1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
6 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
9 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
10 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
12 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
14 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
18 * Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
21 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
22 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
25 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
28 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
29 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
30 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
34 set mem inaccessible-by-default
35 show mem inaccessible-by-default
36 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
37 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
38 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
39 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
40 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
42 set breakpoint auto-hw
43 show breakpoint auto-hw
44 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
45 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
46 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
47 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
48 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
49 including "next" and "finish".
52 catch exception unhandled
53 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
56 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
60 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
61 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
62 an alias to "set sysroot".
64 * New native configurations
66 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
71 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
72 not query the target for its built-in description.
76 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
77 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
78 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
83 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
84 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
87 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
92 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
100 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
101 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
103 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
106 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
107 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
116 * Other removed features
123 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
127 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
128 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
130 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
132 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
133 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
134 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
135 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
137 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
142 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
144 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
145 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
146 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
148 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
149 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
152 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
153 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
155 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
156 stub provides the required support.
158 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
159 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
164 unset substitute-path
166 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
167 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
168 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
169 between compilation and debugging.
173 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
174 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
175 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
179 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
181 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
182 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
184 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
189 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
190 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
191 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
192 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
196 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
197 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
199 qXfer:memory-map:read:
200 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
201 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
206 Erase and program a flash memory device.
208 * Removed remote packets
211 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
212 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
214 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
218 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
220 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
224 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
225 only if it doesn't already have a value.
227 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
229 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
231 restart <n> Return the program state to a
232 previously saved state.
234 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
236 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
238 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
239 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
241 info forks List forks of the user program that
242 are available to be debugged.
244 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
245 forks of the user program that are
246 available to be debugged.
248 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
249 that are available to be debugged (and
250 kill the forked process).
252 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
253 that are available to be debugged (and
254 allow the process to continue).
258 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
260 * Improved Windows host support
262 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
263 native console support, and remote communications using either
264 network sockets or serial ports.
266 * Improved Modula-2 language support
268 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
269 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
270 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
271 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
272 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
273 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
277 The ARM rdi-share module.
279 The Netware NLM debug server.
281 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
283 * New native configurations
285 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
286 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
290 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
292 * New command line options
294 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
295 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
296 the child (debugged) program exited with.
297 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
298 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
299 specified multiple times and in conjunction
300 with the --command (-x) option.
302 * Deprecated commands removed
304 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
308 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
309 othernames set arm disassembler
310 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
311 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
312 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
315 * New BSD user-level threads support
317 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
318 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
321 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
322 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
323 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
325 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
326 are not yet supported.
328 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
329 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
331 * REMOVED configurations and files
333 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
334 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
335 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
337 * New "set print array-indexes" command
339 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
340 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
343 * VAX floating point support
345 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
347 * User-defined command support
349 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
350 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
351 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
353 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
355 * New command line option
357 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
360 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
362 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
363 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
364 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
365 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
366 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
368 * Internationalization
370 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
371 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
372 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
376 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
377 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
378 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
380 * New native configurations
382 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
386 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
387 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
389 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
391 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
392 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
393 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
396 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
397 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
398 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
410 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
411 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
413 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
415 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
416 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
417 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
427 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
429 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
431 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
432 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
435 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
437 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
438 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
439 IRIX long double values).
443 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
444 command. This problem has been fixed.
446 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
448 * Fix for ``many threads''
450 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
451 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
454 ptrace: No such process.
455 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
457 This problem has been fixed.
459 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
461 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
464 * New ``start'' command.
466 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
468 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
470 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
471 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
472 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
474 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
475 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
476 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
477 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
478 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
479 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
480 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
481 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
482 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
484 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
486 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
487 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
488 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
489 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
490 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
492 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
493 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
494 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
496 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
498 * New native configurations
500 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
501 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
502 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
503 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
504 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
505 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
506 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
508 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
510 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
511 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
512 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
513 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
514 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
515 work, was also included.
517 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
518 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
528 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
529 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
531 * REMOVED configurations and files
533 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
534 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
535 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
536 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
537 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
538 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
539 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
540 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
541 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
543 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
545 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
547 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
549 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
550 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
551 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
552 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
555 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
557 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
558 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
559 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
560 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
561 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
562 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
565 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
567 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
569 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
570 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
571 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
573 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
575 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
576 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
578 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
580 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
581 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
582 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
584 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
586 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
587 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
589 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
591 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
592 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
593 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
595 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
597 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
598 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
599 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
601 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
603 * Removed --with-mmalloc
605 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
606 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
608 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
610 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
611 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
612 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
613 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
615 * Revised SPARC target
617 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
618 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
619 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
620 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
621 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
625 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
626 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
627 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
630 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
632 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
633 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
636 * C++ nested types and namespaces
638 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
639 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
640 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
641 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
642 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
643 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
644 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
645 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
646 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
648 * New native configurations
650 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
651 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
652 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
653 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
654 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
656 * New debugging protocols
658 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
660 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
662 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
663 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
664 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
666 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
668 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
669 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
670 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
673 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
674 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
675 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
676 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
677 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
678 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
679 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
680 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
681 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
683 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
685 * REMOVED configurations and files
687 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
688 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
689 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
690 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
691 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
692 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
693 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
694 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
695 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
696 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
697 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
698 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
699 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
700 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
701 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
702 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
703 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
705 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
709 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
712 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
714 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
715 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
716 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
719 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
720 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
725 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
726 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
727 remote protocol documentation for details.
729 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
731 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
732 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
733 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
736 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
738 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
739 per-thread variables.
741 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
743 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
744 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
746 * Separate debug info.
748 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
749 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
750 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
751 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
752 and optional debug files.
754 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
756 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
757 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
760 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
761 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
765 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
766 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
767 considered "useable".
769 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
771 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
772 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
775 * GDB supports logging output to a file
777 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
778 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
780 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
782 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
783 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
786 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
788 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
789 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
793 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
794 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
795 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
796 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
797 data, for more informative profiling results.
799 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
801 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
802 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
803 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
805 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
808 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
809 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
810 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
811 in a subsequent -var-update.
813 * New native configurations.
815 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
817 * Multi-arched targets.
819 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
820 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
822 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
824 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
825 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
826 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
829 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
830 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
831 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
832 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
833 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
834 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
835 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
836 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
837 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
838 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
839 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
840 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
842 * REMOVED configurations and files
845 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
846 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
847 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
848 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
849 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
850 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
852 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
853 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
854 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
855 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
856 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
857 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
859 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
861 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
862 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
863 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
864 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
865 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
867 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
869 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
871 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
872 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
873 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
874 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
875 shared libs like mad''.
877 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
879 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
880 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
881 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
882 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
884 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
886 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
887 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
890 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
891 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
893 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
894 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
896 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
897 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
898 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
899 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
901 * Multi-arched targets.
903 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
904 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
906 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
907 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
908 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
912 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
915 * New native configurations
917 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
918 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
919 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
920 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
922 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
924 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
925 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
926 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
929 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
930 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
931 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
932 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
933 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
934 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
935 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
936 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
937 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
938 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
940 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
941 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
945 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
947 * REMOVED configurations and files
949 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
950 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
951 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
952 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
953 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
955 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
957 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
959 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
960 commands. The default is 1024.
962 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
964 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
966 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
968 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
969 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
970 from a file into memory (restore).
972 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
974 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
975 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
976 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
978 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
986 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
987 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
988 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
990 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
991 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
992 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
994 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
995 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
996 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
998 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
999 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1000 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1002 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1004 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1006 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1007 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1008 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1009 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1010 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1011 (notably embedded) targets.
1013 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1015 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1016 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1017 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1018 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1020 * New command line option
1022 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1024 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1026 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1027 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1028 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1029 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1030 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1031 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1032 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1033 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1034 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1035 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1037 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1039 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1040 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1042 * New native configurations
1044 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1045 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1046 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1047 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1051 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1053 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1055 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1056 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1057 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1058 permanently REMOVED.
1060 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1061 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1062 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1063 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1064 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1066 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1068 * REMOVED configurations and files
1070 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1072 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1073 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1074 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1075 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1076 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1077 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1078 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1079 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1080 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1081 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1082 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1084 * Changes to command line processing
1086 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1087 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1089 * Changes to key bindings
1091 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1093 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1095 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1097 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1100 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1102 Numerous documentation fixes.
1104 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1106 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1108 * New native configurations
1110 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1111 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1112 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1113 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1114 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1115 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1119 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1121 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1123 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1125 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1126 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1127 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1128 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1129 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1131 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1132 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1133 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1134 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1135 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1136 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1137 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1138 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1140 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1141 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1143 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1144 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1145 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1146 permanently REMOVED.
1148 * REMOVED configurations and files
1150 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1151 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1153 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1157 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1159 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1160 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1165 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1167 * The MI enabled by default.
1169 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1170 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1171 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1172 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1173 which is now deprecated.
1175 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1177 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1178 main features are supported:
1180 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1182 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1185 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1187 - a Pascal expression parser.
1189 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1191 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1193 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1195 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1196 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1198 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1200 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1202 * Changes in completion.
1204 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1205 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1206 users expect at the shell prompt.
1208 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1209 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1210 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1211 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1212 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1213 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1214 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1216 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1218 * New platform-independent commands:
1220 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1221 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1222 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1224 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1226 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1227 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1228 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1230 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1232 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1233 multi-threaded programs though.
1235 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1237 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1239 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1240 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1243 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1245 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1246 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1247 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1248 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1249 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1252 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1253 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1254 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1256 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1258 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1259 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1261 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1262 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1265 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1266 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1267 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1268 a given linear address.
1270 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1271 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1272 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1274 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1276 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1278 * Changes in documentation.
1280 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1281 Documentation License.
1283 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1286 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1288 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1291 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1292 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1293 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1295 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1297 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1298 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1299 contents of this file.
1303 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1305 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1307 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1309 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1310 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1311 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1312 greater level of detail.
1314 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1316 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1317 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1318 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1321 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1323 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1324 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1325 machines ``out of the box''.
1327 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1328 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1329 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1330 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1331 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1333 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1334 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1335 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1336 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1337 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1339 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1340 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1343 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1346 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1347 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1348 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1349 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1351 * New native configurations
1353 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1354 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1358 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1359 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1360 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1361 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1363 * OBSOLETE configurations
1365 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1366 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1368 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1371 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1372 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1373 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1374 be permanently REMOVED.
1376 * Gould support removed
1378 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1380 * New features for SVR4
1382 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1383 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1384 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1386 * Many C++ enhancements
1388 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1389 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1391 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1393 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1394 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1395 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1396 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1398 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1399 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1401 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1403 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1404 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1405 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1407 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1408 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1410 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1412 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1413 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1414 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1416 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1418 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1419 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1420 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1422 * ``apropos'' command added.
1424 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1425 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1426 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1430 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1431 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1432 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1433 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1434 enabled by configuring with:
1436 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1438 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1440 * New native configurations
1442 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1443 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1444 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1448 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1449 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1450 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1452 * OBSOLETE configurations
1454 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1456 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1457 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1458 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1459 be permanently REMOVED.
1463 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1464 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1465 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1466 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1467 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1468 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1469 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1474 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1476 * set extension-language
1478 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1479 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1480 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1481 set extension-language .c c++
1482 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1483 and their associated languages.
1485 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1487 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1488 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1489 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1493 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1494 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1496 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1497 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1499 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1500 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1501 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1502 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1503 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1504 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1505 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1506 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1508 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1509 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1510 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1511 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1515 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1516 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1517 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1518 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1519 for xdb and dbx commands.
1523 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1524 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1525 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1527 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1528 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1529 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1531 * Debugging across forks
1533 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1538 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1539 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1540 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1542 * GDB remote protocol additions
1544 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1545 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1546 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1547 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1549 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1550 full 64-bit address. The command
1552 set remoteaddresssize 32
1554 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1555 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1558 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1559 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1561 maint packet heythere
1563 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1564 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1567 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1568 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1569 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1571 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1573 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1574 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1575 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1577 * mask-address variable for Mips
1579 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1580 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1581 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1583 * Higher serial baud rates
1585 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1586 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1587 to achieve all of these rates.)
1591 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1592 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1595 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1597 * New native configurations
1599 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1600 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1601 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1602 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1603 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1604 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1605 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1609 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1610 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1611 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1612 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1613 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1614 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1615 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1616 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1617 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1618 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1619 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1621 * New debugging protocols
1623 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1624 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1625 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1626 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1627 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1628 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1632 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1633 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1638 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1639 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1641 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1643 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1644 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1645 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1647 * Live range splitting
1649 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1650 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1651 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1655 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1656 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1660 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1661 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1662 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1667 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1672 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1673 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1674 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1675 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1676 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1677 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1681 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1682 the symbol at the specified address.
1686 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1687 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1688 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1689 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1690 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1694 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1695 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1696 of most MIPS variants.
1700 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1701 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1702 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1706 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1707 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1708 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1709 the possible architectures.
1711 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1713 * New native configurations
1715 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1716 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1717 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1718 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1719 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1720 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1724 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1725 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1726 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1727 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1728 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1730 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1734 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1735 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1736 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1737 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1738 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1742 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1744 * Windows 95/NT native
1746 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1747 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1748 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1749 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1750 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1752 * dont-repeat command
1754 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1755 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1756 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1757 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1759 * Send break instead of ^C
1761 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1762 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1763 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1765 * Remote protocol timeout
1767 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1768 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1769 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1771 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1773 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1774 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1775 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1776 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1777 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1779 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1780 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1781 automatically on hpux10.
1783 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1785 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1787 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1789 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1790 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1791 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1792 every character. The default value is 1050.
1794 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1796 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1797 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1798 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1799 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1800 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1801 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1803 * Speedups for remote debugging
1805 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1806 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1807 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1809 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1811 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1812 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1814 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1816 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1818 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1819 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1821 * Remote targets use caching
1823 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1824 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1825 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1826 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1827 off' turns the the data cache off.
1829 * Remote targets may have threads
1831 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1832 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1833 gdb/remote.c for details.
1837 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1838 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1839 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1840 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1841 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1842 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1843 sequence is something like
1845 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1847 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1851 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1852 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1853 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1854 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1855 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1856 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1857 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1858 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1862 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1863 but does simplify configuration and building.
1867 GDB now supports hpux10.
1869 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1871 * New native configurations
1873 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1874 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1875 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1876 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1880 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1881 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1882 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1883 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1886 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1888 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1889 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1890 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1891 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1892 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1894 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1896 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1897 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1900 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1902 To execute the command use:
1905 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1906 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1907 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1909 * New `if' and `while' commands
1911 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1912 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1913 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1914 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1915 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1916 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1917 if the expression is zero.
1919 * Fortran source language mode
1921 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1922 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1923 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1924 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1927 * Better HPUX support
1929 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1930 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1931 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1932 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1933 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1939 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1940 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1946 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1947 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1950 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1951 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1953 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1955 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1956 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1957 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1958 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1959 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1960 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1962 * New DOS host serial code
1964 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1965 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1968 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1970 * New "complete" command
1972 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1973 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1975 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1977 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1978 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1980 * Breakpoint hit counts
1982 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1983 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1984 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1985 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1986 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1989 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1991 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1992 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1993 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1995 * Shared library breakpoints
1997 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1998 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2000 * Hardware watchpoints
2002 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2003 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2005 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2009 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2010 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2012 * Improved Irix 5 support
2014 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2016 * Improved HPPA support
2018 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2020 * New native configurations
2022 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2023 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2024 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2025 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2029 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2030 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2033 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2035 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2036 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2040 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2041 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2043 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2045 * Irix 5 is now supported
2049 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2050 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2051 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2052 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2053 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2056 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2058 * User visible changes:
2062 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2063 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2064 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2065 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2066 debugging info for the mips target).
2068 * DEC Alpha native support
2070 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2071 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2072 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2073 Alpha-specific notes.
2075 * Preliminary thread implementation
2077 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2079 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2081 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2082 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2085 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2087 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2088 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2089 call methods, ...etc.
2091 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2093 * User visible changes:
2095 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2096 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2097 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2098 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2100 Filename completion now works.
2102 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2103 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2104 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2106 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2107 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2108 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2109 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2110 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2114 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2115 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2118 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2122 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2123 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2124 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2128 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2129 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2130 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2131 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2132 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2136 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2137 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2138 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2140 * New targets supported
2142 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2143 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2144 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2145 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2146 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2148 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2149 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2150 GO32 memory extender.
2152 * New remote protocols
2154 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2156 * New source languages supported
2158 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2159 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2160 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2163 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2165 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2167 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2168 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2169 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2170 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2171 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2172 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2174 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2176 * Faster and better demangling
2178 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2179 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2180 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2181 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2182 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2183 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2186 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2187 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2188 compiler does not actually implement.
2190 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2192 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2193 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2194 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2195 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2196 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2197 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2200 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2201 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2203 * Improved configure script
2205 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2206 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2207 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2208 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2210 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2211 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2212 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2213 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2214 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2215 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2217 * Documentation improvements
2219 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2220 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2221 before submitting changes.
2223 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2224 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2225 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2226 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2227 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2229 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2230 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2231 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2232 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2233 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2234 around this problem.
2238 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2239 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2240 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2243 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2244 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2246 * New native hosts supported
2248 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2249 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2251 * New targets supported
2253 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2255 * New file formats supported
2257 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2258 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2262 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2264 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2265 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2267 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2268 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2269 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2271 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2272 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2274 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2275 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2276 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2279 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2280 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2281 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2282 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2283 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2285 * Internal improvements
2287 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2288 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2290 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2291 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2292 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2293 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2294 shared code that handles any of them.
2296 * New command line options
2298 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2302 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2303 General Public License.
2305 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2307 * Host/native/target split
2309 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2310 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2311 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2312 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2313 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2315 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2316 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2317 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2318 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2319 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2320 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2321 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2323 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2324 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2325 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2327 * New hosts supported
2329 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2330 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2331 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2333 * New targets supported
2335 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2336 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2338 * New native hosts supported
2340 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2341 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2342 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2344 * New file formats supported
2346 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2347 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2348 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2352 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2353 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2354 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2356 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2358 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2359 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2360 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2361 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2365 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2366 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2367 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2369 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2373 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2374 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2377 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2378 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2380 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2381 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2382 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2383 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2384 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2385 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2387 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2388 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2389 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2390 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2394 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2395 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2396 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2397 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2398 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2400 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2401 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2402 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2403 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2407 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2408 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2409 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2410 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2411 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2412 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2413 each instruction being stepped through.
2415 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2416 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2418 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2419 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2420 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2421 processor with a serial port.
2425 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2426 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2427 supported, and what files each one uses.
2431 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2432 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2433 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2434 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2436 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2437 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2438 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2439 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2443 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2444 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2445 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2446 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2447 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2448 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2450 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2453 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2455 * Better support for C++ function names
2457 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2458 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2459 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2460 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2461 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2463 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2464 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2465 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2466 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2467 for the list of formats.
2469 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2471 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2472 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2473 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2474 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2475 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2476 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2479 * New 'maintenance' command
2481 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2482 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2483 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2485 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2486 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2487 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2488 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2489 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2490 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2492 The following commands are new:
2494 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2495 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2496 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2498 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2500 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2501 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2502 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2503 read after argv processing.
2505 * New hosts supported
2507 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2509 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2511 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2512 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2513 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2514 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2515 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2518 * New targets supported
2520 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2522 * More smarts about finding #include files
2524 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2525 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2526 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2527 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2528 the one that contains your sources.
2530 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2531 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2532 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2534 * Interesting infernals change
2536 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2537 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2538 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2539 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2541 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2543 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2544 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2545 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2547 See the ChangeLog for details.
2549 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2551 * New machines supported (host and target)
2553 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2555 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2557 * New malloc package
2559 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2560 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2561 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2562 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2563 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2564 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2568 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2569 'help info proc' for details.
2571 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2573 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2574 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2577 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2579 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2580 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2581 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2582 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2583 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2584 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2586 * Cross byte order fixes
2588 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2589 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2591 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2593 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2594 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2595 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2596 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2597 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2598 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2599 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2600 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2601 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2602 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2604 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2605 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2606 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2607 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2609 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2610 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2611 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2614 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2616 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2617 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2618 shared across multiple host platforms.
2620 * longjmp() handling
2622 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2623 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2624 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2625 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2629 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2630 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2635 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2636 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2637 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2639 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2641 * New machines supported (host and target)
2643 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2645 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2646 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2648 * New machines supported (target)
2650 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2654 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2655 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2656 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2658 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2659 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2660 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2661 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2662 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2665 * New features for SVR4
2667 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2668 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2669 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2671 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2672 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2673 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2675 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2676 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2678 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2680 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2681 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2682 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2683 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2684 same code linked statically.
2688 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2689 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2690 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2691 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2692 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2693 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2697 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2698 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2699 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2702 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2704 * New machines supported (host and target)
2706 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2707 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2708 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2710 * Almost SCO Unix support
2712 We had hoped to support:
2713 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2714 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2715 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2716 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2718 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2720 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2721 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2722 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2723 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2728 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2729 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2730 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2734 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2735 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2736 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2738 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2740 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2741 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2742 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2744 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2745 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2746 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2747 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2750 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2751 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2752 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2753 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2756 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2757 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2760 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2761 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2762 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2765 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2767 * Improved configuration
2769 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2770 Porting BFD is simpler.
2774 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2775 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2776 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2777 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2781 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2783 * New host supported (not target)
2785 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2788 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2790 * Multiple source language support
2792 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2793 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2794 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2795 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2796 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2797 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2801 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2802 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2803 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2804 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2806 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2807 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2808 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2810 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2811 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2815 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2816 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2817 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2818 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2821 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2823 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2824 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2825 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2826 examining core files.
2830 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2833 * New machines supported (host and target)
2835 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2836 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2837 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2839 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2841 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2843 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2845 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2846 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2847 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2849 * New remote interfaces
2855 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2859 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2861 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2862 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2863 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2864 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2865 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2866 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2867 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2868 stub on the target system.
2870 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2872 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2873 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2874 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2876 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2877 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2880 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2882 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2883 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2885 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2886 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2887 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2889 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2890 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2891 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2892 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2894 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2895 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2896 it is already running. Default is ON.
2898 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2899 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2900 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2901 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2904 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2905 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2906 or the value of the environment variable
2909 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2910 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2913 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2914 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2915 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2917 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2918 history expansion will be performed on
2919 command line input. The default is OFF.
2921 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2922 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2923 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2925 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2926 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2927 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2930 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2931 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2932 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2935 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2936 ``set width'' instead.
2938 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2939 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2940 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2941 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2943 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2946 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2949 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2952 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2955 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2957 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2958 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2959 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2963 * Support for Shared Libraries
2965 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2966 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2967 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2968 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2969 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2970 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2971 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2972 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2974 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2975 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2976 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2978 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2983 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2984 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2985 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2986 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2987 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2988 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2990 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2992 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2994 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2995 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2996 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2999 * C++ multiple inheritance
3001 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3004 * C++ exception handling
3006 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3007 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3008 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3011 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3012 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3013 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3015 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3016 current stack frame.
3019 * Minor command changes
3021 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3022 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3023 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3025 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3026 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3027 frames without printing.
3029 * New directory command
3031 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3032 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3033 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3034 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3035 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3037 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3039 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3042 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3043 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3044 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3045 where the program that you are debugging will run.