1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.3:
6 * d10v `regs' command deprecated
8 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
9 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
13 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
14 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
15 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
16 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
17 data, for more informative profiling results.
19 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
21 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
22 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
23 "mi1", can be enabled by sepcifying the option "-i=mi1".
25 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
28 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
29 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
30 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
31 in a subsequent -var-update.
33 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
35 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
40 * REMOVED configurations and files
43 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
44 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
45 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
46 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
47 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
48 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
50 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
51 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
52 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
53 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
54 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
55 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
57 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
59 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
60 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
61 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
62 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
63 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
65 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
67 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
69 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
70 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
71 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
72 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
73 shared libs like mad''.
75 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
77 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
78 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
79 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
80 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
82 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
84 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
85 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
88 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
89 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
91 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
92 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
94 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
95 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
96 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
97 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
99 * Multi-arched targets.
101 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
102 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
104 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
105 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
106 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
110 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
113 * New native configurations
115 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
116 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
117 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
118 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
120 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
122 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
123 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
124 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
127 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
128 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
129 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
130 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
131 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
132 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
133 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
134 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
135 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
136 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
138 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
139 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
143 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
145 * REMOVED configurations and files
147 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
148 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
149 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
150 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
151 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
153 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
155 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
157 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
158 commands. The default is 1024.
160 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
162 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
164 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
166 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
167 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
168 from a file into memory (restore).
170 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
172 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
173 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
174 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
176 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
184 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
185 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
186 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
188 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
189 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
190 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
192 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
193 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
194 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
196 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
197 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
198 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
200 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
202 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
204 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
205 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
206 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
207 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
208 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
209 (notably embedded) targets.
211 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
213 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
214 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
215 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
216 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
218 * New command line option
220 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
222 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
224 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
225 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
226 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
227 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
228 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
229 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
230 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
231 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
232 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
233 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
235 * Changes in ARM configurations.
237 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
238 configuration is fully multi-arch.
240 * New native configurations
242 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
243 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
244 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
245 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
249 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
251 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
253 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
254 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
255 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
258 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
259 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
260 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
261 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
262 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
264 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
266 * REMOVED configurations and files
268 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
270 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
271 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
272 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
273 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
274 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
275 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
276 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
277 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
278 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
279 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
280 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
282 * Changes to command line processing
284 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
285 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
287 * Changes to key bindings
289 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
291 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
293 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
295 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
298 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
300 Numerous documentation fixes.
302 Numerous testsuite fixes.
304 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
306 * New native configurations
308 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
309 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
310 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
311 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
313 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
317 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
319 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
321 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
323 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
324 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
325 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
326 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
327 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
329 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
330 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
331 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
332 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
333 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
334 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
335 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
336 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
338 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
339 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
341 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
342 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
343 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
346 * REMOVED configurations and files
348 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
349 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
351 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
355 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
357 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
358 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
363 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
365 * The MI enabled by default.
367 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
368 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
369 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
370 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
371 which is now deprecated.
373 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
375 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
376 main features are supported:
378 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
380 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
383 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
385 - a Pascal expression parser.
387 However, some important features are not yet supported.
389 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
391 - there are some problems with boolean types;
393 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
394 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
396 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
398 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
400 * Changes in completion.
402 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
403 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
404 users expect at the shell prompt.
406 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
407 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
408 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
409 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
410 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
411 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
412 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
414 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
416 * New platform-independent commands:
418 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
419 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
420 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
422 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
424 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
425 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
426 many threads as your system allows you to have.
428 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
430 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
431 multi-threaded programs though.
433 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
435 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
437 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
438 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
441 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
443 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
444 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
445 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
446 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
447 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
450 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
451 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
452 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
454 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
456 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
457 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
459 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
460 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
463 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
464 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
465 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
466 a given linear address.
468 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
469 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
470 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
472 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
474 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
476 * Changes in documentation.
478 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
479 Documentation License.
481 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
484 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
486 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
489 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
490 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
491 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
493 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
495 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
496 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
497 contents of this file.
501 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
503 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
505 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
507 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
508 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
509 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
510 greater level of detail.
512 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
514 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
515 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
516 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
519 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
521 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
522 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
523 machines ``out of the box''.
525 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
526 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
527 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
528 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
529 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
531 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
532 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
533 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
534 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
535 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
537 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
538 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
541 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
544 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
545 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
546 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
547 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
549 * New native configurations
551 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
552 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
556 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
557 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
558 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
559 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
561 * OBSOLETE configurations
563 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
564 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
566 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
569 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
570 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
571 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
572 be permanently REMOVED.
574 * Gould support removed
576 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
578 * New features for SVR4
580 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
581 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
582 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
584 * Many C++ enhancements
586 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
587 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
589 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
591 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
592 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
593 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
594 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
596 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
597 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
599 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
601 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
602 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
603 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
605 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
606 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
608 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
610 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
611 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
612 include ``set remote P-packet''.
614 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
616 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
617 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
618 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
620 * ``apropos'' command added.
622 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
623 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
624 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
628 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
629 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
630 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
631 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
632 enabled by configuring with:
634 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
636 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
638 * New native configurations
640 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
641 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
642 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
646 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
647 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
648 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
650 * OBSOLETE configurations
652 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
654 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
655 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
656 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
657 be permanently REMOVED.
661 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
662 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
663 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
664 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
665 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
666 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
667 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
672 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
674 * set extension-language
676 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
677 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
678 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
679 set extension-language .c c++
680 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
681 and their associated languages.
683 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
685 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
686 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
687 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
691 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
692 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
694 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
695 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
697 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
698 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
699 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
700 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
701 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
702 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
703 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
704 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
706 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
707 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
708 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
709 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
713 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
714 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
715 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
716 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
717 for xdb and dbx commands.
721 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
722 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
723 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
725 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
726 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
727 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
729 * Debugging across forks
731 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
736 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
737 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
738 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
740 * GDB remote protocol additions
742 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
743 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
744 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
745 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
747 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
748 full 64-bit address. The command
750 set remoteaddresssize 32
752 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
753 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
756 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
757 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
759 maint packet heythere
761 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
762 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
765 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
766 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
767 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
769 * Tracing can collect general expressions
771 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
772 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
773 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
775 * mask-address variable for Mips
777 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
778 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
779 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
781 * Higher serial baud rates
783 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
784 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
785 to achieve all of these rates.)
789 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
790 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
793 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
795 * New native configurations
797 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
798 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
799 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
800 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
801 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
802 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
803 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
807 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
808 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
809 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
810 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
811 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
812 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
813 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
814 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
815 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
816 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
817 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
819 * New debugging protocols
821 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
822 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
823 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
824 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
825 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
826 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
830 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
831 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
836 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
837 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
839 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
841 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
842 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
843 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
845 * Live range splitting
847 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
848 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
849 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
853 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
854 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
858 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
859 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
860 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
865 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
870 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
871 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
872 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
873 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
874 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
875 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
879 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
880 the symbol at the specified address.
884 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
885 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
886 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
887 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
888 file tracepoint.c for more details.
892 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
893 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
894 of most MIPS variants.
898 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
899 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
900 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
904 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
905 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
906 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
907 the possible architectures.
909 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
911 * New native configurations
913 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
914 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
915 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
916 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
917 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
918 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
922 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
923 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
924 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
925 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
926 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
928 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
932 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
933 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
934 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
935 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
936 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
940 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
942 * Windows 95/NT native
944 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
945 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
946 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
947 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
948 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
950 * dont-repeat command
952 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
953 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
954 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
955 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
957 * Send break instead of ^C
959 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
960 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
961 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
963 * Remote protocol timeout
965 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
966 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
967 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
969 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
971 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
972 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
973 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
974 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
975 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
977 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
978 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
979 automatically on hpux10.
981 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
983 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
985 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
987 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
988 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
989 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
990 every character. The default value is 1050.
992 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
994 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
995 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
996 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
997 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
998 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
999 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1001 * Speedups for remote debugging
1003 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1004 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1005 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1007 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1009 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1010 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1012 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1014 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1016 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1017 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1019 * Remote targets use caching
1021 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1022 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1023 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1024 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1025 off' turns the the data cache off.
1027 * Remote targets may have threads
1029 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1030 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1031 gdb/remote.c for details.
1035 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1036 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1037 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1038 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1039 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1040 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1041 sequence is something like
1043 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1045 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1049 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1050 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1051 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1052 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1053 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1054 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1055 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1056 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1060 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1061 but does simplify configuration and building.
1065 GDB now supports hpux10.
1067 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1069 * New native configurations
1071 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1072 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1073 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1074 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1078 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1079 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1080 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1081 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1084 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1086 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1087 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1088 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1089 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1090 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1092 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1094 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1095 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1098 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1100 To execute the command use:
1103 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1104 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1105 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1107 * New `if' and `while' commands
1109 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1110 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1111 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1112 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1113 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1114 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1115 if the expression is zero.
1117 * Fortran source language mode
1119 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1120 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1121 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1122 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1125 * Better HPUX support
1127 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1128 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1129 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1130 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1131 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1137 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1138 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1144 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1145 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1148 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1149 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1151 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1153 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1154 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1155 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1156 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1157 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1158 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1160 * New DOS host serial code
1162 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1163 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1166 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1168 * New "complete" command
1170 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1171 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1173 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1175 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1176 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1178 * Breakpoint hit counts
1180 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1181 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1182 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1183 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1184 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1187 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1189 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1190 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1191 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1193 * Shared library breakpoints
1195 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1196 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1198 * Hardware watchpoints
1200 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1201 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1203 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1207 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1208 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1210 * Improved Irix 5 support
1212 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1214 * Improved HPPA support
1216 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1218 * New native configurations
1220 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1221 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1222 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1223 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1227 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1228 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1231 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1233 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1234 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1238 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1239 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1241 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1243 * Irix 5 is now supported
1247 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1248 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1249 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1250 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1251 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1254 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1256 * User visible changes:
1260 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1261 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1262 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1263 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1264 debugging info for the mips target).
1266 * DEC Alpha native support
1268 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1269 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1270 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1271 Alpha-specific notes.
1273 * Preliminary thread implementation
1275 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1277 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1279 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1280 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1283 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1285 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1286 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1287 call methods, ...etc.
1289 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1291 * User visible changes:
1293 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1294 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1295 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1296 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1298 Filename completion now works.
1300 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1301 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1302 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1304 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1305 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1306 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1307 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1308 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1312 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1313 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1316 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1320 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1321 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1322 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1326 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1327 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1328 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1329 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1330 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1334 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1335 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1336 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1338 * New targets supported
1340 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1341 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1342 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1343 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1344 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1346 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1347 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1348 GO32 memory extender.
1350 * New remote protocols
1352 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1354 * New source languages supported
1356 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1357 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1358 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1361 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1363 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1365 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1366 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1367 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1368 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1369 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1370 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1372 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1374 * Faster and better demangling
1376 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1377 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1378 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1379 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1380 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1381 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1384 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1385 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1386 compiler does not actually implement.
1388 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1390 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1391 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1392 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1393 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1394 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1395 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1398 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1399 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1401 * Improved configure script
1403 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1404 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1405 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1406 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1408 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1409 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1410 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1411 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1412 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1413 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1415 * Documentation improvements
1417 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1418 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1419 before submitting changes.
1421 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1422 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1423 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1424 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1425 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1427 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1428 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1429 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1430 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1431 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1432 around this problem.
1436 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1437 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1438 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1441 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1442 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1444 * New native hosts supported
1446 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1447 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1449 * New targets supported
1451 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1453 * New file formats supported
1455 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1456 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1460 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1462 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1463 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1465 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1466 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1467 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1469 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1470 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1472 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1473 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1474 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1477 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1478 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1479 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1480 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1481 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1483 * Internal improvements
1485 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1486 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1488 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1489 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1490 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1491 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1492 shared code that handles any of them.
1494 * New command line options
1496 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1500 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1501 General Public License.
1503 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1505 * Host/native/target split
1507 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1508 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1509 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1510 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1511 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1513 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1514 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1515 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1516 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1517 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1518 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1519 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1521 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1522 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1523 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1525 * New hosts supported
1527 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1528 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1529 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1531 * New targets supported
1533 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1534 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1536 * New native hosts supported
1538 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1539 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1540 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1542 * New file formats supported
1544 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1545 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1546 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1550 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1551 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1552 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1554 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1556 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1557 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1558 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1559 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1563 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1564 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1565 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1567 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1571 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1572 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1575 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1576 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1578 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1579 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1580 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1581 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1582 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1583 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1585 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1586 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1587 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1588 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1592 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1593 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1594 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1595 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1596 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1598 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1599 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1600 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1601 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1605 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1606 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1607 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1608 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1609 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1610 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1611 each instruction being stepped through.
1613 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1614 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1616 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1617 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1618 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1619 processor with a serial port.
1623 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1624 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1625 supported, and what files each one uses.
1629 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1630 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1631 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1632 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1634 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1635 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1636 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1637 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1641 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1642 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1643 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1644 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1645 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1646 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1648 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1651 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1653 * Better support for C++ function names
1655 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1656 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1657 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1658 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1659 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1661 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1662 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1663 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1664 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1665 for the list of formats.
1667 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1669 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1670 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1671 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1672 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1673 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1674 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1677 * New 'maintenance' command
1679 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1680 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1681 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1683 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1684 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1685 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1686 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1687 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1688 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1690 The following commands are new:
1692 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1693 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1694 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1696 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1698 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1699 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1700 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1701 read after argv processing.
1703 * New hosts supported
1705 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1707 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1709 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1710 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1711 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1712 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1713 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1716 * New targets supported
1718 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1720 * More smarts about finding #include files
1722 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1723 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1724 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1725 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1726 the one that contains your sources.
1728 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1729 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1730 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1732 * Interesting infernals change
1734 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1735 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1736 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1737 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1739 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1741 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1742 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1743 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1745 See the ChangeLog for details.
1747 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1749 * New machines supported (host and target)
1751 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1753 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1755 * New malloc package
1757 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1758 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1759 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1760 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1761 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1762 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1766 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1767 'help info proc' for details.
1769 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1771 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1772 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1775 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1777 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1778 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1779 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1780 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1781 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1782 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1784 * Cross byte order fixes
1786 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1787 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1789 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1791 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1792 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1793 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1794 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1795 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1796 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1797 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1798 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1799 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1800 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1802 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1803 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1804 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1805 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1807 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1808 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1809 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1812 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1814 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1815 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1816 shared across multiple host platforms.
1818 * longjmp() handling
1820 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1821 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1822 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1823 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1827 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1828 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1833 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1834 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1835 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1837 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1839 * New machines supported (host and target)
1841 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1843 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1844 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1846 * New machines supported (target)
1848 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1852 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1853 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1854 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1856 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1857 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1858 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1859 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1860 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1863 * New features for SVR4
1865 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1866 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1867 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1869 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1870 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1871 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1873 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1874 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1876 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1878 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1879 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1880 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1881 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1882 same code linked statically.
1886 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1887 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1888 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1889 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1890 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1891 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1895 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1896 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1897 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1900 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1902 * New machines supported (host and target)
1904 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1905 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1906 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1908 * Almost SCO Unix support
1910 We had hoped to support:
1911 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1912 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1913 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1914 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1916 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1918 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1919 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1920 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1921 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1926 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1927 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1928 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1932 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1933 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1934 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1936 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1938 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1939 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1940 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1942 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1943 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1944 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1945 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1948 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1949 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1950 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1951 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1954 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1955 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1958 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1959 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1960 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1963 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1965 * Improved configuration
1967 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1968 Porting BFD is simpler.
1972 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1973 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1974 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1975 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1979 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1981 * New host supported (not target)
1983 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1986 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1988 * Multiple source language support
1990 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1991 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1992 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1993 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1994 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1995 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1999 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2000 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2001 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2002 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2004 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2005 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2006 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2008 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2009 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2013 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2014 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2015 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2016 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2019 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2021 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2022 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2023 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2024 examining core files.
2028 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2031 * New machines supported (host and target)
2033 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2034 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2035 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2037 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2039 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2041 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2043 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2044 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2045 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2047 * New remote interfaces
2053 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2057 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2059 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2060 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2061 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2062 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2063 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2064 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2065 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2066 stub on the target system.
2068 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2070 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2071 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2072 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2074 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2075 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2078 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2080 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2081 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2083 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2084 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2085 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2087 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2088 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2089 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2090 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2092 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2093 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2094 it is already running. Default is ON.
2096 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2097 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2098 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2099 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2102 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2103 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2104 or the value of the environment variable
2107 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2108 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2111 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2112 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2113 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2115 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2116 history expansion will be performed on
2117 command line input. The default is OFF.
2119 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2120 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2121 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2123 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2124 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2125 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2128 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2129 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2130 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2133 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2134 ``set width'' instead.
2136 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2137 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2138 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2139 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2141 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2144 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2147 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2150 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2153 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2155 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2156 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2157 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2161 * Support for Shared Libraries
2163 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2164 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2165 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2166 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2167 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2168 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2169 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2170 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2172 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2173 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2174 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2176 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2181 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2182 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2183 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2184 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2185 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2186 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2188 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2190 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2192 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2193 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2194 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2197 * C++ multiple inheritance
2199 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2202 * C++ exception handling
2204 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2205 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2206 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2209 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2210 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2211 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2213 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2214 current stack frame.
2217 * Minor command changes
2219 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2220 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2221 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2223 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2224 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2225 frames without printing.
2227 * New directory command
2229 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2230 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2231 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2232 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2233 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2235 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2237 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2240 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2241 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2242 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2243 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob