead.
3123 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3124 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3125 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3126 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3128 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3131 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3134 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3137 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3140 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3142 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3143 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3144 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3148 * Support for Shared Libraries
3150 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3151 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3152 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3153 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3154 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3155 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3156 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3157 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3159 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3160 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3161 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3163 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3168 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3169 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3170 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3171 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3172 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3173 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3175 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3177 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3179 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3180 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3181 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3184 * C++ multiple inheritance
3186 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3189 * C++ exception handling
3191 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3192 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3193 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3196 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3197 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3198 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3200 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3201 current stack frame.
3204 * Minor command changes
3206 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3207 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3208 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3210 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3211 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3212 frames without printing.
3214 * New directory command
3216 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3217 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3218 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3219 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3220 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3222 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3224 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3227 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3228 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3229 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3230 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob