1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
7 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
9 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
10 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
11 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
13 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
14 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
16 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
18 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
19 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
21 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
22 list of section offsets.
24 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
26 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
27 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
33 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
38 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
40 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
42 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
43 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
44 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
46 set breakpoint always-inserted
47 show breakpoint always-inserted
48 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
49 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
50 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
52 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
54 * New native configurations
56 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
57 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
61 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
62 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
64 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
66 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
67 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
68 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
69 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
71 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
72 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
74 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
77 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
78 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
79 and in inlined functions.
81 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
82 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
83 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
85 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
87 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
88 registers on PowerPC targets.
90 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
91 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
93 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
94 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
96 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
99 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
100 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
101 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
102 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
104 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
105 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
106 target architectures.
108 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
109 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
110 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
111 stored in two consecutive float registers.
113 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
116 * Improved support for debugging Ada
117 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
119 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
120 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
121 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
122 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
124 - Improved command completion in Ada
129 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
130 show print frame-arguments
131 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
132 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
137 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
144 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
153 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
155 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
159 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
163 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
165 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
167 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
168 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
169 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
171 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
172 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
173 -Bsymbolic linker option.
175 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
176 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
179 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
180 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
182 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
183 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
185 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
187 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
188 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
189 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
191 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
192 automatically displayed as character or string data.
194 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
195 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
198 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
199 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
200 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
202 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
205 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
206 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
207 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
209 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
211 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
213 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
214 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
215 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
217 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
218 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
220 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
221 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
222 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
223 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
224 Windows and SymbianOS).
226 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
227 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
229 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
230 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
236 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
237 when debugging using remote targets.
239 set mem inaccessible-by-default
240 show mem inaccessible-by-default
241 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
242 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
243 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
244 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
245 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
247 set breakpoint auto-hw
248 show breakpoint auto-hw
249 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
250 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
251 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
252 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
253 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
254 including "next" and "finish".
257 catch exception unhandled
258 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
261 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
265 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
266 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
267 an alias to "set sysroot".
270 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
271 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
274 * New native configurations
276 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
281 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
282 not query the target for its built-in description.
286 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
287 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
288 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
293 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
294 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
297 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
302 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
303 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
305 qXfer:libraries:read:
306 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
307 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
308 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
309 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
313 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
322 i[34567]86-*-netware*
323 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
324 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
326 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
329 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
330 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
339 * Other removed features
346 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
353 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
358 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
359 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
364 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
365 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
367 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
369 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
370 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
371 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
372 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
376 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
377 in debugging information.
381 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
382 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
384 set mips stack-arg-size
385 set mips saved-gpreg-size
387 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
389 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
394 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
396 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
397 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
398 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
400 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
401 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
404 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
405 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
407 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
408 stub provides the required support.
410 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
411 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
416 unset substitute-path
418 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
419 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
420 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
421 between compilation and debugging.
425 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
426 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
427 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
431 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
433 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
434 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
436 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
441 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
442 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
443 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
444 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
448 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
449 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
451 qXfer:memory-map:read:
452 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
453 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
458 Erase and program a flash memory device.
460 * Removed remote packets
463 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
464 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
466 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
470 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
472 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
476 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
477 only if it doesn't already have a value.
479 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
481 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
483 restart <n> Return the program state to a
484 previously saved state.
486 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
488 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
490 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
491 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
493 info forks List forks of the user program that
494 are available to be debugged.
496 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
497 forks of the user program that are
498 available to be debugged.
500 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
501 that are available to be debugged (and
502 kill the forked process).
504 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
505 that are available to be debugged (and
506 allow the process to continue).
510 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
512 * Improved Windows host support
514 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
515 native console support, and remote communications using either
516 network sockets or serial ports.
518 * Improved Modula-2 language support
520 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
521 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
522 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
523 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
524 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
525 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
529 The ARM rdi-share module.
531 The Netware NLM debug server.
533 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
535 * New native configurations
537 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
538 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
542 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
544 * New command line options
546 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
547 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
548 the child (debugged) program exited with.
549 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
550 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
551 specified multiple times and in conjunction
552 with the --command (-x) option.
554 * Deprecated commands removed
556 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
560 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
561 othernames set arm disassembler
562 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
563 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
564 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
567 * New BSD user-level threads support
569 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
570 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
573 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
574 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
575 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
577 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
578 are not yet supported.
580 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
581 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
583 * REMOVED configurations and files
585 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
586 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
587 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
589 * New "set print array-indexes" command
591 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
592 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
595 * VAX floating point support
597 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
599 * User-defined command support
601 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
602 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
603 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
605 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
607 * New command line option
609 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
612 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
614 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
615 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
616 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
617 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
618 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
620 * Internationalization
622 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
623 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
624 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
628 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
629 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
630 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
632 * New native configurations
634 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
638 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
639 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
641 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
643 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
644 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
645 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
648 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
649 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
650 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
662 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
663 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
665 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
667 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
668 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
669 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
679 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
681 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
683 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
684 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
687 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
689 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
690 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
691 IRIX long double values).
695 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
696 command. This problem has been fixed.
698 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
700 * Fix for ``many threads''
702 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
703 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
706 ptrace: No such process.
707 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
709 This problem has been fixed.
711 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
713 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
716 * New ``start'' command.
718 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
720 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
722 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
723 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
724 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
726 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
727 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
728 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
729 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
730 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
731 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
732 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
733 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
734 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
736 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
738 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
739 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
740 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
741 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
742 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
744 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
745 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
746 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
748 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
750 * New native configurations
752 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
753 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
754 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
755 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
756 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
757 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
758 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
760 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
762 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
763 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
764 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
765 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
766 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
767 work, was also included.
769 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
770 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
780 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
781 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
783 * REMOVED configurations and files
785 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
786 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
787 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
788 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
789 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
790 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
791 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
792 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
793 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
795 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
797 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
799 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
801 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
802 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
803 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
804 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
807 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
809 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
810 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
811 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
812 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
813 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
814 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
817 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
819 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
821 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
822 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
823 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
825 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
827 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
828 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
830 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
832 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
833 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
834 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
836 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
838 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
839 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
841 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
843 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
844 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
845 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
847 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
849 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
850 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
851 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
853 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
855 * Removed --with-mmalloc
857 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
858 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
860 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
862 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
863 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
864 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
865 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
867 * Revised SPARC target
869 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
870 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
871 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
872 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
873 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
877 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
878 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
879 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
882 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
884 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
885 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
888 * C++ nested types and namespaces
890 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
891 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
892 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
893 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
894 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
895 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
896 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
897 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
898 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
900 * New native configurations
902 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
903 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
904 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
905 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
906 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
908 * New debugging protocols
910 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
912 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
914 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
915 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
916 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
918 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
920 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
921 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
922 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
925 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
926 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
927 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
928 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
929 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
930 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
931 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
932 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
933 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
935 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
937 * REMOVED configurations and files
939 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
940 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
941 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
942 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
943 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
944 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
945 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
946 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
947 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
948 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
949 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
950 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
951 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
952 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
953 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
954 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
955 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
957 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
961 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
964 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
966 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
967 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
968 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
971 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
972 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
977 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
978 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
979 remote protocol documentation for details.
981 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
983 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
984 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
985 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
988 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
990 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
991 per-thread variables.
993 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
995 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
996 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
998 * Separate debug info.
1000 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1001 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1002 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1003 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1004 and optional debug files.
1006 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1008 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1009 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1012 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1013 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1017 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1018 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1019 considered "useable".
1021 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1023 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1024 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1027 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1029 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1030 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1032 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1034 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1035 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1038 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1040 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1041 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1045 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1046 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1047 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1048 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1049 data, for more informative profiling results.
1051 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1053 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1054 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1055 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1057 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1060 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1061 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1062 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1063 in a subsequent -var-update.
1065 * New native configurations.
1067 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1069 * Multi-arched targets.
1071 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1072 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1074 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1076 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1077 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1078 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1079 permanently REMOVED.
1081 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1082 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1083 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1084 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1085 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1086 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1087 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1088 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1089 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1090 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1091 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1092 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1094 * REMOVED configurations and files
1097 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1098 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1099 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1100 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1101 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1102 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1104 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1105 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1106 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1107 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1108 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1109 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1111 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1113 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1114 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1115 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1116 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1117 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1119 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1121 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1123 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1124 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1125 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1126 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1127 shared libs like mad''.
1129 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1131 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1132 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1133 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1134 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1136 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1138 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1139 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1142 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1143 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1145 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1146 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1148 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1149 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1150 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1151 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1153 * Multi-arched targets.
1155 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1156 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1158 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1159 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1160 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1164 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1167 * New native configurations
1169 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1170 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1171 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1172 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1174 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1176 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1177 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1178 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1179 permanently REMOVED.
1181 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1182 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1183 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1184 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1185 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1186 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1187 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1188 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1189 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1190 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1192 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1193 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1195 * OBSOLETE languages
1197 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1199 * REMOVED configurations and files
1201 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1202 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1203 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1204 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1205 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1207 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1209 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1211 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1212 commands. The default is 1024.
1214 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1216 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1218 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1220 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1221 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1222 from a file into memory (restore).
1224 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1226 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1227 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1228 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1230 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1238 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1239 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1240 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1242 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1243 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1244 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1246 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1247 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1248 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1250 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1251 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1252 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1254 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1256 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1258 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1259 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1260 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1261 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1262 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1263 (notably embedded) targets.
1265 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1267 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1268 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1269 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1270 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1272 * New command line option
1274 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1276 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1278 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1279 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1280 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1281 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1282 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1283 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1284 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1285 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1286 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1287 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1289 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1291 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1292 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1294 * New native configurations
1296 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1297 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1298 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1299 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1303 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1305 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1307 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1308 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1309 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1310 permanently REMOVED.
1312 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1313 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1314 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1315 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1316 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1318 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1320 * REMOVED configurations and files
1322 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1324 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1325 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1326 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1327 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1328 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1329 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1330 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1331 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1332 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1333 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1334 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1336 * Changes to command line processing
1338 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1339 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1341 * Changes to key bindings
1343 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1345 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1347 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1349 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1352 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1354 Numerous documentation fixes.
1356 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1358 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1360 * New native configurations
1362 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1363 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1364 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1365 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1366 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1367 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1371 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1373 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1375 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1377 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1378 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1379 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1380 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1381 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1383 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1384 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1385 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1386 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1387 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1388 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1389 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1390 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1392 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1393 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1395 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1396 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1397 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1398 permanently REMOVED.
1400 * REMOVED configurations and files
1402 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1403 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1405 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1409 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1411 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1412 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1417 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1419 * The MI enabled by default.
1421 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1422 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1423 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1424 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1425 which is now deprecated.
1427 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1429 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1430 main features are supported:
1432 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1434 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1437 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1439 - a Pascal expression parser.
1441 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1443 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1445 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1447 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1448 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1450 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1452 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1454 * Changes in completion.
1456 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1457 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1458 users expect at the shell prompt.
1460 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1461 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1462 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1463 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1464 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1465 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1466 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1468 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1470 * New platform-independent commands:
1472 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1473 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1474 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1476 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1478 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1479 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1480 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1482 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1484 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1485 multi-threaded programs though.
1487 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1489 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1491 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1492 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1495 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1497 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1498 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1499 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1500 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1501 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1504 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1505 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1506 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1508 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1510 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1511 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1513 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1514 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1517 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1518 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1519 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1520 a given linear address.
1522 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1523 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1524 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1526 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1528 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1530 * Changes in documentation.
1532 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1533 Documentation License.
1535 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1538 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1540 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1543 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1544 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1545 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1547 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1549 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1550 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1551 contents of this file.
1555 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1557 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1559 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1561 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1562 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1563 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1564 greater level of detail.
1566 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1568 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1569 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1570 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1573 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1575 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1576 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1577 machines ``out of the box''.
1579 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1580 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1581 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1582 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1583 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1585 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1586 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1587 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1588 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1589 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1591 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1592 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1595 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1598 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1599 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1600 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1601 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1603 * New native configurations
1605 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1606 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1610 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1611 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1612 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1613 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1615 * OBSOLETE configurations
1617 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1618 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1620 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1623 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1624 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1625 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1626 be permanently REMOVED.
1628 * Gould support removed
1630 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1632 * New features for SVR4
1634 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1635 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1636 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1638 * Many C++ enhancements
1640 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1641 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1643 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1645 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1646 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1647 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1648 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1650 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1651 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1653 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1655 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1656 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1657 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1659 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1660 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1662 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1664 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1665 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1666 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1668 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1670 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1671 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1672 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1674 * ``apropos'' command added.
1676 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1677 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1678 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1682 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1683 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1684 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1685 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1686 enabled by configuring with:
1688 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1690 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1692 * New native configurations
1694 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1695 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1696 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1700 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1701 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1702 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1704 * OBSOLETE configurations
1706 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1708 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1709 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1710 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1711 be permanently REMOVED.
1715 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1716 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1717 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1718 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1719 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1720 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1721 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1726 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1728 * set extension-language
1730 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1731 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1732 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1733 set extension-language .c c++
1734 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1735 and their associated languages.
1737 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1739 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1740 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1741 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1745 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1746 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1748 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1749 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1751 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1752 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1753 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1754 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1755 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1756 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1757 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1758 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1760 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1761 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1762 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1763 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1767 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1768 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1769 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1770 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1771 for xdb and dbx commands.
1775 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1776 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1777 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1779 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1780 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1781 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1783 * Debugging across forks
1785 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1790 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1791 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1792 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1794 * GDB remote protocol additions
1796 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1797 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1798 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1799 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1801 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1802 full 64-bit address. The command
1804 set remoteaddresssize 32
1806 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1807 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1810 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1811 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1813 maint packet heythere
1815 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1816 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1819 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1820 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1821 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1823 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1825 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1826 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1827 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1829 * mask-address variable for Mips
1831 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1832 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1833 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1835 * Higher serial baud rates
1837 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1838 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1839 to achieve all of these rates.)
1843 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1844 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1847 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1849 * New native configurations
1851 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1852 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1853 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1854 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1855 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1856 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1857 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1861 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1862 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1863 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1864 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1865 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1866 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1867 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1868 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1869 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1870 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1871 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1873 * New debugging protocols
1875 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1876 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1877 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1878 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1879 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1880 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1884 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1885 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1890 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1891 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1893 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1895 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1896 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1897 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1899 * Live range splitting
1901 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1902 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1903 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1907 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1908 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1912 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1913 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1914 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1919 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1924 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1925 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1926 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1927 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1928 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1929 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1933 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1934 the symbol at the specified address.
1938 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1939 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1940 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1941 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1942 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1946 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1947 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1948 of most MIPS variants.
1952 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1953 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1954 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1958 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1959 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1960 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1961 the possible architectures.
1963 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1965 * New native configurations
1967 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1968 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1969 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1970 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1971 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1972 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1976 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1977 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1978 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1979 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1980 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1982 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1986 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1987 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1988 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1989 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1990 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1994 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1996 * Windows 95/NT native
1998 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1999 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2000 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2001 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2002 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2004 * dont-repeat command
2006 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2007 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2008 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2009 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2011 * Send break instead of ^C
2013 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2014 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2015 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2017 * Remote protocol timeout
2019 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2020 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2021 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2023 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2025 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2026 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2027 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2028 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2029 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2031 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2032 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2033 automatically on hpux10.
2035 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2037 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2039 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2041 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2042 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2043 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2044 every character. The default value is 1050.
2046 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2048 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2049 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2050 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2051 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2052 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2053 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2055 * Speedups for remote debugging
2057 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2058 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2059 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2061 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2063 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2064 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2066 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2068 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2070 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2071 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2073 * Remote targets use caching
2075 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2076 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2077 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2078 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2079 off' turns the the data cache off.
2081 * Remote targets may have threads
2083 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2084 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2085 gdb/remote.c for details.
2089 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2090 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2091 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2092 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2093 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2094 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2095 sequence is something like
2097 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2099 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2103 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2104 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2105 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2106 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2107 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2108 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2109 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2110 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2114 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2115 but does simplify configuration and building.
2119 GDB now supports hpux10.
2121 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2123 * New native configurations
2125 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2126 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2127 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2128 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2132 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2133 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2134 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2135 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2138 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2140 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2141 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2142 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2143 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2144 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2146 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2148 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2149 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2152 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2154 To execute the command use:
2157 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2158 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2159 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2161 * New `if' and `while' commands
2163 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2164 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2165 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2166 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2167 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2168 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2169 if the expression is zero.
2171 * Fortran source language mode
2173 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2174 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2175 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2176 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2179 * Better HPUX support
2181 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2182 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2183 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2184 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2185 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2191 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2192 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2198 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2199 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2202 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2203 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2205 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2207 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2208 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2209 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2210 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2211 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2212 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2214 * New DOS host serial code
2216 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2217 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2220 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2222 * New "complete" command
2224 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2225 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2227 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2229 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2230 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2232 * Breakpoint hit counts
2234 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2235 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2236 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2237 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2238 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2241 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2243 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2244 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2245 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2247 * Shared library breakpoints
2249 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2250 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2252 * Hardware watchpoints
2254 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2255 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2257 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2261 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2262 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2264 * Improved Irix 5 support
2266 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2268 * Improved HPPA support
2270 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2272 * New native configurations
2274 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2275 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2276 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2277 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2281 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2282 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2285 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2287 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2288 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2292 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2293 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2295 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2297 * Irix 5 is now supported
2301 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2302 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2303 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2304 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2305 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2308 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2310 * User visible changes:
2314 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2315 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2316 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2317 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2318 debugging info for the mips target).
2320 * DEC Alpha native support
2322 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2323 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2324 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2325 Alpha-specific notes.
2327 * Preliminary thread implementation
2329 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2331 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2333 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2334 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2337 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2339 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2340 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2341 call methods, ...etc.
2343 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2345 * User visible changes:
2347 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2348 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2349 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2350 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2352 Filename completion now works.
2354 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2355 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2356 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2358 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2359 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2360 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2361 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2362 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2366 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2367 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2370 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2374 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2375 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2376 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2380 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2381 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2382 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2383 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2384 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2388 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2389 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2390 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2392 * New targets supported
2394 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2395 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2396 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2397 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2398 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2400 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2401 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2402 GO32 memory extender.
2404 * New remote protocols
2406 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2408 * New source languages supported
2410 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2411 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2412 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2415 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2417 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2419 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2420 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2421 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2422 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2423 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2424 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2426 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2428 * Faster and better demangling
2430 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2431 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2432 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2433 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2434 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2435 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2438 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2439 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2440 compiler does not actually implement.
2442 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2444 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2445 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2446 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2447 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2448 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2449 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2452 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2453 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2455 * Improved configure script
2457 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2458 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2459 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2460 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2462 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2463 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2464 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2465 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2466 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2467 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2469 * Documentation improvements
2471 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2472 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2473 before submitting changes.
2475 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2476 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2477 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2478 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2479 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2481 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2482 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2483 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2484 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2485 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2486 around this problem.
2490 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2491 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2492 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2495 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2496 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2498 * New native hosts supported
2500 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2501 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2503 * New targets supported
2505 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2507 * New file formats supported
2509 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2510 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2514 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2516 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2517 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2519 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2520 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2521 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2523 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2524 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2526 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2527 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2528 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2531 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2532 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2533 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2534 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2535 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2537 * Internal improvements
2539 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2540 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2542 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2543 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2544 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2545 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2546 shared code that handles any of them.
2548 * New command line options
2550 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2554 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2555 General Public License.
2557 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2559 * Host/native/target split
2561 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2562 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2563 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2564 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2565 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2567 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2568 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2569 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2570 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2571 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2572 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2573 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2575 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2576 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2577 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2579 * New hosts supported
2581 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2582 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2583 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2585 * New targets supported
2587 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2588 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2590 * New native hosts supported
2592 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2593 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2594 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2596 * New file formats supported
2598 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2599 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2600 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2604 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2605 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2606 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2608 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2610 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2611 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2612 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2613 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2617 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2618 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2619 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2621 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2625 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2626 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2629 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2630 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2632 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2633 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2634 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2635 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2636 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2637 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2639 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2640 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2641 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2642 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2646 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2647 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2648 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2649 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2650 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2652 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2653 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2654 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2655 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2659 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2660 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2661 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2662 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2663 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2664 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2665 each instruction being stepped through.
2667 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2668 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2670 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2671 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2672 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2673 processor with a serial port.
2677 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2678 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2679 supported, and what files each one uses.
2683 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2684 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2685 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2686 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2688 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2689 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2690 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2691 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2695 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2696 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2697 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2698 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2699 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2700 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2702 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2705 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2707 * Better support for C++ function names
2709 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2710 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2711 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2712 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2713 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2715 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2716 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2717 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2718 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2719 for the list of formats.
2721 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2723 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2724 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2725 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2726 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2727 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2728 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2731 * New 'maintenance' command
2733 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2734 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2735 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2737 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2738 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2739 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2740 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2741 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2742 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2744 The following commands are new:
2746 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2747 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2748 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2750 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2752 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2753 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2754 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2755 read after argv processing.
2757 * New hosts supported
2759 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2761 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2763 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2764 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2765 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2766 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2767 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2770 * New targets supported
2772 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2774 * More smarts about finding #include files
2776 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2777 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2778 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2779 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2780 the one that contains your sources.
2782 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2783 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2784 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2786 * Interesting infernals change
2788 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2789 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2790 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2791 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2793 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2795 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2796 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2797 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2799 See the ChangeLog for details.
2801 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2803 * New machines supported (host and target)
2805 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2807 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2809 * New malloc package
2811 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2812 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2813 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2814 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2815 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2816 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2820 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2821 'help info proc' for details.
2823 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2825 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2826 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2829 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2831 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2832 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2833 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2834 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2835 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2836 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2838 * Cross byte order fixes
2840 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2841 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2843 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2845 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2846 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2847 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2848 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2849 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2850 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2851 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2852 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2853 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2854 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2856 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2857 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2858 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2859 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2861 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2862 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2863 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2866 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2868 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2869 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2870 shared across multiple host platforms.
2872 * longjmp() handling
2874 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2875 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2876 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2877 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2881 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2882 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2887 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2888 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2889 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2891 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2893 * New machines supported (host and target)
2895 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2897 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2898 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2900 * New machines supported (target)
2902 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2906 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2907 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2908 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2910 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2911 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2912 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2913 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2914 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2917 * New features for SVR4
2919 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2920 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2921 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2923 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2924 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2925 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2927 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2928 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2930 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2932 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2933 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2934 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2935 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2936 same code linked statically.
2940 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2941 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2942 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2943 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2944 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2945 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2949 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2950 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2951 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2954 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2956 * New machines supported (host and target)
2958 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2959 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2960 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2962 * Almost SCO Unix support
2964 We had hoped to support:
2965 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2966 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2967 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2968 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2970 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2972 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2973 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2974 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2975 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2980 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2981 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2982 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2986 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2987 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2988 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2990 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2992 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2993 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2994 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2996 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2997 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2998 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2999 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3002 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3003 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3004 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3005 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3008 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3009 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3012 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3013 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3014 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3017 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3019 * Improved configuration
3021 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3022 Porting BFD is simpler.
3026 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3027 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3028 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3029 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3033 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3035 * New host supported (not target)
3037 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3040 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3042 * Multiple source language support
3044 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3045 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3046 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3047 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3048 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3049 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3053 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3054 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3055 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3056 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3058 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3059 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3060 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3062 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3063 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3067 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3068 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3069 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3070 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3073 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3075 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3076 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3077 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3078 examining core files.
3082 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3085 * New machines supported (host and target)
3087 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3088 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3089 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3091 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3093 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3095 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3097 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3098 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3099 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3101 * New remote interfaces
3107 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3111 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3113 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3114 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3115 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3116 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3117 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3118 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3119 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3120 stub on the target system.
3122 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3124 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3125 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3126 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3128 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3129 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3132 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3134 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3135 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3137 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3138 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3139 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3141 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3142 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3143 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3144 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3146 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3147 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3148 it is already running. Default is ON.
3150 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3151 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3152 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3153 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3156 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3157 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3158 or the value of the environment variable
3161 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3162 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3165 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3166 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3167 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3169 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3170 history expansion will be performed on
3171 command line input. The default is OFF.
3173 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3174 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3175 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3177 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3178 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3179 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3182 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3183 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3184 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3187 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3188 ``set width'' instead.
3190 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3191 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3192 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3193 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3195 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3198 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3201 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3204 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3207 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3209 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3210 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3211 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3215 * Support for Shared Libraries
3217 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3218 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3219 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3220 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3221 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3222 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3223 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3224 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3226 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3227 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3228 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3230 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3235 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3236 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3237 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3238 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3239 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3240 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3242 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3244 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3246 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3247 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3248 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3251 * C++ multiple inheritance
3253 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3256 * C++ exception handling
3258 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3259 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3260 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3263 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3264 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3265 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3267 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3268 current stack frame.
3271 * Minor command changes
3273 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3274 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3275 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3277 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3278 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3279 frames without printing.
3281 * New directory command
3283 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3284 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3285 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3286 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3287 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3289 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3291 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3294 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3295 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3296 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3297 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob