1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * New native configurations
8 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
9 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
10 MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
11 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
16 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
18 UltraSparc running Linux sparc64-*-linux*
20 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
22 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
23 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
24 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
25 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
26 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
28 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
29 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
30 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
31 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
32 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
33 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
34 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
35 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
37 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
38 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
40 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
41 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
42 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
45 * REMOVED configurations and files
47 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
50 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
54 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
56 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
57 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
62 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
64 * The MI enabled by default.
66 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
67 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
68 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
69 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
70 which is now deprecated.
72 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
74 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
75 main features are supported:
77 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
79 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
82 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
84 - a Pascal expression parser.
86 However, some important features are not yet supported.
88 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
90 - there are some problems with boolean types;
92 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
93 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
95 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
97 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
99 * Changes in completion.
101 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
102 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
103 users expect at the shell prompt.
105 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
106 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
107 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
108 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
109 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
110 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
111 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
113 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
115 * New platform-independent commands:
117 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
118 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
119 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
121 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
123 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
124 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
125 many threads as your system allows you to have.
127 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
129 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
130 multi-threaded programs though.
132 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
134 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
136 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
137 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
140 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
142 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
143 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
144 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
145 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
146 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
149 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
150 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
151 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
153 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
155 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
156 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
158 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
159 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
162 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
163 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
164 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
165 a given linear address.
167 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
168 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
169 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
171 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
173 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
175 * Changes in documentation.
177 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
178 Documentation License.
180 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
183 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
185 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
188 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
189 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
190 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
192 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
194 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
195 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
196 contents of this file.
200 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
202 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
204 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
206 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
207 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
208 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
209 greater level of detail.
211 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
213 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
214 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
215 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
218 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
220 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
221 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
222 machines ``out of the box''.
224 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
225 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
226 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
227 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
228 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
230 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
231 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
232 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
233 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
234 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
236 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
237 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
240 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
243 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
244 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
245 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
246 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
248 * New native configurations
250 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
251 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
255 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
256 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
257 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
258 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
260 * OBSOLETE configurations
262 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
263 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
265 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
268 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
269 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
270 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
271 be permanently REMOVED.
273 * Gould support removed
275 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
277 * New features for SVR4
279 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
280 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
281 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
283 * Many C++ enhancements
285 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
286 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
288 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
290 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
291 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
292 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
293 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
295 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
296 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
298 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
300 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
301 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
302 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
304 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
305 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
307 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
309 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
310 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
311 include ``set remote P-packet''.
313 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
315 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
316 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
317 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
319 * ``apropos'' command added.
321 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
322 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
323 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
327 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
328 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
329 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
330 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
331 enabled by configuring with:
333 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
335 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
337 * New native configurations
339 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
340 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
341 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
345 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
346 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
347 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
349 * OBSOLETE configurations
351 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
353 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
354 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
355 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
356 be permanently REMOVED.
360 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
361 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
362 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
363 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
364 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
365 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
366 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
371 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
373 * set extension-language
375 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
376 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
377 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
378 set extension-language .c c++
379 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
380 and their associated languages.
382 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
384 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
385 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
386 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
390 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
391 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
393 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
394 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
396 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
397 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
398 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
399 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
400 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
401 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
402 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
403 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
405 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
406 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
407 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
408 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
412 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
413 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
414 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
415 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
416 for xdb and dbx commands.
420 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
421 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
422 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
424 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
425 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
426 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
428 * Debugging across forks
430 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
435 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
436 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
437 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
439 * GDB remote protocol additions
441 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
442 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
443 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
444 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
446 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
447 full 64-bit address. The command
449 set remoteaddresssize 32
451 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
452 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
455 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
456 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
458 maint packet heythere
460 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
461 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
464 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
465 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
466 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
468 * Tracing can collect general expressions
470 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
471 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
472 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
474 * mask-address variable for Mips
476 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
477 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
478 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
480 * Higher serial baud rates
482 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
483 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
484 to achieve all of these rates.)
488 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
489 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
492 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
494 * New native configurations
496 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
497 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
498 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
499 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
500 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
501 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
502 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
506 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
507 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
508 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
509 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
510 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
511 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
512 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
513 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
514 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
515 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
516 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
518 * New debugging protocols
520 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
521 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
522 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
523 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
524 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
525 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
529 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
530 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
535 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
536 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
538 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
540 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
541 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
542 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
544 * Live range splitting
546 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
547 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
548 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
552 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
553 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
557 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
558 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
559 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
564 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
569 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
570 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
571 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
572 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
573 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
574 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
578 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
579 the symbol at the specified address.
583 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
584 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
585 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
586 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
587 file tracepoint.c for more details.
591 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
592 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
593 of most MIPS variants.
597 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
598 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
599 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
603 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
604 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
605 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
606 the possible architectures.
608 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
610 * New native configurations
612 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
613 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
614 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
615 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
616 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
617 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
621 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
622 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
623 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
624 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
625 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
627 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
631 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
632 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
633 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
634 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
635 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
639 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
641 * Windows 95/NT native
643 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
644 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
645 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
646 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
647 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
649 * dont-repeat command
651 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
652 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
653 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
654 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
656 * Send break instead of ^C
658 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
659 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
660 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
662 * Remote protocol timeout
664 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
665 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
666 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
668 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
670 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
671 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
672 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
673 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
674 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
676 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
677 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
678 automatically on hpux10.
680 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
682 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
684 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
686 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
687 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
688 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
689 every character. The default value is 1050.
691 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
693 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
694 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
695 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
696 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
697 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
698 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
700 * Speedups for remote debugging
702 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
703 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
704 and more efficient S-record downloading.
706 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
708 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
709 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
711 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
715 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
716 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
718 * Remote targets use caching
720 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
721 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
722 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
723 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
724 off' turns the the data cache off.
726 * Remote targets may have threads
728 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
729 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
730 gdb/remote.c for details.
734 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
735 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
736 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
737 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
738 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
739 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
740 sequence is something like
742 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
744 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
748 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
749 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
750 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
751 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
752 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
753 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
754 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
755 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
759 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
760 but does simplify configuration and building.
764 GDB now supports hpux10.
766 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
768 * New native configurations
770 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
771 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
772 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
773 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
777 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
778 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
779 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
780 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
783 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
785 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
786 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
787 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
788 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
789 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
791 * Arguments to user-defined commands
793 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
794 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
797 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
799 To execute the command use:
802 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
803 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
804 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
806 * New `if' and `while' commands
808 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
809 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
810 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
811 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
812 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
813 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
814 if the expression is zero.
816 * Fortran source language mode
818 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
819 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
820 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
821 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
824 * Better HPUX support
826 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
827 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
828 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
829 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
830 that behavior do the following before running the program:
836 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
837 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
843 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
844 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
847 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
848 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
850 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
852 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
853 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
854 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
855 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
856 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
857 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
859 * New DOS host serial code
861 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
862 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
865 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
867 * New "complete" command
869 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
870 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
872 * Trailing space optional in prompt
874 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
875 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
877 * Breakpoint hit counts
879 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
880 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
881 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
882 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
883 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
886 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
888 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
889 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
890 arrays actually contain only short strings.
892 * Shared library breakpoints
894 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
895 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
897 * Hardware watchpoints
899 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
900 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
902 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
906 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
907 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
909 * Improved Irix 5 support
911 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
913 * Improved HPPA support
915 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
917 * New native configurations
919 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
920 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
921 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
922 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
926 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
927 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
930 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
932 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
933 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
937 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
938 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
940 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
942 * Irix 5 is now supported
946 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
947 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
948 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
949 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
950 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
953 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
955 * User visible changes:
959 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
960 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
961 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
962 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
963 debugging info for the mips target).
965 * DEC Alpha native support
967 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
968 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
969 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
970 Alpha-specific notes.
972 * Preliminary thread implementation
974 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
976 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
978 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
979 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
982 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
984 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
985 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
986 call methods, ...etc.
988 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
990 * User visible changes:
992 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
993 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
994 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
995 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
997 Filename completion now works.
999 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1000 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1001 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1003 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1004 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1005 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1006 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1007 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1011 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1012 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1015 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1019 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1020 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1021 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1025 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1026 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1027 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1028 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1029 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1033 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1034 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1035 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1037 * New targets supported
1039 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1040 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1041 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1042 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1043 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1045 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1046 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1047 GO32 memory extender.
1049 * New remote protocols
1051 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1053 * New source languages supported
1055 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1056 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1057 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1060 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1062 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1064 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1065 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1066 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1067 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1068 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1069 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1071 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1073 * Faster and better demangling
1075 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1076 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1077 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1078 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1079 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1080 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1083 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1084 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1085 compiler does not actually implement.
1087 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1089 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1090 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1091 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1092 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1093 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1094 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1097 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1098 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1100 * Improved configure script
1102 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1103 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1104 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1105 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1107 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1108 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1109 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1110 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1111 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1112 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1114 * Documentation improvements
1116 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1117 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1118 before submitting changes.
1120 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1121 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1122 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1123 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1124 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1126 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1127 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1128 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1129 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1130 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1131 around this problem.
1135 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1136 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1137 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1140 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1141 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1143 * New native hosts supported
1145 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1146 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1148 * New targets supported
1150 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1152 * New file formats supported
1154 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1155 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1159 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1161 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1162 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1164 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1165 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1166 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1168 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1169 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1171 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1172 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1173 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1176 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1177 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1178 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1179 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1180 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1182 * Internal improvements
1184 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1185 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1187 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1188 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1189 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1190 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1191 shared code that handles any of them.
1193 * New command line options
1195 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1199 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1200 General Public License.
1202 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1204 * Host/native/target split
1206 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1207 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1208 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1209 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1210 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1212 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1213 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1214 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1215 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1216 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1217 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1218 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1220 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1221 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1222 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1224 * New hosts supported
1226 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1227 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1228 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1230 * New targets supported
1232 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1233 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1235 * New native hosts supported
1237 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1238 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1239 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1241 * New file formats supported
1243 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1244 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1245 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1249 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1250 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1251 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1253 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1255 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1256 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1257 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1258 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1262 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1263 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1264 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1266 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1270 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1271 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1274 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1275 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1277 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1278 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1279 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1280 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1281 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1282 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1284 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1285 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1286 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1287 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1291 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1292 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1293 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1294 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1295 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1297 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1298 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1299 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1300 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1304 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1305 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1306 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1307 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1308 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1309 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1310 each instruction being stepped through.
1312 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1313 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1315 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1316 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1317 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1318 processor with a serial port.
1322 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1323 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1324 supported, and what files each one uses.
1328 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1329 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1330 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1331 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1333 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1334 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1335 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1336 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1340 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1341 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1342 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1343 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1344 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1345 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1347 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1350 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1352 * Better support for C++ function names
1354 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1355 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1356 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1357 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1358 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1360 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1361 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1362 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1363 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1364 for the list of formats.
1366 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1368 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1369 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1370 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1371 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1372 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1373 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1376 * New 'maintenance' command
1378 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1379 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1380 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1382 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1383 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1384 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1385 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1386 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1387 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1389 The following commands are new:
1391 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1392 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1393 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1395 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1397 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1398 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1399 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1400 read after argv processing.
1402 * New hosts supported
1404 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1406 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1408 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1409 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1410 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1411 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1412 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1415 * New targets supported
1417 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1419 * More smarts about finding #include files
1421 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1422 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1423 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1424 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1425 the one that contains your sources.
