1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
7 now complete on file names.
9 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
10 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
11 For instance, consider:
13 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
14 # struct example variable;
17 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
18 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
23 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
26 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
27 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
28 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
30 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
32 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
33 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
34 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
36 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
39 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
40 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
42 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
43 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
44 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
46 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
47 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
49 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
51 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
52 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
54 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
55 list of section offsets.
57 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
58 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
61 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
63 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
65 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
66 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
68 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
69 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
70 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
72 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
73 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
77 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
78 available is determined at configure time.
82 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
84 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
86 maint set python print-stack
87 maint show python print-stack
88 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
91 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
93 set print symbol-loading
94 show print symbol-loading
95 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
99 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
104 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
106 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
107 show multiple-symbols
108 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
109 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
110 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
112 set breakpoint always-inserted
113 show breakpoint always-inserted
114 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
115 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
116 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
118 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
119 show arm fallback-mode
120 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
122 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
123 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
124 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
125 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
127 set disable-randomization
128 show disable-randomization
129 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
130 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
131 multiple debugging sessions.
134 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
135 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
136 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
137 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
141 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
146 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
149 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
151 * New native configurations
153 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
154 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
158 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
159 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
161 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
163 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
164 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
165 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
166 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
168 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
169 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
171 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
174 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
175 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
176 and in inlined functions.
178 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
179 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
180 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
182 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
184 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
185 registers on PowerPC targets.
187 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
188 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
190 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
191 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
193 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
194 extended-remote mode.
196 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
197 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
198 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
199 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
201 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
202 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
203 target architectures.
205 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
206 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
207 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
208 stored in two consecutive float registers.
210 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
213 * Improved support for debugging Ada
214 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
216 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
217 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
218 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
219 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
221 - Improved command completion in Ada
224 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
229 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
230 show print frame-arguments
231 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
232 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
237 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
244 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
253 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
256 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
260 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
262 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
264 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
265 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
266 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
268 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
269 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
270 -Bsymbolic linker option.
272 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
273 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
276 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
277 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
279 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
280 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
282 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
284 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
285 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
286 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
288 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
289 automatically displayed as character or string data.
291 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
292 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
295 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
296 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
297 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
299 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
302 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
303 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
304 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
306 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
308 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
310 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
311 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
312 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
314 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
315 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
317 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
318 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
319 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
320 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
321 Windows and SymbianOS).
323 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
324 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
326 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
327 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
333 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
334 when debugging using remote targets.
336 set mem inaccessible-by-default
337 show mem inaccessible-by-default
338 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
339 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
340 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
341 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
342 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
344 set breakpoint auto-hw
345 show breakpoint auto-hw
346 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
347 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
348 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
349 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
350 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
351 including "next" and "finish".
354 catch exception unhandled
355 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
358 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
362 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
363 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
364 an alias to "set sysroot".
367 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
368 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
371 * New native configurations
373 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
378 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
379 not query the target for its built-in description.
383 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
384 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
385 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
390 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
391 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
394 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
399 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
400 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
402 qXfer:libraries:read:
403 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
404 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
405 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
406 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
410 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
419 i[34567]86-*-netware*
420 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
421 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
423 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
426 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
427 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
436 * Other removed features
443 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
450 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
455 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
456 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
461 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
462 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
464 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
466 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
467 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
468 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
469 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
473 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
474 in debugging information.
478 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
479 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
481 set mips stack-arg-size
482 set mips saved-gpreg-size
484 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
486 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
491 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
493 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
494 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
495 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
497 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
498 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
501 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
502 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
504 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
505 stub provides the required support.
507 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
508 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
513 unset substitute-path
515 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
516 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
517 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
518 between compilation and debugging.
522 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
523 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
524 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
528 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
530 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
531 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
533 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
538 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
539 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
540 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
541 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
545 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
546 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
548 qXfer:memory-map:read:
549 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
550 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
555 Erase and program a flash memory device.
557 * Removed remote packets
560 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
561 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
563 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
567 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
569 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
573 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
574 only if it doesn't already have a value.
576 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
578 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
580 restart <n> Return the program state to a
581 previously saved state.
583 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
585 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
587 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
588 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
590 info forks List forks of the user program that
591 are available to be debugged.
593 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
594 forks of the user program that are
595 available to be debugged.
597 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
598 that are available to be debugged (and
599 kill the forked process).
601 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
602 that are available to be debugged (and
603 allow the process to continue).
607 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
609 * Improved Windows host support
611 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
612 native console support, and remote communications using either
613 network sockets or serial ports.
615 * Improved Modula-2 language support
617 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
618 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
619 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
620 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
621 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
622 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
626 The ARM rdi-share module.
628 The Netware NLM debug server.
630 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
632 * New native configurations
634 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
635 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
639 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
641 * New command line options
643 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
644 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
645 the child (debugged) program exited with.
646 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
647 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
648 specified multiple times and in conjunction
649 with the --command (-x) option.
651 * Deprecated commands removed
653 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
657 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
658 othernames set arm disassembler
659 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
660 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
661 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
664 * New BSD user-level threads support
666 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
667 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
670 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
671 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
672 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
674 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
675 are not yet supported.
677 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
678 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
680 * REMOVED configurations and files
682 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
683 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
684 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
686 * New "set print array-indexes" command
688 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
689 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
692 * VAX floating point support
694 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
696 * User-defined command support
698 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
699 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
700 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
702 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
704 * New command line option
706 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
709 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
711 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
712 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
713 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
714 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
715 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
717 * Internationalization
719 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
720 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
721 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
725 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
726 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
727 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
729 * New native configurations
731 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
735 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
736 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
738 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
740 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
741 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
742 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
745 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
746 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
747 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
759 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
760 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
762 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
764 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
765 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
766 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
776 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
778 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
780 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
781 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
784 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
786 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
787 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
788 IRIX long double values).
792 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
793 command. This problem has been fixed.
795 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
797 * Fix for ``many threads''
799 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
800 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
803 ptrace: No such process.
804 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
806 This problem has been fixed.
808 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
810 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
813 * New ``start'' command.
815 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
817 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
819 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
820 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
821 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
823 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
824 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
825 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
826 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
827 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
828 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
829 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
830 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
831 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
833 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
835 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
836 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
837 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
838 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
839 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
841 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
842 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
843 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
845 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
847 * New native configurations
849 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
850 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
851 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
852 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
853 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
854 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
855 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
857 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
859 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
860 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
861 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
862 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
863 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
864 work, was also included.
866 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
867 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
877 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
878 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
880 * REMOVED configurations and files
882 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
883 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
884 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
885 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
886 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
887 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
888 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
889 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
890 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
892 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
894 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
896 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
898 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
899 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
900 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
901 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
904 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
906 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
907 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
908 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
909 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
910 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
911 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
914 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
916 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
918 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
919 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
920 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
922 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
924 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
925 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
927 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
929 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
930 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
931 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
933 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
935 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
936 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
938 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
940 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
941 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
942 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
944 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
946 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
947 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
948 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
950 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
952 * Removed --with-mmalloc
954 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
955 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
957 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
959 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
960 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
961 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
962 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
964 * Revised SPARC target
966 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
967 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
968 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
969 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
970 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
974 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
975 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
976 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
979 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
981 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
982 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
985 * C++ nested types and namespaces
987 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
988 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
989 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
990 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
991 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
992 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
993 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
994 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
995 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
997 * New native configurations
999 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1000 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1001 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1002 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1003 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1005 * New debugging protocols
1007 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1009 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1011 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1012 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1013 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1015 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1017 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1018 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1019 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1020 permanently REMOVED.
1022 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1023 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1024 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1025 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1026 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1027 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1028 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1029 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1030 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1031 sonymips mips-sony-*
1032 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1034 * REMOVED configurations and files
1036 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1037 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1038 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1039 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1040 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1041 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1042 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1043 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1044 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1045 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1046 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1047 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1048 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1049 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1050 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1051 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1052 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1054 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1058 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1059 integrated into GDB.
1061 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1063 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1064 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1065 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1068 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1069 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1070 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1074 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1075 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1076 remote protocol documentation for details.
1078 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1080 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1081 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1082 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1085 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1087 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1088 per-thread variables.
1090 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1092 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1093 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1095 * Separate debug info.
1097 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1098 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1099 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1100 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1101 and optional debug files.
1103 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1105 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1106 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1109 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1110 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1114 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1115 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1116 considered "useable".
1118 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1120 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1121 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1124 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1126 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1127 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1129 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1131 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1132 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1135 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1137 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1138 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1142 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1143 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1144 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1145 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1146 data, for more informative profiling results.
1148 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1150 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1151 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1152 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1154 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1157 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1158 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1159 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1160 in a subsequent -var-update.
1162 * New native configurations.
1164 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1166 * Multi-arched targets.
1168 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1169 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1171 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1173 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1174 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1175 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1176 permanently REMOVED.
1178 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1179 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1180 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1181 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1182 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1183 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1184 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1185 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1186 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1187 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1188 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1189 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1191 * REMOVED configurations and files
1194 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1195 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1196 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1197 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1198 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1199 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1201 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1202 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1203 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1204 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1205 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1206 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1208 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1210 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1211 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1212 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1213 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1214 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1216 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1218 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1220 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1221 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1222 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1223 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1224 shared libs like mad''.
1226 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1228 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1229 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1230 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1231 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1233 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1235 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1236 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1239 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1240 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1242 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1243 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1245 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1246 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1247 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1248 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1250 * Multi-arched targets.
1252 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1253 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1255 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1256 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1257 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1261 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1264 * New native configurations
1266 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1267 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1268 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1269 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1271 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1273 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1274 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1275 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1276 permanently REMOVED.
1278 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1279 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1280 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1281 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1282 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1283 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1284 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1285 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1286 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1287 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1289 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1290 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1292 * OBSOLETE languages
1294 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1296 * REMOVED configurations and files
1298 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1299 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1300 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1301 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1302 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1304 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1306 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1308 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1309 commands. The default is 1024.
1311 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1313 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1315 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1317 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1318 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1319 from a file into memory (restore).
1321 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1323 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1324 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1325 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1327 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1335 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1336 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1337 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1339 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1340 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1341 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1343 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1344 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1345 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1347 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1348 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1349 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1351 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1353 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1355 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1356 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1357 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1358 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1359 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1360 (notably embedded) targets.
1362 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1364 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1365 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1366 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1367 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1369 * New command line option
1371 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1373 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1375 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1376 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1377 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1378 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1379 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1380 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1381 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1382 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1383 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1384 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1386 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1388 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1389 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1391 * New native configurations
1393 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1394 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1395 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1396 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1400 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1402 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1404 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1405 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1406 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1407 permanently REMOVED.
1409 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1410 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1411 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1412 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1413 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1415 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1417 * REMOVED configurations and files
1419 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1421 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1422 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1423 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1424 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1425 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1426 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1427 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1428 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1429 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1430 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1431 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1433 * Changes to command line processing
1435 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1436 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1438 * Changes to key bindings
1440 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1442 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1444 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1446 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1449 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1451 Numerous documentation fixes.
1453 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1455 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1457 * New native configurations
1459 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1460 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1461 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1462 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1463 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1464 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1468 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1470 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1472 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1474 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1475 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1476 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1477 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1478 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1480 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1481 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1482 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1483 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1484 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1485 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1486 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1487 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1489 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1490 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1492 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1493 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1494 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1495 permanently REMOVED.
1497 * REMOVED configurations and files
1499 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1500 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1502 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1506 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1508 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1509 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1514 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1516 * The MI enabled by default.
1518 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1519 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1520 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1521 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1522 which is now deprecated.
1524 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1526 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1527 main features are supported:
1529 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1531 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1534 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1536 - a Pascal expression parser.
1538 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1540 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1542 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1544 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1545 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1547 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1549 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1551 * Changes in completion.
1553 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1554 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1555 users expect at the shell prompt.
1557 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1558 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1559 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1560 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1561 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1562 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1563 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1565 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1567 * New platform-independent commands:
1569 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1570 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1571 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1573 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1575 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1576 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1577 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1579 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1581 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1582 multi-threaded programs though.
1584 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1586 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1588 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1589 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1592 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1594 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1595 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1596 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1597 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1598 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1601 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1602 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1603 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1605 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1607 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1608 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1610 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1611 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1614 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1615 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1616 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1617 a given linear address.
1619 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1620 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1621 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1623 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1625 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1627 * Changes in documentation.
1629 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1630 Documentation License.
1632 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1635 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1637 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1640 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1641 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1642 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1644 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1646 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1647 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1648 contents of this file.
1652 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1654 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1656 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1658 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1659 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1660 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1661 greater level of detail.
1663 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1665 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1666 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1667 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1670 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1672 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1673 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1674 machines ``out of the box''.
1676 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1677 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1678 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1679 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1680 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1682 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1683 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1684 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1685 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1686 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1688 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1689 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1692 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1695 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1696 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1697 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1698 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1700 * New native configurations
1702 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1703 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1707 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1708 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1709 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1710 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1712 * OBSOLETE configurations
1714 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1715 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1717 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1720 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1721 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1722 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1723 be permanently REMOVED.
1725 * Gould support removed
1727 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1729 * New features for SVR4
1731 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1732 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1733 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1735 * Many C++ enhancements
1737 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1738 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1740 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1742 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1743 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1744 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1745 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1747 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1748 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1750 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1752 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1753 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1754 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1756 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1757 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1759 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1761 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1762 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1763 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1765 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1767 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1768 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1769 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1771 * ``apropos'' command added.
1773 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1774 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1775 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1779 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1780 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1781 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1782 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1783 enabled by configuring with:
1785 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1787 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1789 * New native configurations
1791 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1792 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1793 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1797 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1798 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1799 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1801 * OBSOLETE configurations
1803 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1805 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1806 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1807 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1808 be permanently REMOVED.
1812 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1813 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1814 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1815 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1816 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1817 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1818 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1823 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1825 * set extension-language
1827 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1828 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1829 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1830 set extension-language .c c++
1831 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1832 and their associated languages.
1834 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1836 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1837 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1838 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1842 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1843 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1845 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1846 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1848 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1849 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1850 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1851 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1852 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1853 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1854 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1855 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1857 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1858 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1859 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1860 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1864 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1865 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1866 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1867 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1868 for xdb and dbx commands.
1872 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1873 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1874 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1876 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1877 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1878 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1880 * Debugging across forks
1882 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1887 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1888 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1889 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1891 * GDB remote protocol additions
1893 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1894 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1895 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1896 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1898 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1899 full 64-bit address. The command
1901 set remoteaddresssize 32
1903 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1904 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1907 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1908 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1910 maint packet heythere
1912 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1913 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1916 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1917 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1918 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1920 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1922 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1923 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1924 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1926 * mask-address variable for Mips
1928 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1929 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1930 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1932 * Higher serial baud rates
1934 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1935 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1936 to achieve all of these rates.)
1940 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1941 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1944 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1946 * New native configurations
1948 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1949 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1950 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1951 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1952 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1953 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1954 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1958 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1959 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1960 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1961 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1962 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1963 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1964 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1965 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1966 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1967 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1968 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1970 * New debugging protocols
1972 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1973 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1974 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1975 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1976 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1977 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1981 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1982 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1987 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1988 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1990 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1992 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1993 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1994 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1996 * Live range splitting
1998 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1999 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2000 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2004 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2005 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2009 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2010 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2011 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2016 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2021 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2022 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2023 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2024 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2025 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2026 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2030 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2031 the symbol at the specified address.
2035 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2036 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2037 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2038 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2039 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2043 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2044 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2045 of most MIPS variants.
2049 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2050 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2051 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2055 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2056 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2057 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2058 the possible architectures.
2060 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2062 * New native configurations
2064 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2065 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2066 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2067 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2068 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2069 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2073 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2074 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2075 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2076 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2077 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2079 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2083 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2084 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2085 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2086 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2087 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2091 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2093 * Windows 95/NT native
2095 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2096 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2097 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2098 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2099 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2101 * dont-repeat command
2103 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2104 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2105 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2106 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2108 * Send break instead of ^C
2110 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2111 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2112 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2114 * Remote protocol timeout
2116 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2117 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2118 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2120 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2122 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2123 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2124 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2125 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2126 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2128 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2129 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2130 automatically on hpux10.
2132 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2134 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2136 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2138 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2139 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2140 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2141 every character. The default value is 1050.
2143 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2145 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2146 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2147 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2148 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2149 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2150 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2152 * Speedups for remote debugging
2154 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2155 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2156 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2158 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2160 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2161 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2163 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2165 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2167 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2168 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2170 * Remote targets use caching
2172 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2173 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2174 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2175 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2176 off' turns the the data cache off.
2178 * Remote targets may have threads
2180 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2181 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2182 gdb/remote.c for details.
2186 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2187 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2188 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2189 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2190 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2191 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2192 sequence is something like
2194 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2196 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2200 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2201 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2202 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2203 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2204 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2205 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2206 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2207 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2211 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2212 but does simplify configuration and building.
2216 GDB now supports hpux10.
2218 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2220 * New native configurations
2222 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2223 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2224 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2225 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2229 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2230 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2231 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2232 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2235 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2237 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2238 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2239 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2240 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2241 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2243 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2245 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2246 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2249 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2251 To execute the command use:
2254 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2255 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2256 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2258 * New `if' and `while' commands
2260 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2261 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2262 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2263 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2264 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2265 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2266 if the expression is zero.
2268 * Fortran source language mode
2270 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2271 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2272 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2273 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2276 * Better HPUX support
2278 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2279 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2280 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2281 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2282 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2288 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2289 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2295 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2296 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2299 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2300 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2302 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2304 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2305 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2306 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2307 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2308 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2309 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2311 * New DOS host serial code
2313 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2314 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2317 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2319 * New "complete" command
2321 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2322 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2324 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2326 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2327 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2329 * Breakpoint hit counts
2331 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2332 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2333 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2334 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2335 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2338 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2340 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2341 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2342 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2344 * Shared library breakpoints
2346 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2347 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2349 * Hardware watchpoints
2351 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2352 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2354 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2358 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2359 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2361 * Improved Irix 5 support
2363 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2365 * Improved HPPA support
2367 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2369 * New native configurations
2371 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2372 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2373 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2374 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2378 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2379 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2382 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2384 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2385 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2389 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2390 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2392 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2394 * Irix 5 is now supported
2398 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2399 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2400 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2401 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2402 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2405 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2407 * User visible changes:
2411 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2412 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2413 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2414 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2415 debugging info for the mips target).
2417 * DEC Alpha native support
2419 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2420 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2421 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2422 Alpha-specific notes.
2424 * Preliminary thread implementation
2426 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2428 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2430 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2431 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2434 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2436 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2437 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2438 call methods, ...etc.
2440 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2442 * User visible changes:
2444 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2445 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2446 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2447 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2449 Filename completion now works.
2451 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2452 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2453 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2455 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2456 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2457 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2458 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2459 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2463 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2464 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2467 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2471 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2472 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2473 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2477 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2478 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2479 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2480 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2481 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2485 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2486 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2487 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2489 * New targets supported
2491 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2492 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2493 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2494 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2495 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2497 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2498 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2499 GO32 memory extender.
2501 * New remote protocols
2503 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2505 * New source languages supported
2507 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2508 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2509 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2512 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2514 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2516 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2517 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2518 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2519 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2520 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2521 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2523 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2525 * Faster and better demangling
2527 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2528 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2529 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2530 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2531 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2532 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2535 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2536 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2537 compiler does not actually implement.
2539 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2541 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2542 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2543 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2544 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2545 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2546 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2549 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2550 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2552 * Improved configure script
2554 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2555 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2556 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2557 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2559 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2560 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2561 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2562 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2563 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2564 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2566 * Documentation improvements
2568 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2569 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2570 before submitting changes.
2572 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2573 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2574 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2575 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2576 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2578 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2579 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2580 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2581 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2582 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2583 around this problem.
2587 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2588 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2589 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2592 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2593 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2595 * New native hosts supported
2597 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2598 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2600 * New targets supported
2602 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2604 * New file formats supported
2606 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2607 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2611 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2613 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2614 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2616 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2617 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2618 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2620 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2621 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2623 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2624 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2625 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2628 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2629 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2630 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2631 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2632 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2634 * Internal improvements
2636 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2637 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2639 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2640 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2641 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2642 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2643 shared code that handles any of them.
2645 * New command line options
2647 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2651 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2652 General Public License.
2654 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2656 * Host/native/target split
2658 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2659 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2660 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2661 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2662 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2664 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2665 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2666 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2667 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2668 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2669 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2670 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2672 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2673 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2674 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2676 * New hosts supported
2678 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2679 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2680 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2682 * New targets supported
2684 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2685 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2687 * New native hosts supported
2689 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2690 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2691 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2693 * New file formats supported
2695 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2696 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2697 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2701 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2702 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2703 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2705 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2707 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2708 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2709 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2710 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2714 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2715 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2716 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2718 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2722 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2723 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2726 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2727 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2729 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2730 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2731 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2732 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2733 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2734 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2736 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2737 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2738 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2739 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2743 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2744 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2745 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2746 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2747 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2749 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2750 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2751 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2752 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2756 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2757 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2758 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2759 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2760 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2761 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2762 each instruction being stepped through.
2764 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2765 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2767 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2768 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2769 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2770 processor with a serial port.
2774 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2775 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2776 supported, and what files each one uses.
2780 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2781 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2782 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2783 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2785 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2786 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2787 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2788 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2792 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2793 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2794 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2795 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2796 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2797 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2799 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2802 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2804 * Better support for C++ function names
2806 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2807 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2808 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2809 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2810 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2812 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2813 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2814 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2815 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2816 for the list of formats.
2818 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2820 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2821 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2822 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2823 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2824 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2825 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2828 * New 'maintenance' command
2830 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2831 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2832 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2834 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2835 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2836 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2837 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2838 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2839 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2841 The following commands are new:
2843 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2844 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2845 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2847 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2849 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2850 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2851 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2852 read after argv processing.
2854 * New hosts supported
2856 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2858 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2860 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2861 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2862 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2863 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2864 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2867 * New targets supported
2869 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2871 * More smarts about finding #include files
2873 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2874 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2875 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2876 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2877 the one that contains your sources.
2879 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2880 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2881 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2883 * Interesting infernals change
2885 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2886 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2887 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2888 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2890 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2892 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2893 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2894 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2896 See the ChangeLog for details.
2898 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2900 * New machines supported (host and target)
2902 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2904 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2906 * New malloc package
2908 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2909 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2910 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2911 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2912 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2913 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2917 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2918 'help info proc' for details.
2920 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2922 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2923 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2926 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2928 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2929 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2930 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2931 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2932 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2933 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2935 * Cross byte order fixes
2937 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2938 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2940 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2942 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2943 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2944 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2945 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2946 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2947 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2948 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2949 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2950 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2951 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2953 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2954 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2955 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2956 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2958 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2959 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2960 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2963 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2965 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2966 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2967 shared across multiple host platforms.
2969 * longjmp() handling
2971 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2972 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2973 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2974 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2978 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2979 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2984 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2985 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2986 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2988 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2990 * New machines supported (host and target)
2992 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2994 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2995 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2997 * New machines supported (target)
2999 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3003 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3004 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3005 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3007 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3008 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3009 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3010 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3011 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3014 * New features for SVR4
3016 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3017 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3018 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3020 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3021 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3022 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3024 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3025 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3027 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3029 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3030 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3031 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3032 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3033 same code linked statically.
3037 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3038 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3039 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3040 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3041 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3042 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3046 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3047 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3048 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3051 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3053 * New machines supported (host and target)
3055 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3056 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3057 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3059 * Almost SCO Unix support
3061 We had hoped to support:
3062 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3063 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3064 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3065 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3067 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3069 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3070 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3071 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3072 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3077 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3078 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3079 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3083 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3084 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3085 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3087 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3089 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3090 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3091 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3093 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3094 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3095 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3096 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3099 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3100 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3101 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3102 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3105 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3106 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3109 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3110 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3111 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3114 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3116 * Improved configuration
3118 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3119 Porting BFD is simpler.
3123 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3124 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3125 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3126 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3130 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3132 * New host supported (not target)
3134 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3137 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3139 * Multiple source language support
3141 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3142 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3143 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3144 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3145 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3146 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3150 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3151 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3152 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3153 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3155 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3156 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3157 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3159 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3160 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3164 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3165 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3166 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3167 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3170 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3172 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3173 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3174 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3175 examining core files.
3179 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3182 * New machines supported (host and target)
3184 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3185 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3186 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3188 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3190 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3192 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3194 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3195 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3196 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3198 * New remote interfaces
3204 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3208 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3210 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3211 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3212 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3213 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3214 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3215 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3216 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3217 stub on the target system.
3219 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3221 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3222 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3223 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3225 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3226 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3229 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3231 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3232 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3234 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3235 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3236 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3238 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3239 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3240 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3241 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3243 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3244 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3245 it is already running. Default is ON.
3247 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3248 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3249 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3250 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3253 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3254 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3255 or the value of the environment variable
3258 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3259 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3262 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3263 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3264 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3266 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3267 history expansion will be performed on
3268 command line input. The default is OFF.
3270 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3271 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3272 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3274 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3275 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3276 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3279 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3280 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3281 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3284 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3285 ``set width'' instead.
3287 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3288 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3289 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3290 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3292 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3295 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3298 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3301 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3304 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3306 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3307 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3308 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3312 * Support for Shared Libraries
3314 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3315 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3316 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3317 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3318 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3319 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3320 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3321 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3323 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3324 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3325 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3327 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3332 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3333 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3334 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3335 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3336 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3337 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3339 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3341 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3343 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3344 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3345 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3348 * C++ multiple inheritance
3350 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3353 * C++ exception handling
3355 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3356 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3357 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3360 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3361 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3362 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3364 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3365 current stack frame.
3368 * Minor command changes
3370 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3371 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3372 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3374 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3375 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3376 frames without printing.
3378 * New directory command
3380 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3381 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3382 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3383 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3384 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3386 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3388 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3391 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3392 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3393 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3394 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob