1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.3
8 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
9 deprecated, and a new command: "set python print-stack on|off" has
10 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is now
13 ** A prompt subsitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
16 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
17 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
18 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
21 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
22 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
23 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
24 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
25 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
27 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
28 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
30 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
31 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
32 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
33 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
34 use this option to specify where to find it.
36 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
37 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
38 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
39 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
40 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
41 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
42 section in the user manual for more details.
44 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
45 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
46 become available after that.
50 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
51 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
52 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
54 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
55 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
56 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
58 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
59 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
60 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
61 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
62 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
69 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
73 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
75 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
77 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
78 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
79 matches the given regular expression.
81 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
83 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
84 dumping the instruction opcodes.
86 * New command line options
88 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
89 This is mostly for testing purposes.
91 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
92 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
94 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
95 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
96 source path list instead of augmenting it.
98 * GDB now understands thread names.
100 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
101 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
103 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
104 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
107 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
108 has been integrated into GDB.
112 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
113 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
114 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
116 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
117 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
118 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
119 and allows for more dynamic content.
121 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
122 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
123 have an is_valid method.
125 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
126 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
127 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
129 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
131 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
132 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
133 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
134 that function like so:
136 result = some_value (10,20)
138 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
139 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
140 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
142 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
143 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
144 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
145 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
146 New function: register_pretty_printer.
148 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
149 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
151 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
153 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
156 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
157 holds the thread's name.
159 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
160 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
161 occurring in the process being debugged.
162 The following events are currently supported:
163 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
164 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
165 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
169 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
170 instantiation. For example, if you have:
172 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
174 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
175 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
176 was added to GCC 4.5.
178 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
179 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
180 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
181 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
182 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
183 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
185 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
186 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
187 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
188 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
189 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
191 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
192 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
193 execution to a label.
195 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
196 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
197 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
198 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
200 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
201 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
202 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
205 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
207 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
208 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
209 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
210 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
211 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
212 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
215 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
217 While now you see this:
220 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
222 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
225 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
226 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
227 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
228 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
230 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
231 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
232 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
233 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
234 section in the user manual for more details.
236 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
238 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
239 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
241 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
243 * New native configurations
245 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
249 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
251 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
252 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
253 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
254 in the GDB user manual.
256 * Guile support was removed.
258 * New features in the GNU simulator
260 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
262 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
264 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
266 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
268 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
269 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
270 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
271 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
272 was always disabled for such configurations.
276 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
278 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
279 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
289 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
290 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
291 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
293 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
295 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
296 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
297 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
298 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
300 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
301 mentioned flavors of operators.
303 ** static const class members
305 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
306 class definition has been fixed.
308 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
310 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
311 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
312 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
313 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
314 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
315 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
319 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
320 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
321 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
322 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
323 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
324 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
325 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
326 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
327 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
328 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
329 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
330 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
331 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
332 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
333 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
334 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
335 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
336 the "New remote packets" section below.
338 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
340 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
341 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
342 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
343 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
347 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
348 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
349 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
350 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
351 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
352 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
353 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
355 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
362 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
366 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
367 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
368 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
369 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
370 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
371 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
375 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
379 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
382 qXfer:statictrace:read
384 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
385 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
386 to gdb's qSupported query.
390 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
394 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
395 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
397 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
398 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
401 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
403 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
404 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
405 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
406 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
408 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
409 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
410 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
411 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
412 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
413 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
414 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
416 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
417 for static tracepoints support.
419 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
421 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
422 it understands register description.
424 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
426 * X86 general purpose registers
428 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
429 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
430 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
431 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
432 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
434 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
435 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
436 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
437 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
438 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
439 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
441 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
442 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
443 in the specified file.
445 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
446 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
447 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
448 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
449 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
450 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
451 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
452 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
453 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
454 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
458 eval template, expressions...
459 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
460 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
462 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
463 show target-file-system-kind
464 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
467 save breakpoints <filename>
468 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
469 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
470 definitions, use the `source' command.
472 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
475 info static-tracepoint-markers
476 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
478 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
479 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
480 function, line, address, or marker ID.
484 Enable and disable observer mode.
486 set may-write-registers on|off
487 set may-write-memory on|off
488 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
489 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
490 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
491 set may-interrupt on|off
492 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
493 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
494 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
495 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
496 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
497 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
498 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
500 set record memory-query on|off
501 show record memory-query
502 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
503 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
508 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
512 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
513 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
514 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
515 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
516 GDB using Python' in the manual.
518 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
519 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
520 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
521 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
523 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
524 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
526 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
528 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
530 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
532 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
533 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
534 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
536 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
537 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
538 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
543 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
545 * D language support.
546 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
549 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
550 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
551 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
552 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
553 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
555 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
556 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
557 conditions of the form:
559 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
561 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
562 interface mentioned above.
564 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
570 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
571 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
572 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
573 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
574 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
578 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
579 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
584 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
585 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
589 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
594 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
597 * Multi-program debugging.
599 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
600 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
601 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
602 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
603 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
604 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
605 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
606 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
608 * New tracing features
610 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
612 ** Trace state variables
614 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
615 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
616 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
617 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
618 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
619 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
620 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
621 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
622 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
623 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
627 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
628 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
629 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
630 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
631 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
632 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
633 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
634 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
635 the regular trace command.
637 ** Disconnected tracing
639 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
640 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
641 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
642 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
643 connection is lost unexpectedly.
647 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
648 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
649 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
650 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
651 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
652 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
655 ** Circular trace buffer
657 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
658 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
659 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
660 not be available for all target agents.
665 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
666 the arguments to be comma-separated.
669 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
670 which only declare a variable are not shown.
673 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
674 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
677 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
678 "set script-extension" (see below).
680 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
682 record save [<FILENAME>]
683 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
684 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
686 record restore <FILENAME>
687 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
688 earlier time, for replay debugging.
690 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
693 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
694 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
700 maint info program-spaces
701 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
703 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
704 show remote interrupt-sequence
705 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
706 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
707 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
708 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
709 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
711 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
712 show remote interrupt-on-connect
713 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
714 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
717 set remotebreak [on | off]
719 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
721 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
722 Create or modify a trace state variable.
725 List trace state variables and their values.
727 delete tvariable $NAME ...
728 Delete one or more trace state variables.
731 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
732 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
734 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
735 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
737 * New expression syntax
739 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
740 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
744 set follow-exec-mode new|same
745 show follow-exec-mode
746 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
747 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
748 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
750 set default-collect EXPR, ...
752 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
753 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
754 such as registers or a critical global variable.
756 set disconnected-tracing
757 show disconnected-tracing
758 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
759 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
762 set circular-trace-buffer
763 show circular-trace-buffer
764 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
765 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
766 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
767 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
769 set script-extension off|soft|strict
770 show script-extension
771 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
772 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
773 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
774 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
776 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
778 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
779 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
780 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
781 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
782 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
783 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
784 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
787 * Python API Improvements
789 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
790 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
791 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
793 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
794 `is_base_class' attribute.
796 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
798 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
799 evaluate an expression.
804 Define a trace state variable.
807 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
810 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
813 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
816 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
820 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
822 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
823 much more reliable. In particular:
824 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
825 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
826 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
827 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
828 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
829 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
830 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
831 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
832 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
833 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
834 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
835 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
836 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
837 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
838 non-threaded programs.
840 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
841 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
842 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
845 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
847 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
848 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
849 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
850 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
851 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
853 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
854 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
855 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
856 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
857 for tracepoint actions.
859 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
860 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
861 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
863 * Process record and replay
865 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
866 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
867 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
870 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
871 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
872 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
875 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
876 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
879 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
880 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
881 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
882 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
883 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
884 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
885 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
886 the installation instructions for more information.
888 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
889 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
890 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
891 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
893 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
894 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
896 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
897 now complete on file names.
899 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
900 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
901 For instance, consider:
903 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
904 # struct example variable;
907 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
908 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
910 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
911 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
913 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
914 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
917 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
918 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
919 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
921 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
922 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
923 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
924 and simulator targets may also provide them.
929 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
932 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
933 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
934 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
937 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
938 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
941 Obtains additional operating system information
945 Read or write additional signal information.
947 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
949 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
950 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
951 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
953 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
954 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
956 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
957 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
958 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
960 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
961 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
963 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
965 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
967 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
968 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
970 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
971 list of section offsets.
973 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
974 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
975 have also been fixed.
977 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
978 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
979 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
981 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
984 template<typename T> class C { };
987 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
989 ptype C<char const *>
991 ptype C<const char *>
994 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
996 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
997 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
999 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
1000 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1001 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
1003 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
1004 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
1006 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
1009 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
1010 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
1012 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
1013 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
1018 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
1019 available is determined at configure time.
1021 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
1023 * Ada tasking support
1025 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
1029 Print the list of Ada tasks.
1031 Print detailed information about task number N.
1033 Print the task number of the current task.
1035 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
1037 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
1038 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
1040 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
1042 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
1043 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
1044 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
1045 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
1046 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
1047 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
1050 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
1051 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
1054 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
1055 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
1056 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
1057 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
1060 * Multi-architecture debugging.
1062 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
1063 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
1064 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
1065 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
1066 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
1068 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
1069 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
1070 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
1071 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
1072 --enable-targets configure option.
1074 * Non-stop mode debugging.
1076 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
1077 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
1078 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
1079 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
1080 section in the user manual for more information.
1082 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
1083 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
1084 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
1085 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
1086 extensions on linux targets.
1088 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1090 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1091 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1092 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1093 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1094 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1095 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1096 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1097 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1098 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1100 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1102 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1104 maint set python print-stack
1105 maint show python print-stack
1106 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1109 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1114 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1118 Show operating system information about processes.
1121 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1124 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1127 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1130 Kill inferior number NUM.
1134 set spu stop-on-load
1135 show spu stop-on-load
1136 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1138 set spu auto-flush-cache
1139 show spu auto-flush-cache
1140 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1141 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1143 set sh calling-convention
1144 show sh calling-convention
1145 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1148 show debug timestamp
1149 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1151 set disassemble-next-line
1152 show disassemble-next-line
1153 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1156 set remote noack-packet
1157 show remote noack-packet
1158 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1159 under "New remote packets."
1161 set remote query-attached-packet
1162 show remote query-attached-packet
1163 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1165 set remote read-siginfo-object
1166 show remote read-siginfo-object
1167 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1170 set remote write-siginfo-object
1171 show remote write-siginfo-object
1172 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1175 set remote reverse-continue
1176 show remote reverse-continue
1177 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1179 set remote reverse-step
1180 show remote reverse-step
1181 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1183 set displaced-stepping
1184 show displaced-stepping
1185 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1186 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1187 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1190 show debug displaced
1191 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1193 maint set internal-error
1194 maint show internal-error
1195 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1197 maint set internal-warning
1198 maint show internal-warning
1199 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1204 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1206 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1207 show multiple-symbols
1208 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1209 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1210 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1212 set breakpoint always-inserted
1213 show breakpoint always-inserted
1214 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1215 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1216 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1218 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1219 show arm fallback-mode
1220 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1222 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1223 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1224 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1225 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1227 set disable-randomization
1228 show disable-randomization
1229 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1230 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1231 multiple debugging sessions.
1235 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1240 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1241 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1242 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1243 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1245 set target-wide-charset
1246 show target-wide-charset
1247 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1248 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1250 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1252 set tcp connect-timeout
1253 show tcp connect-timeout
1254 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1255 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1256 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1258 set libthread-db-search-path
1259 show libthread-db-search-path
1260 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1263 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1264 show schedule-multiple
1265 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1266 the current process.
1270 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1271 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1272 affecting correctness.
1274 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1275 show interactive-mode
1276 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1277 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1278 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1279 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1280 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1285 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1286 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1287 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1291 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1292 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1293 alias for the `fork' command.
1296 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1297 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1298 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1301 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1302 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1303 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1307 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1308 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1309 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1312 * New native configurations
1314 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1316 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1320 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1321 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1322 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1325 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1326 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1332 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1334 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1336 * New native configurations
1338 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1339 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1343 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1344 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1346 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1348 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1349 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1350 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1351 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1353 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1354 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1356 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1359 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1360 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1361 and in inlined functions.
1363 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1364 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1365 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1367 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1369 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1370 registers on PowerPC targets.
1372 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1373 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1375 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1376 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1378 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1379 extended-remote mode.
1381 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1382 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1383 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1384 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1386 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1387 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1388 target architectures.
1390 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1391 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1392 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1393 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1395 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1398 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1399 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1401 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1402 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1403 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1404 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1406 - Improved command completion in Ada
1409 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1414 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1415 show print frame-arguments
1416 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1417 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1422 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1429 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1431 * New remote packets
1438 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1441 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1445 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1447 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1449 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1450 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1451 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1453 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1454 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1455 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1457 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1458 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1461 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1462 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1464 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1465 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1467 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1469 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1470 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1471 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1473 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1474 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1476 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1477 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1480 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1481 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1482 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1484 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1487 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1488 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1489 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1491 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1493 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1495 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1496 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1497 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1499 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1500 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1502 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1503 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1504 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1505 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1506 Windows and SymbianOS).
1508 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1509 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1511 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1512 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1518 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1519 when debugging using remote targets.
1521 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1522 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1523 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1524 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1525 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1526 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1527 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1529 set breakpoint auto-hw
1530 show breakpoint auto-hw
1531 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1532 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1533 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1534 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1535 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1536 including "next" and "finish".
1539 catch exception unhandled
1540 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1543 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1547 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1548 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1549 an alias to "set sysroot".
1552 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1553 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1556 * New native configurations
1558 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1561 unset tdesc filename
1563 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1564 not query the target for its built-in description.
1568 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1569 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1570 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1572 * New remote packets
1575 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1576 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1578 qXfer:features:read:
1579 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1584 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1585 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1587 qXfer:libraries:read:
1588 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1589 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1590 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1591 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1595 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1603 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1604 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1605 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1606 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1608 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1611 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1612 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1621 * Other removed features
1628 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1635 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1640 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1641 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1646 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1647 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1649 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1651 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1652 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1653 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1654 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1656 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1658 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1659 in debugging information.
1663 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1664 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1666 set mips stack-arg-size
1667 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1669 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1671 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1676 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1678 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1679 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1680 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1682 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1683 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1686 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1687 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1689 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1690 stub provides the required support.
1692 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1693 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1698 unset substitute-path
1699 show substitute-path
1700 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1701 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1702 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1703 between compilation and debugging.
1707 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1708 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1709 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1713 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1715 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1716 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1718 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1720 * New remote packets
1723 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1724 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1725 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1726 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1730 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1731 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1733 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1734 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1735 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1740 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1742 * Removed remote packets
1745 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1746 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1748 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1752 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1754 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1758 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1759 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1761 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1763 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1765 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1766 previously saved state.
1768 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1770 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1772 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1773 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1775 info forks List forks of the user program that
1776 are available to be debugged.
1778 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1779 forks of the user program that are
1780 available to be debugged.
1782 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1783 that are available to be debugged (and
1784 kill the forked process).
1786 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1787 that are available to be debugged (and
1788 allow the process to continue).
1792 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1794 * Improved Windows host support
1796 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1797 native console support, and remote communications using either
1798 network sockets or serial ports.
1800 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1802 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1803 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1804 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1805 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1806 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1807 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1811 The ARM rdi-share module.
1813 The Netware NLM debug server.
1815 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1817 * New native configurations
1819 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1820 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1824 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1826 * New command line options
1828 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1829 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1830 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1831 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1832 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1833 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1834 with the --command (-x) option.
1836 * Deprecated commands removed
1838 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1842 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1843 othernames set arm disassembler
1844 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1845 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1846 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1849 * New BSD user-level threads support
1851 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1852 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1855 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1856 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1857 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1859 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1860 are not yet supported.
1862 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1863 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1865 * REMOVED configurations and files
1867 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1868 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1869 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1871 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1873 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1874 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1877 * VAX floating point support
1879 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1881 * User-defined command support
1883 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1884 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1885 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1887 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1889 * New command line option
1891 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1894 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1896 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1897 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1898 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1899 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1900 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1902 * Internationalization
1904 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1905 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1906 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1910 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1911 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1912 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1914 * New native configurations
1916 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1920 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1921 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1923 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1925 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1926 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1927 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1930 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1931 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1932 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1942 powerpc bdm protocol
1944 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1945 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1947 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1949 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1950 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1951 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1952 permanently REMOVED.
1961 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1963 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1965 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1966 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1969 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1971 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1972 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1973 IRIX long double values).
1977 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1978 command. This problem has been fixed.
1980 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1982 * Fix for ``many threads''
1984 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1985 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1988 ptrace: No such process.
1989 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1991 This problem has been fixed.
1993 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1995 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1998 * New ``start'' command.
2000 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
2002 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
2004 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
2005 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
2006 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
2008 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2009 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
2010 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
2011 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
2012 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
2013 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2014 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
2015 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
2016 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2018 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
2020 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
2021 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
2022 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
2023 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
2024 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
2026 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
2027 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
2028 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
2030 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
2032 * New native configurations
2034 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
2035 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
2036 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
2037 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
2038 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
2039 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
2040 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
2042 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
2044 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
2045 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
2046 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
2047 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
2048 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
2049 work, was also included.
2051 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
2052 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
2062 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
2063 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
2065 * REMOVED configurations and files
2067 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2068 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2069 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2070 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2071 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2072 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2073 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2074 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2075 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2076 sonymips mips-sony-*
2077 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2079 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
2081 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
2083 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
2084 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
2085 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
2086 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
2089 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2091 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2092 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2093 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2094 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2095 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2096 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2099 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2101 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2103 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2104 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2105 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2107 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2109 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2110 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2112 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2114 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2115 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2116 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2118 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2120 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2121 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2123 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2125 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2126 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2127 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2129 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2131 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2132 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2133 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2135 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2137 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2139 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2140 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2142 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2144 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2145 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2146 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2147 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2149 * Revised SPARC target
2151 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2152 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2153 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2154 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2155 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2159 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2160 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2161 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2164 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2166 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2167 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2170 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2172 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2173 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2174 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2175 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2176 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2177 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2178 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2179 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2180 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2182 * New native configurations
2184 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2185 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2186 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2187 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2188 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2190 * New debugging protocols
2192 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2194 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2196 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2197 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2198 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2200 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2202 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2203 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2204 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2205 permanently REMOVED.
2207 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2208 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2209 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2210 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2211 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2212 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2213 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2214 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2215 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2216 sonymips mips-sony-*
2217 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2219 * REMOVED configurations and files
2221 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2222 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2223 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2224 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2225 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2226 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2227 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2228 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2229 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2230 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2231 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2232 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2233 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2234 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2235 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2236 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2237 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2239 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2243 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2244 integrated into GDB.
2246 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2248 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2249 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2250 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2253 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2254 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2255 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2259 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2260 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2261 remote protocol documentation for details.
2263 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2265 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2266 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2267 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2270 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2272 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2273 per-thread variables.
2275 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2277 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2278 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2280 * Separate debug info.
2282 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2283 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2284 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2285 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2286 and optional debug files.
2288 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2290 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2291 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2294 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2295 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2299 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2300 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2301 considered "useable".
2303 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2305 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2306 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2309 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2311 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2312 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2314 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2316 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2317 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2320 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2322 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2323 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2327 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2328 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2329 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2330 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2331 data, for more informative profiling results.
2333 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2335 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2336 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2337 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2339 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2342 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2343 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2344 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2345 in a subsequent -var-update.
2347 * New native configurations.
2349 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2351 * Multi-arched targets.
2353 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2354 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2356 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2358 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2359 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2360 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2361 permanently REMOVED.
2363 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2364 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2365 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2366 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2367 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2368 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2369 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2370 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2371 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2372 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2373 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2374 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2376 * REMOVED configurations and files
2379 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2380 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2381 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2382 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2383 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2384 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2386 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2387 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2388 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2389 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2390 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2391 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2393 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2395 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2396 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2397 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2398 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2399 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2401 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2403 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2405 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2406 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2407 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2408 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2409 shared libs like mad''.
2411 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2413 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2414 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2415 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2416 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2418 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2420 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2421 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2424 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2425 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2427 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2428 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2430 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2431 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2432 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2433 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2435 * Multi-arched targets.
2437 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2438 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2440 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2441 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2442 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2446 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2449 * New native configurations
2451 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2452 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2453 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2454 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2456 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2458 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2459 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2460 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2461 permanently REMOVED.
2463 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2464 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2465 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2466 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2467 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2468 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2469 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2470 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2471 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2472 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2474 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2475 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2477 * OBSOLETE languages
2479 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2481 * REMOVED configurations and files
2483 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2484 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2485 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2486 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2487 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2489 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2491 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2493 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2494 commands. The default is 1024.
2496 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2498 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2500 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2502 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2503 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2504 from a file into memory (restore).
2506 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2508 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2509 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2510 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2512 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2520 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2521 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2522 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2524 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2525 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2526 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2528 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2529 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2530 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2532 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2533 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2534 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2536 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2538 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2540 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2541 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2542 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2543 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2544 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2545 (notably embedded) targets.
2547 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2549 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2550 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2551 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2552 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2554 * New command line option
2556 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2558 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2560 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2561 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2562 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2563 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2564 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2565 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2566 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2567 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2568 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2569 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2571 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2573 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2574 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2576 * New native configurations
2578 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2579 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2580 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2581 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2585 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2587 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2589 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2590 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2591 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2592 permanently REMOVED.
2594 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2595 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2596 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2597 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2598 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2600 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2602 * REMOVED configurations and files
2604 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2606 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2607 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2608 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2609 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2610 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2611 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2612 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2613 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2614 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2615 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2616 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2618 * Changes to command line processing
2620 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2621 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2623 * Changes to key bindings
2625 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2627 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2629 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2631 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2634 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2636 Numerous documentation fixes.
2638 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2640 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2642 * New native configurations
2644 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2645 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2646 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2647 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2648 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2649 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2653 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2655 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2657 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2659 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2660 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2661 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2662 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2663 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2665 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2666 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2667 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2668 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2669 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2670 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2671 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2672 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2674 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2675 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2677 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2678 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2679 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2680 permanently REMOVED.
2682 * REMOVED configurations and files
2684 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2685 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2687 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2691 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2693 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2694 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2699 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2701 * The MI enabled by default.
2703 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2704 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2705 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2706 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2707 which is now deprecated.
2709 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2711 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2712 main features are supported:
2714 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2716 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2719 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2721 - a Pascal expression parser.
2723 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2725 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2727 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2729 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2730 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2732 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2734 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2736 * Changes in completion.
2738 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2739 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2740 users expect at the shell prompt.
2742 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2743 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2744 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2745 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2746 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2747 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2748 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2750 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2752 * New platform-independent commands:
2754 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2755 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2756 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2758 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2760 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2761 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2762 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2764 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2766 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2767 multi-threaded programs though.
2769 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2771 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2773 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2774 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2777 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2779 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2780 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2781 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2782 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2783 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2786 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2787 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2788 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2790 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2792 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2793 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2795 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2796 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2799 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2800 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2801 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2802 a given linear address.
2804 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2805 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2806 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2808 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2810 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2812 * Changes in documentation.
2814 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2815 Documentation License.
2817 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2820 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2822 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2825 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2826 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2827 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2829 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2831 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2832 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2833 contents of this file.
2837 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2839 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2841 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2843 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2844 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2845 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2846 greater level of detail.
2848 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2850 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2851 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2852 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2855 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2857 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2858 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2859 machines ``out of the box''.
2861 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2862 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2863 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2864 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2865 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2867 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2868 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2869 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2870 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2871 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2873 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2874 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2877 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2880 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2881 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2882 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2883 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2885 * New native configurations
2887 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2888 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2892 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2893 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2894 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2895 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2897 * OBSOLETE configurations
2899 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2900 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2902 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2905 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2906 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2907 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2908 be permanently REMOVED.
2910 * Gould support removed
2912 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2914 * New features for SVR4
2916 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2917 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2918 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2920 * Many C++ enhancements
2922 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2923 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2925 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2927 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2928 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2929 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2930 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2932 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2933 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2935 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2937 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2938 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2939 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2941 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2942 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2944 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2946 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2947 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2948 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2950 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2952 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2953 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2954 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2956 * ``apropos'' command added.
2958 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2959 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2960 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2964 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2965 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2966 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2967 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2968 enabled by configuring with:
2970 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2972 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2974 * New native configurations
2976 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2977 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2978 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2982 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2983 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2984 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2986 * OBSOLETE configurations
2988 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2990 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2991 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2992 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2993 be permanently REMOVED.
2997 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2998 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2999 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
3000 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
3001 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
3002 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
3003 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
3008 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
3010 * set extension-language
3012 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
3013 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
3014 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
3015 set extension-language .c c++
3016 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
3017 and their associated languages.
3019 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
3021 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
3022 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
3023 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
3027 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
3028 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
3030 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
3031 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
3033 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
3034 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
3035 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
3036 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
3037 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
3038 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
3039 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
3040 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
3042 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
3043 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
3044 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
3045 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
3049 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
3050 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
3051 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
3052 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
3053 for xdb and dbx commands.
3057 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
3058 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
3059 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
3061 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
3062 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
3063 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
3065 * Debugging across forks
3067 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
3072 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
3073 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
3074 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
3076 * GDB remote protocol additions
3078 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
3079 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
3080 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
3081 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
3083 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
3084 full 64-bit address. The command
3086 set remoteaddresssize 32
3088 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
3089 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3092 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3093 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3095 maint packet heythere
3097 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3098 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3101 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3102 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3103 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3105 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3107 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3108 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3109 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3111 * mask-address variable for Mips
3113 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3114 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3115 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3117 * Higher serial baud rates
3119 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3120 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3121 to achieve all of these rates.)
3125 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3126 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3129 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3131 * New native configurations
3133 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3134 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3135 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3136 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3137 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3138 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3139 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3143 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3144 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3145 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3146 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3147 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3148 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3149 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3150 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3151 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3152 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3153 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3155 * New debugging protocols
3157 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3158 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3159 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3160 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3161 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3162 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3166 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3167 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3172 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3173 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3175 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3177 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3178 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3179 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3181 * Live range splitting
3183 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3184 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3185 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3189 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3190 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3194 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3195 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3196 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3201 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3206 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3207 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3208 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3209 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3210 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3211 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3215 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3216 the symbol at the specified address.
3220 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3221 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3222 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3223 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3224 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3228 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3229 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3230 of most MIPS variants.
3234 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3235 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3236 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3240 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3241 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3242 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3243 the possible architectures.
3245 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3247 * New native configurations
3249 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3250 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3251 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3252 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3253 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3254 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3258 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3259 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3260 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3261 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3262 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3264 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3268 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3269 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3270 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3271 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3272 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3276 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3278 * Windows 95/NT native
3280 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3281 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3282 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3283 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3284 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3286 * dont-repeat command
3288 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3289 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3290 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3291 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3293 * Send break instead of ^C
3295 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3296 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3297 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3299 * Remote protocol timeout
3301 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3302 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3303 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3305 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3307 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3308 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3309 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3310 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3311 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3313 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3314 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3315 automatically on hpux10.
3317 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3319 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3321 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3323 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3324 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3325 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3326 every character. The default value is 1050.
3328 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3330 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3331 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3332 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3333 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3334 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3335 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3337 * Speedups for remote debugging
3339 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3340 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3341 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3343 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3345 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3346 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3348 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3350 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3352 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3353 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3355 * Remote targets use caching
3357 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3358 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3359 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3360 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3361 off' turns the the data cache off.
3363 * Remote targets may have threads
3365 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3366 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3367 gdb/remote.c for details.
3371 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3372 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3373 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3374 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3375 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3376 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3377 sequence is something like
3379 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3381 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3385 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3386 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3387 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3388 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3389 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3390 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3391 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3392 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3396 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3397 but does simplify configuration and building.
3401 GDB now supports hpux10.
3403 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3405 * New native configurations
3407 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3408 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3409 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3410 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3414 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3415 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3416 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3417 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3420 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3422 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3423 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3424 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3425 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3426 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3428 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3430 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3431 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3434 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3436 To execute the command use:
3439 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3440 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3441 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3443 * New `if' and `while' commands
3445 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3446 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3447 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3448 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3449 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3450 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3451 if the expression is zero.
3453 * Fortran source language mode
3455 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3456 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3457 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3458 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3461 * Better HPUX support
3463 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3464 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3465 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3466 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3467 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3473 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3474 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3480 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3481 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3484 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3485 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3487 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3489 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3490 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3491 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3492 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3493 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3494 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3496 * New DOS host serial code
3498 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3499 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3502 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3504 * New "complete" command
3506 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3507 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3509 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3511 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3512 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3514 * Breakpoint hit counts
3516 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3517 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3518 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3519 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3520 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3523 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3525 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3526 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3527 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3529 * Shared library breakpoints
3531 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3532 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3534 * Hardware watchpoints
3536 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3537 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3539 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3543 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3544 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3546 * Improved Irix 5 support
3548 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3550 * Improved HPPA support
3552 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3554 * New native configurations
3556 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3557 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3558 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3559 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3563 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3564 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3567 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3569 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3570 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3574 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3575 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3577 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3579 * Irix 5 is now supported
3583 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3584 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3585 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3586 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3587 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3590 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3592 * User visible changes:
3596 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3597 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3598 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3599 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3600 debugging info for the mips target).
3602 * DEC Alpha native support
3604 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3605 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3606 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3607 Alpha-specific notes.
3609 * Preliminary thread implementation
3611 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3613 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3615 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3616 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3619 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3621 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3622 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3623 call methods, ...etc.
3625 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3627 * User visible changes:
3629 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3630 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3631 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3632 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3634 Filename completion now works.
3636 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3637 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3638 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3640 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3641 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3642 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3643 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3644 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3648 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3649 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3652 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3656 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3657 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3658 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3662 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3663 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3664 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3665 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3666 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3670 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3671 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3672 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3674 * New targets supported
3676 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3677 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3678 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3679 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3680 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3682 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3683 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3684 GO32 memory extender.
3686 * New remote protocols
3688 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3690 * New source languages supported
3692 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3693 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3694 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3697 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3699 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3701 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3702 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3703 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3704 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3705 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3706 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3708 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3710 * Faster and better demangling
3712 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3713 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3714 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3715 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3716 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3717 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3720 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3721 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3722 compiler does not actually implement.
3724 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3726 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3727 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3728 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3729 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3730 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3731 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3734 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3735 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3737 * Improved configure script
3739 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3740 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3741 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3742 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3744 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3745 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3746 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3747 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3748 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3749 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3751 * Documentation improvements
3753 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3754 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3755 before submitting changes.
3757 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3758 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3759 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3760 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3761 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3763 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3764 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3765 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3766 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3767 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3768 around this problem.
3772 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3773 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3774 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3777 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3778 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3780 * New native hosts supported
3782 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3783 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3785 * New targets supported
3787 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3789 * New file formats supported
3791 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3792 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3796 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3798 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3799 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3801 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3802 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3803 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3805 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3806 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3808 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3809 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3810 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3813 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3814 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3815 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3816 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3817 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3819 * Internal improvements
3821 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3822 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3824 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3825 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3826 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3827 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3828 shared code that handles any of them.
3830 * New command line options
3832 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3836 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3837 General Public License.
3839 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3841 * Host/native/target split
3843 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3844 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3845 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3846 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3847 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3849 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3850 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3851 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3852 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3853 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3854 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3855 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3857 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3858 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3859 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3861 * New hosts supported
3863 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3864 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3865 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3867 * New targets supported
3869 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3870 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3872 * New native hosts supported
3874 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3875 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3876 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3878 * New file formats supported
3880 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3881 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3882 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3886 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3887 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3888 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3890 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3892 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3893 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3894 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3895 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3899 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3900 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3901 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3903 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3907 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3908 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3911 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3912 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3914 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3915 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3916 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3917 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3918 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3919 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3921 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3922 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3923 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3924 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3928 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3929 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3930 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3931 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3932 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3934 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3935 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3936 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3937 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3941 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3942 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3943 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3944 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3945 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3946 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3947 each instruction being stepped through.
3949 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3950 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3952 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3953 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3954 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3955 processor with a serial port.
3959 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3960 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3961 supported, and what files each one uses.
3965 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3966 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3967 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3968 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3970 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3971 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3972 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3973 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3977 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3978 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3979 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3980 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3981 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3982 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3984 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3987 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3989 * Better support for C++ function names
3991 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3992 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3993 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3994 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3995 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3997 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3998 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3999 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
4000 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
4001 for the list of formats.
4003 * G++ symbol mangling problem
4005 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
4006 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
4007 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
4008 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
4009 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
4010 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
4013 * New 'maintenance' command
4015 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
4016 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
4017 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
4019 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
4020 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
4021 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
4022 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
4023 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
4024 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
4026 The following commands are new:
4028 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
4029 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
4030 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
4032 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
4034 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
4035 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
4036 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
4037 read after argv processing.
4039 * New hosts supported
4041 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
4043 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
4045 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
4046 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
4047 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
4048 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
4049 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
4052 * New targets supported
4054 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4056 * More smarts about finding #include files
4058 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
4059 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
4060 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
4061 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
4062 the one that contains your sources.
4064 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
4065 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
4066 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
4068 * Interesting infernals change
4070 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
4071 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
4072 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
4073 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
4075 * Bug fixes (of course!)
4077 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
4078 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
4079 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
4081 See the ChangeLog for details.
4083 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
4085 * New machines supported (host and target)
4087 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
4089 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4091 * New malloc package
4093 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4094 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4095 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4096 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4097 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4098 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4102 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4103 'help info proc' for details.
4105 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4107 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4108 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4111 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4113 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4114 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4115 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4116 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4117 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4118 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4120 * Cross byte order fixes
4122 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4123 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4125 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4127 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4128 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4129 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4130 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4131 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4132 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4133 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4134 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4135 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4136 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4138 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4139 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4140 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4141 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4143 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4144 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4145 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4148 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4150 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4151 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4152 shared across multiple host platforms.
4154 * longjmp() handling
4156 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4157 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4158 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4159 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4163 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4164 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4169 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4170 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4171 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4173 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4175 * New machines supported (host and target)
4177 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4179 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4180 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4182 * New machines supported (target)
4184 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4188 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4189 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4190 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4192 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4193 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4194 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4195 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4196 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4199 * New features for SVR4
4201 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4202 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4203 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4205 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4206 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4207 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4209 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4210 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4212 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4214 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4215 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4216 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4217 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4218 same code linked statically.
4222 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4223 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4224 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4225 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4226 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4227 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4231 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4232 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4233 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4236 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4238 * New machines supported (host and target)
4240 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4241 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4242 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4244 * Almost SCO Unix support
4246 We had hoped to support:
4247 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4248 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4249 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4250 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4252 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4254 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4255 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4256 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4257 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4262 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4263 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4264 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4268 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4269 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4270 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4272 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4274 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4275 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4276 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4278 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4279 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4280 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4281 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4284 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4285 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4286 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4287 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4290 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4291 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4294 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4295 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4296 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4299 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4301 * Improved configuration
4303 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4304 Porting BFD is simpler.
4308 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4309 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4310 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4311 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4315 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4317 * New host supported (not target)
4319 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4322 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4324 * Multiple source language support
4326 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4327 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4328 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4329 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4330 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4331 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4335 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4336 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4337 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4338 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4340 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4341 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4342 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4344 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4345 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4349 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4350 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4351 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4352 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4355 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4357 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4358 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4359 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4360 examining core files.
4364 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4367 * New machines supported (host and target)
4369 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4370 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4371 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4373 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4375 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4377 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4379 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4380 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4381 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4383 * New remote interfaces
4389 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4393 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4395 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4396 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4397 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4398 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4399 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4400 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4401 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4402 stub on the target system.
4404 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4406 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4407 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4408 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4410 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4411 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4414 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4416 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4417 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4419 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4420 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4421 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4423 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4424 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4425 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4426 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4428 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4429 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4430 it is already running. Default is ON.
4432 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4433 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4434 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4435 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4438 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4439 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4440 or the value of the environment variable
4443 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4444 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4447 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4448 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4449 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4451 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4452 history expansion will be performed on
4453 command line input. The default is OFF.
4455 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4456 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4457 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4459 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4460 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4461 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4464 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4465 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4466 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4469 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4470 ``set width'' instead.
4472 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4473 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4474 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4475 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4477 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4480 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4483 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4486 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4489 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4491 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4492 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4493 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4497 * Support for Shared Libraries
4499 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4500 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4501 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4502 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4503 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4504 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4505 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4506 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4508 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4509 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4510 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4512 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4517 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4518 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4519 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4520 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4521 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4522 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4524 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4526 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4528 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4529 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4530 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4533 * C++ multiple inheritance
4535 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4538 * C++ exception handling
4540 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4541 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4542 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4545 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4546 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4547 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4549 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4550 current stack frame.
4553 * Minor command changes
4555 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4556 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4557 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4559 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4560 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4561 frames without printing.
4563 * New directory command
4565 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4566 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4567 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4568 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4569 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4571 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4573 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4576 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4577 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4578 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4579 where the program that you are debugging will run.