1427 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1428 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1429 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1431 * Interesting infernals change
1433 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1434 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1435 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1436 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1438 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1440 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1441 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1442 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1444 See the ChangeLog for details.
1446 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1448 * New machines supported (host and target)
1450 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1452 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1454 * New malloc package
1456 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1457 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1458 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1459 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1460 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1461 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1465 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1466 'help info proc' for details.
1468 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1470 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1471 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1474 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1476 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1477 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1478 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1479 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1480 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1481 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1483 * Cross byte order fixes
1485 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1486 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1488 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1490 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1491 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1492 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1493 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1494 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1495 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1496 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1497 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1498 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1499 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1501 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1502 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1503 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1504 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1506 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1507 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1508 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1511 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1513 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1514 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1515 shared across multiple host platforms.
1517 * longjmp() handling
1519 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1520 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1521 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1522 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1526 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1527 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1532 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1533 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1534 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1536 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1538 * New machines supported (host and target)
1540 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1542 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1543 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1545 * New machines supported (target)
1547 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1551 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1552 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1553 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1555 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1556 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1557 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1558 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1559 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1562 * New features for SVR4
1564 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1565 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1566 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1568 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1569 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1570 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1572 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1573 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1575 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1577 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1578 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1579 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1580 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1581 same code linked statically.
1585 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1586 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1587 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1588 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1589 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1590 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1594 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1595 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1596 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1599 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1601 * New machines supported (host and target)
1603 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1604 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1605 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1607 * Almost SCO Unix support
1609 We had hoped to support:
1610 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1611 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1612 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1613 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1615 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1617 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1618 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1619 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1620 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1625 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1626 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1627 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1631 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1632 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1633 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1635 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1637 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1638 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1639 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1641 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1642 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1643 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1644 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1647 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1648 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1649 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1650 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1653 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1654 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1657 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1658 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1659 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1662 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1664 * Improved configuration
1666 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1667 Porting BFD is simpler.
1671 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1672 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1673 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1674 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1678 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1680 * New host supported (not target)
1682 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1685 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1687 * Multiple source language support
1689 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1690 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1691 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1692 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1693 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1694 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1698 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1699 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1700 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1701 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1703 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1704 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1705 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1707 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1708 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1712 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1713 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1714 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1715 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1718 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1720 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1721 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1722 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1723 examining core files.
1727 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1730 * New machines supported (host and target)
1732 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1733 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1734 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1736 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1738 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1740 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1742 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1743 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1744 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1746 * New remote interfaces
1752 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1756 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1758 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1759 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1760 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1761 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1762 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1763 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1764 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1765 stub on the target system.
1767 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1769 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1770 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1771 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1773 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1774 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1777 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1779 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1780 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1782 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1783 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1784 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1786 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1787 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1788 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1789 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1791 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1792 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1793 it is already running. Default is ON.
1795 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1796 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1797 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1798 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1801 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1802 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1803 or the value of the environment variable
1806 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1807 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1810 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1811 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1812 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1814 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1815 history expansion will be performed on
1816 command line input. The default is OFF.
1818 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1819 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1820 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1822 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1823 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1824 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1827 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1828 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1829 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1832 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1833 ``set width'' instead.
1835 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1836 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1837 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1838 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1840 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1843 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1846 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1849 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1852 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1854 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1855 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1856 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1860 * Support for Shared Libraries
1862 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1863 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1864 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1865 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1866 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1867 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1868 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1869 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1871 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1872 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1873 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1875 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1880 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1881 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1882 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1883 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1884 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1885 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1887 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1889 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1891 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1892 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1893 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1896 * C++ multiple inheritance
1898 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1901 * C++ exception handling
1903 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1904 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1905 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1908 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1909 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1910 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1912 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1913 current stack frame.
1916 * Minor command changes
1918 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1919 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1920 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1922 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1923 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1924 frames without printing.
1926 * New directory command
1928 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1929 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1930 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1931 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1932 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1934 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1936 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1939 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1940 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1941 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1942 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob