1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.2:
6 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
8 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
9 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
10 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
11 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
13 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
15 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
16 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
19 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
20 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
22 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
23 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
25 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
26 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
27 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
28 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
30 * Multi-arched targets.
32 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
33 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
35 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
36 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
37 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
41 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
44 * New native configurations
46 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
47 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
48 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
49 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
51 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
53 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
54 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
55 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
58 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
59 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
60 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
61 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
62 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
63 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
67 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
69 * REMOVED configurations and files
71 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
72 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
73 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
74 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
75 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
77 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
79 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
81 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
82 commands. The default is 1024.
84 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
86 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
88 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
90 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
91 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
92 from a file into memory (restore).
94 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
102 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
103 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
104 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
106 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
107 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
108 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
110 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
111 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
112 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
114 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
115 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
116 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
118 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
120 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
122 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
123 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
124 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
125 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
126 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
127 (notably embedded) targets.
129 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
131 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
132 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
133 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
134 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
136 * New command line option
138 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
140 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
142 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
143 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
144 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
145 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
146 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
147 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
148 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
149 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
150 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
151 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
153 * Changes in ARM configurations.
155 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
156 configuration is fully multi-arch.
158 * New native configurations
160 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
161 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
162 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
163 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
167 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
169 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
171 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
172 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
173 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
176 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
177 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
178 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
179 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
180 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
182 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
184 * REMOVED configurations and files
186 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
188 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
189 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
190 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
191 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
192 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
193 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
194 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
195 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
196 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
197 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
198 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
200 * Changes to command line processing
202 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
203 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
205 * Changes to key bindings
207 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
209 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
211 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
213 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
216 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
218 Numerous documentation fixes.
220 Numerous testsuite fixes.
222 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
224 * New native configurations
226 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
227 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
228 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
229 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
231 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
235 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
237 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
239 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
241 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
242 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
243 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
244 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
245 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
247 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
248 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
249 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
250 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
251 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
252 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
253 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
254 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
256 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
257 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
259 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
260 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
261 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
264 * REMOVED configurations and files
266 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
267 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
269 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
273 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
275 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
276 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
281 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
283 * The MI enabled by default.
285 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
286 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
287 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
288 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
289 which is now deprecated.
291 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
293 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
294 main features are supported:
296 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
298 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
301 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
303 - a Pascal expression parser.
305 However, some important features are not yet supported.
307 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
309 - there are some problems with boolean types;
311 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
312 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
314 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
316 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
318 * Changes in completion.
320 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
321 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
322 users expect at the shell prompt.
324 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
325 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
326 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
327 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
328 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
329 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
330 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
332 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
334 * New platform-independent commands:
336 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
337 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
338 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
340 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
342 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
343 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
344 many threads as your system allows you to have.
346 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
348 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
349 multi-threaded programs though.
351 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
353 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
355 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
356 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
359 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
361 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
362 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
363 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
364 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
365 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
368 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
369 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
370 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
372 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
374 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
375 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
377 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
378 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
381 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
382 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
383 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
384 a given linear address.
386 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
387 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
388 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
390 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
392 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
394 * Changes in documentation.
396 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
397 Documentation License.
399 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
402 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
404 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
407 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
408 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
409 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
411 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
413 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
414 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
415 contents of this file.
419 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
421 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
423 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
425 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
426 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
427 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
428 greater level of detail.
430 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
432 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
433 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
434 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
437 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
439 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
440 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
441 machines ``out of the box''.
443 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
444 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
445 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
446 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
447 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
449 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
450 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
451 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
452 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
453 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
455 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
456 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
459 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
462 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
463 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
464 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
465 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
467 * New native configurations
469 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
470 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
474 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
475 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
476 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
477 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
479 * OBSOLETE configurations
481 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
482 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
484 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
487 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
488 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
489 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
490 be permanently REMOVED.
492 * Gould support removed
494 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
496 * New features for SVR4
498 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
499 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
500 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
502 * Many C++ enhancements
504 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
505 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
507 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
509 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
510 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
511 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
512 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
514 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
515 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
517 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
519 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
520 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
521 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
523 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
524 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
526 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
528 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
529 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
530 include ``set remote P-packet''.
532 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
534 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
535 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
536 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
538 * ``apropos'' command added.
540 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
541 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
542 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
546 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
547 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
548 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
549 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
550 enabled by configuring with:
552 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
554 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
556 * New native configurations
558 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
559 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
560 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
564 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
565 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
566 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
568 * OBSOLETE configurations
570 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
572 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
573 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
574 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
575 be permanently REMOVED.
579 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
580 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
581 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
582 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
583 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
584 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
585 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
590 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
592 * set extension-language
594 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
595 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
596 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
597 set extension-language .c c++
598 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
599 and their associated languages.
601 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
603 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
604 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
605 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
609 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
610 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
612 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
613 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
615 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
616 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
617 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
618 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
619 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
620 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
621 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
622 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
624 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
625 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
626 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
627 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
631 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
632 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
633 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
634 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
635 for xdb and dbx commands.
639 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
640 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
641 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
643 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
644 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
645 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
647 * Debugging across forks
649 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
654 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
655 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
656 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
658 * GDB remote protocol additions
660 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
661 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
662 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
663 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
665 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
666 full 64-bit address. The command
668 set remoteaddresssize 32
670 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
671 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
674 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
675 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
677 maint packet heythere
679 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
680 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
683 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
684 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
685 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
687 * Tracing can collect general expressions
689 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
690 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
691 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
693 * mask-address variable for Mips
695 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
696 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
697 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
699 * Higher serial baud rates
701 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
702 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
703 to achieve all of these rates.)
707 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
708 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
711 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
713 * New native configurations
715 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
716 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
717 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
718 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
719 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
720 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
721 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
725 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
726 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
727 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
728 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
729 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
730 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
731 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
732 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
733 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
734 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
735 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
737 * New debugging protocols
739 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
740 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
741 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
742 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
743 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
744 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
748 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
749 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
754 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
755 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
757 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
759 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
760 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
761 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
763 * Live range splitting
765 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
766 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
767 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
771 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
772 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
776 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
777 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
778 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
783 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
788 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
789 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
790 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
791 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
792 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
793 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
797 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
798 the symbol at the specified address.
802 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
803 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
804 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
805 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
806 file tracepoint.c for more details.
810 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
811 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
812 of most MIPS variants.
816 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
817 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
818 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
822 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
823 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
824 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
825 the possible architectures.
827 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
829 * New native configurations
831 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
832 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
833 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
834 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
835 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
836 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
840 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
841 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
842 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
843 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
844 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
846 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
850 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
851 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
852 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
853 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
854 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
858 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
860 * Windows 95/NT native
862 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
863 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
864 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
865 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
866 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
868 * dont-repeat command
870 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
871 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
872 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
873 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
875 * Send break instead of ^C
877 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
878 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
879 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
881 * Remote protocol timeout
883 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
884 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
885 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
887 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
889 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
890 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
891 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
892 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
893 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
895 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
896 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
897 automatically on hpux10.
899 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
901 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
903 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
905 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
906 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
907 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
908 every character. The default value is 1050.
910 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
912 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
913 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
914 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
915 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
916 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
917 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
919 * Speedups for remote debugging
921 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
922 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
923 and more efficient S-record downloading.
925 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
927 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
928 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
930 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
934 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
935 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
937 * Remote targets use caching
939 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
940 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
941 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
942 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
943 off' turns the the data cache off.
945 * Remote targets may have threads
947 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
948 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
949 gdb/remote.c for details.
953 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
954 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
955 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
956 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
957 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
958 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
959 sequence is something like
961 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
963 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
967 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
968 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
969 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
970 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
971 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
972 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
973 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
974 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
978 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
979 but does simplify configuration and building.
983 GDB now supports hpux10.
985 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
987 * New native configurations
989 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
990 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
991 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
992 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
996 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
997 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
998 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
999 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1002 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1004 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1005 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1006 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1007 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1008 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1010 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1012 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1013 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1016 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1018 To execute the command use:
1021 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1022 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1023 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1025 * New `if' and `while' commands
1027 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1028 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1029 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1030 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1031 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1032 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1033 if the expression is zero.
1035 * Fortran source language mode
1037 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1038 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1039 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1040 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1043 * Better HPUX support
1045 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1046 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1047 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1048 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1049 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1055 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1056 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1062 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1063 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1066 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1067 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1069 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1071 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1072 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1073 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1074 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1075 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1076 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1078 * New DOS host serial code
1080 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1081 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1084 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1086 * New "complete" command
1088 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1089 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1091 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1093 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1094 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1096 * Breakpoint hit counts
1098 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1099 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1100 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1101 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1102 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1105 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1107 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1108 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1109 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1111 * Shared library breakpoints
1113 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1114 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1116 * Hardware watchpoints
1118 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1119 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1121 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1125 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1126 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1128 * Improved Irix 5 support
1130 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1132 * Improved HPPA support
1134 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1136 * New native configurations
1138 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1139 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1140 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1141 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1145 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1146 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1149 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1151 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1152 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1156 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1157 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1159 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1161 * Irix 5 is now supported
1165 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1166 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1167 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1168 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1169 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1172 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1174 * User visible changes:
1178 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1179 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1180 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1181 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1182 debugging info for the mips target).
1184 * DEC Alpha native support
1186 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1187 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1188 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1189 Alpha-specific notes.
1191 * Preliminary thread implementation
1193 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1195 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1197 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1198 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1201 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1203 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1204 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1205 call methods, ...etc.
1207 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1209 * User visible changes:
1211 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1212 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1213 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1214 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1216 Filename completion now works.
1218 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1219 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1220 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1222 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1223 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1224 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1225 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1226 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1230 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1231 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1234 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1238 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1239 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1240 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1244 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1245 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1246 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1247 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1248 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1252 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1253 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1254 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1256 * New targets supported
1258 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1259 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1260 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1261 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1262 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1264 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1265 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1266 GO32 memory extender.
1268 * New remote protocols
1270 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1272 * New source languages supported
1274 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1275 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1276 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1279 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1281 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1283 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1284 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1285 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1286 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1287 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1288 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1290 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1292 * Faster and better demangling
1294 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1295 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1296 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1297 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1298 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1299 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1302 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1303 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1304 compiler does not actually implement.
1306 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1308 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1309 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1310 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1311 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1312 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1313 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1316 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1317 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1319 * Improved configure script
1321 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1322 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1323 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1324 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1326 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1327 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1328 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1329 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1330 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1331 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1333 * Documentation improvements
1335 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1336 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1337 before submitting changes.
1339 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1340 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1341 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1342 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1343 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1345 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1346 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1347 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1348 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1349 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1350 around this problem.
1354 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1355 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1356 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1359 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1360 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1362 * New native hosts supported
1364 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1365 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1367 * New targets supported
1369 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1371 * New file formats supported
1373 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1374 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1378 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1380 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1381 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1383 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1384 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1385 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1387 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1388 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1390 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1391 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1392 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1395 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1396 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1397 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1398 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1399 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1401 * Internal improvements
1403 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1404 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1406 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1407 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1408 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1409 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1410 shared code that handles any of them.
1412 * New command line options
1414 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1418 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1419 General Public License.
1421 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1423 * Host/native/target split
1425 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1426 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1427 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1428 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1429 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1431 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1432 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1433 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1434 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1435 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1436 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1437 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1439 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1440 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1441 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1443 * New hosts supported
1445 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1446 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1447 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1449 * New targets supported
1451 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1452 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1454 * New native hosts supported
1456 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1457 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1458 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1460 * New file formats supported
1462 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1463 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1464 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1468 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1469 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1470 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1472 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1474 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1475 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1476 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1477 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1481 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1482 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1483 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1485 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1489 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1490 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1493 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1494 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1496 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1497 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1498 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1499 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1500 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1501 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1503 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1504 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1505 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1506 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1510 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1511 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1512 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1513 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1514 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1516 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1517 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1518 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1519 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1523 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1524 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1525 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1526 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1527 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1528 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1529 each instruction being stepped through.
1531 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1532 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1534 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1535 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1536 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1537 processor with a serial port.
1541 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1542 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1543 supported, and what files each one uses.
1547 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1548 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1549 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1550 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1552 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1553 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1554 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1555 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1559 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1560 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1561 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1562 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1563 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1564 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1566 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1569 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1571 * Better support for C++ function names
1573 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1574 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1575 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1576 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1577 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1579 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1580 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1581 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1582 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1583 for the list of formats.
1585 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1587 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1588 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1589 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1590 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1591 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1592 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1595 * New 'maintenance' command
1597 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1598 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1599 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1601 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1602 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1603 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1604 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1605 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1606 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1608 The following commands are new:
1610 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1611 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1612 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1614 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1616 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1617 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1618 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1619 read after argv processing.
1621 * New hosts supported
1623 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1625 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1627 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1628 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1629 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1630 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1631 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1634 * New targets supported
1636 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1638 * More smarts about finding #include files
1640 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1641 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1642 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1643 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1644 the one that contains your sources.
1646 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1647 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1648 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1650 * Interesting infernals change
1652 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1653 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1654 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1655 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1657 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1659 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1660 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1661 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1663 See the ChangeLog for details.
1665 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1667 * New machines supported (host and target)
1669 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1671 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1673 * New malloc package
1675 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1676 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1677 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1678 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1679 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1680 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1684 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1685 'help info proc' for details.
1687 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1689 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1690 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1693 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1695 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1696 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1697 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1698 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1699 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1700 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1702 * Cross byte order fixes
1704 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1705 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1707 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1709 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1710 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1711 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1712 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1713 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1714 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1715 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1716 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1717 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1718 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1720 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1721 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1722 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1723 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1725 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1726 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1727 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1730 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1732 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1733 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1734 shared across multiple host platforms.
1736 * longjmp() handling
1738 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1739 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1740 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1741 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1745 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1746 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1751 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1752 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1753 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1755 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1757 * New machines supported (host and target)
1759 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1761 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1762 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1764 * New machines supported (target)
1766 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1770 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1771 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1772 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1774 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1775 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1776 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1777 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1778 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1781 * New features for SVR4
1783 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1784 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1785 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1787 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1788 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1789 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1791 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1792 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1794 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1796 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1797 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1798 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1799 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1800 same code linked statically.
1804 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1805 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1806 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1807 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1808 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1809 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1813 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1814 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1815 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1818 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1820 * New machines supported (host and target)
1822 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1823 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1824 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1826 * Almost SCO Unix support
1828 We had hoped to support:
1829 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1830 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1831 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1832 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1834 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1836 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1837 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1838 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1839 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1844 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1845 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1846 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1850 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1851 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1852 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1854 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1856 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1857 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1858 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1860 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1861 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1862 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1863 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1866 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1867 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1868 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1869 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1872 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1873 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1876 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1877 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1878 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1881 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1883 * Improved configuration
1885 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1886 Porting BFD is simpler.
1890 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1891 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1892 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1893 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1897 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1899 * New host supported (not target)
1901 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1904 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1906 * Multiple source language support
1908 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1909 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1910 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1911 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1912 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1913 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1917 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1918 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1919 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1920 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1922 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1923 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1924 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1926 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1927 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1931 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1932 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1933 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1934 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1937 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1939 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1940 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1941 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1942 examining core files.
1946 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1949 * New machines supported (host and target)
1951 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1952 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1953 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1955 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1957 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1959 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1961 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1962 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1963 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1965 * New remote interfaces
1971 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1975 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1977 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1978 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1979 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1980 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1981 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1982 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1983 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1984 stub on the target system.
1986 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1988 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1989 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1990 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1992 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1993 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1996 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1998 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1999 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2001 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2002 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2003 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2005 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2006 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2007 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2008 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2010 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2011 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2012 it is already running. Default is ON.
2014 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2015 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2016 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2017 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2020 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2021 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2022 or the value of the environment variable
2025 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2026 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2029 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2030 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2031 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2033 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2034 history expansion will be performed on
2035 command line input. The default is OFF.
2037 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2038 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2039 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2041 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2042 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2043 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2046 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2047 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2048 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2051 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2052 ``set width'' instead.
2054 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2055 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2056 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2057 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2059 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2062 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2065 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2068 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2071 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2073 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2074 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2075 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2079 * Support for Shared Libraries
2081 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2082 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2083 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2084 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2085 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2086 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2087 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2088 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2090 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2091 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2092 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2094 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2099 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2100 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2101 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2102 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2103 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2104 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2106 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2108 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2110 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2111 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2112 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2115 * C++ multiple inheritance
2117 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2120 * C++ exception handling
2122 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2123 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2124 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2127 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2128 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2129 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2131 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2132 current stack frame.
2135 * Minor command changes
2137 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2138 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2139 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2141 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2142 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2143 frames without printing.
2145 * New directory command
2147 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2148 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2149 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2150 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2151 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2153 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2155 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2158 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2159 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2160 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2161 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob