1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.1:
6 * New native configurations
8 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
10 * REMOVED configurations and files
12 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
13 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
14 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
15 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
16 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
17 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
18 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
19 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
20 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
22 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
24 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
26 * Removed --with-mmalloc
28 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
29 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
31 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
33 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
34 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
35 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
36 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
38 * Revised SPARC target
40 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
41 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
42 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
43 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
44 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
48 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
49 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
50 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
53 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
55 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
56 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
59 * C++ nested types and namespaces
61 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
62 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
63 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
64 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
65 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
66 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
67 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
68 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
69 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
71 * New native configurations
73 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
74 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
75 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
76 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
77 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
79 * New debugging protocols
81 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
83 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
85 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
86 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
87 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
89 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
91 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
92 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
93 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
96 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
97 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
98 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
99 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
100 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
101 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
102 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
103 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
104 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
106 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
108 * REMOVED configurations and files
110 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
111 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
112 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
113 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
114 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
115 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
116 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
117 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
118 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
119 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
120 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
121 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
122 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
123 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
124 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
125 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
126 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
128 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
132 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
135 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
137 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
138 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
139 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
142 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
143 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
148 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
149 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
150 remote protocol documentation for details.
152 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
154 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
155 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
156 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
159 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
161 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
162 per-thread variables.
164 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
166 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
167 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
169 * Separate debug info.
171 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
172 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
173 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
174 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
175 and optional debug files.
177 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
179 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
180 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
183 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
184 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
188 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
189 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
190 considered "useable".
192 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
194 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
195 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
198 * GDB supports logging output to a file
200 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
201 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
203 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
205 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
206 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
209 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
211 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
212 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
216 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
217 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
218 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
219 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
220 data, for more informative profiling results.
222 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
224 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
225 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
226 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
228 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
231 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
232 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
233 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
234 in a subsequent -var-update.
236 * New native configurations.
238 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
240 * Multi-arched targets.
242 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
243 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
245 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
247 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
248 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
249 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
252 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
253 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
254 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
255 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
256 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
257 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
258 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
259 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
260 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
261 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
262 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
263 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
265 * REMOVED configurations and files
268 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
269 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
270 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
271 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
272 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
273 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
275 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
276 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
277 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
278 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
279 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
280 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
282 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
284 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
285 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
286 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
287 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
288 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
290 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
292 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
294 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
295 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
296 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
297 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
298 shared libs like mad''.
300 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
302 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
303 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
304 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
305 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
307 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
309 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
310 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
313 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
314 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
316 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
317 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
319 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
320 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
321 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
322 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
324 * Multi-arched targets.
326 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
327 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
329 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
330 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
331 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
335 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
338 * New native configurations
340 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
341 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
342 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
343 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
345 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
347 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
348 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
349 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
352 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
353 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
354 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
355 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
356 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
357 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
358 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
359 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
360 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
361 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
363 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
364 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
368 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
370 * REMOVED configurations and files
372 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
373 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
374 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
375 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
376 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
378 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
380 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
382 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
383 commands. The default is 1024.
385 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
387 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
389 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
391 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
392 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
393 from a file into memory (restore).
395 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
397 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
398 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
399 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
401 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
409 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
410 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
411 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
413 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
414 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
415 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
417 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
418 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
419 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
421 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
422 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
423 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
425 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
427 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
429 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
430 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
431 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
432 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
433 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
434 (notably embedded) targets.
436 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
438 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
439 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
440 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
441 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
443 * New command line option
445 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
447 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
449 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
450 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
451 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
452 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
453 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
454 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
455 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
456 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
457 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
458 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
460 * Changes in ARM configurations.
462 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
463 configuration is fully multi-arch.
465 * New native configurations
467 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
468 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
469 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
470 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
474 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
476 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
478 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
479 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
480 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
483 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
484 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
485 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
486 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
487 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
489 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
491 * REMOVED configurations and files
493 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
495 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
496 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
497 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
498 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
499 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
500 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
501 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
502 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
503 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
504 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
505 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
507 * Changes to command line processing
509 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
510 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
512 * Changes to key bindings
514 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
516 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
518 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
520 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
523 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
525 Numerous documentation fixes.
527 Numerous testsuite fixes.
529 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
531 * New native configurations
533 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
534 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
535 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
536 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
538 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
542 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
544 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
546 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
548 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
549 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
550 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
551 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
552 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
554 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
555 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
556 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
557 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
558 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
559 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
560 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
561 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
563 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
564 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
566 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
567 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
568 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
571 * REMOVED configurations and files
573 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
574 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
576 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
580 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
582 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
583 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
588 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
590 * The MI enabled by default.
592 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
593 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
594 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
595 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
596 which is now deprecated.
598 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
600 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
601 main features are supported:
603 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
605 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
608 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
610 - a Pascal expression parser.
612 However, some important features are not yet supported.
614 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
616 - there are some problems with boolean types;
618 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
619 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
621 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
623 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
625 * Changes in completion.
627 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
628 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
629 users expect at the shell prompt.
631 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
632 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
633 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
634 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
635 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
636 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
637 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
639 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
641 * New platform-independent commands:
643 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
644 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
645 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
647 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
649 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
650 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
651 many threads as your system allows you to have.
653 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
655 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
656 multi-threaded programs though.
658 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
660 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
662 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
663 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
666 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
668 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
669 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
670 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
671 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
672 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
675 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
676 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
677 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
679 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
681 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
682 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
684 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
685 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
688 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
689 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
690 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
691 a given linear address.
693 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
694 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
695 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
697 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
699 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
701 * Changes in documentation.
703 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
704 Documentation License.
706 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
709 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
711 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
714 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
715 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
716 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
718 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
720 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
721 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
722 contents of this file.
726 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
728 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
730 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
732 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
733 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
734 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
735 greater level of detail.
737 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
739 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
740 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
741 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
744 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
746 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
747 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
748 machines ``out of the box''.
750 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
751 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
752 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
753 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
754 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
756 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
757 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
758 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
759 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
760 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
762 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
763 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
766 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
769 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
770 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
771 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
772 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
774 * New native configurations
776 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
777 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
781 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
782 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
783 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
784 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
786 * OBSOLETE configurations
788 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
789 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
791 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
794 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
795 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
796 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
797 be permanently REMOVED.
799 * Gould support removed
801 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
803 * New features for SVR4
805 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
806 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
807 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
809 * Many C++ enhancements
811 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
812 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
814 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
816 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
817 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
818 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
819 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
821 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
822 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
824 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
826 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
827 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
828 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
830 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
831 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
833 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
835 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
836 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
837 include ``set remote P-packet''.
839 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
841 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
842 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
843 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
845 * ``apropos'' command added.
847 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
848 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
849 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
853 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
854 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
855 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
856 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
857 enabled by configuring with:
859 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
861 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
863 * New native configurations
865 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
866 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
867 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
871 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
872 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
873 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
875 * OBSOLETE configurations
877 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
879 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
880 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
881 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
882 be permanently REMOVED.
886 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
887 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
888 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
889 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
890 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
891 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
892 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
897 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
899 * set extension-language
901 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
902 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
903 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
904 set extension-language .c c++
905 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
906 and their associated languages.
908 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
910 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
911 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
912 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
916 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
917 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
919 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
920 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
922 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
923 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
924 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
925 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
926 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
927 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
928 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
929 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
931 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
932 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
933 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
934 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
938 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
939 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
940 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
941 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
942 for xdb and dbx commands.
946 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
947 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
948 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
950 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
951 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
952 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
954 * Debugging across forks
956 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
961 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
962 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
963 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
965 * GDB remote protocol additions
967 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
968 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
969 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
970 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
972 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
973 full 64-bit address. The command
975 set remoteaddresssize 32
977 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
978 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
981 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
982 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
984 maint packet heythere
986 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
987 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
990 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
991 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
992 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
994 * Tracing can collect general expressions
996 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
997 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
998 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1000 * mask-address variable for Mips
1002 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1003 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1004 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1006 * Higher serial baud rates
1008 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1009 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1010 to achieve all of these rates.)
1014 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1015 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1018 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1020 * New native configurations
1022 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1023 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1024 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1025 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1026 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1027 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1028 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1032 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1033 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1034 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1035 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1036 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1037 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1038 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1039 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1040 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1041 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1042 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1044 * New debugging protocols
1046 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1047 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1048 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1049 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1050 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1051 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1055 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1056 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1061 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1062 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1064 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1066 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1067 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1068 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1070 * Live range splitting
1072 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1073 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1074 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1078 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1079 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1083 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1084 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1085 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1090 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1095 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1096 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1097 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1098 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1099 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1100 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1104 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1105 the symbol at the specified address.
1109 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1110 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1111 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1112 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1113 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1117 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1118 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1119 of most MIPS variants.
1123 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1124 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1125 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1129 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1130 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1131 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1132 the possible architectures.
1134 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1136 * New native configurations
1138 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1139 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1140 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1141 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1142 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1143 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1147 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1148 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1149 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1150 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1151 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1153 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1157 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1158 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1159 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1160 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1161 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1165 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1167 * Windows 95/NT native
1169 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1170 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1171 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1172 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1173 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1175 * dont-repeat command
1177 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1178 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1179 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1180 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1182 * Send break instead of ^C
1184 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1185 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1186 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1188 * Remote protocol timeout
1190 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1191 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1192 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1194 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1196 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1197 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1198 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1199 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1200 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1202 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1203 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1204 automatically on hpux10.
1206 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1208 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1210 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1212 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1213 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1214 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1215 every character. The default value is 1050.
1217 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1219 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1220 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1221 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1222 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1223 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1224 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1226 * Speedups for remote debugging
1228 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1229 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1230 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1232 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1234 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1235 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1237 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1239 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1241 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1242 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1244 * Remote targets use caching
1246 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1247 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1248 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1249 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1250 off' turns the the data cache off.
1252 * Remote targets may have threads
1254 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1255 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1256 gdb/remote.c for details.
1260 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1261 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1262 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1263 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1264 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1265 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1266 sequence is something like
1268 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1270 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1274 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1275 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1276 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1277 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1278 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1279 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1280 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1281 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1285 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1286 but does simplify configuration and building.
1290 GDB now supports hpux10.
1292 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1294 * New native configurations
1296 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1297 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1298 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1299 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1303 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1304 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1305 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1306 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1309 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1311 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1312 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1313 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1314 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1315 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1317 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1319 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1320 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1323 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1325 To execute the command use:
1328 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1329 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1330 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1332 * New `if' and `while' commands
1334 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1335 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1336 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1337 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1338 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1339 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1340 if the expression is zero.
1342 * Fortran source language mode
1344 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1345 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1346 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1347 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1350 * Better HPUX support
1352 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1353 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1354 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1355 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1356 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1362 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1363 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1369 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1370 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1373 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1374 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1376 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1378 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1379 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1380 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1381 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1382 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1383 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1385 * New DOS host serial code
1387 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1388 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1391 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1393 * New "complete" command
1395 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1396 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1398 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1400 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1401 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1403 * Breakpoint hit counts
1405 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1406 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1407 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1408 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1409 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1412 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1414 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1415 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1416 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1418 * Shared library breakpoints
1420 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1421 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1423 * Hardware watchpoints
1425 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1426 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1428 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1432 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1433 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1435 * Improved Irix 5 support
1437 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1439 * Improved HPPA support
1441 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1443 * New native configurations
1445 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1446 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1447 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1448 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1452 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1453 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1456 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1458 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1459 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1463 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1464 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1466 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1468 * Irix 5 is now supported
1472 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1473 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1474 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1475 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1476 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1479 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1481 * User visible changes:
1485 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1486 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1487 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1488 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1489 debugging info for the mips target).
1491 * DEC Alpha native support
1493 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1494 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1495 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1496 Alpha-specific notes.
1498 * Preliminary thread implementation
1500 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1502 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1504 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1505 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1508 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1510 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1511 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1512 call methods, ...etc.
1514 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1516 * User visible changes:
1518 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1519 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1520 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1521 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1523 Filename completion now works.
1525 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1526 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1527 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1529 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1530 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1531 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1532 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1533 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1537 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1538 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1541 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1545 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1546 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1547 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1551 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1552 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1553 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1554 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1555 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1559 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1560 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1561 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1563 * New targets supported
1565 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1566 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1567 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1568 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1569 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1571 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1572 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1573 GO32 memory extender.
1575 * New remote protocols
1577 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1579 * New source languages supported
1581 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1582 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1583 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1586 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1588 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1590 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1591 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1592 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1593 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1594 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1595 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1597 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1599 * Faster and better demangling
1601 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1602 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1603 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1604 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1605 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1606 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1609 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1610 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1611 compiler does not actually implement.
1613 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1615 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1616 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1617 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1618 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1619 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1620 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1623 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1624 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1626 * Improved configure script
1628 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1629 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1630 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1631 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1633 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1634 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1635 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1636 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1637 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1638 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1640 * Documentation improvements
1642 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1643 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1644 before submitting changes.
1646 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1647 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1648 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1649 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1650 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1652 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1653 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1654 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1655 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1656 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1657 around this problem.
1661 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1662 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1663 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1666 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1667 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1669 * New native hosts supported
1671 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1672 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1674 * New targets supported
1676 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1678 * New file formats supported
1680 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1681 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1685 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1687 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1688 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1690 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1691 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1692 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1694 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1695 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1697 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1698 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1699 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1702 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1703 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1704 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1705 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1706 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1708 * Internal improvements
1710 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1711 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1713 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1714 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1715 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1716 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1717 shared code that handles any of them.
1719 * New command line options
1721 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1725 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1726 General Public License.
1728 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1730 * Host/native/target split
1732 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1733 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1734 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1735 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1736 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1738 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1739 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1740 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1741 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1742 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1743 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1744 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1746 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1747 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1748 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1750 * New hosts supported
1752 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1753 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1754 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1756 * New targets supported
1758 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1759 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1761 * New native hosts supported
1763 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1764 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1765 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1767 * New file formats supported
1769 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1770 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1771 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1775 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1776 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1777 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1779 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1781 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1782 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1783 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1784 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1788 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1789 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1790 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1792 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1796 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1797 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1800 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1801 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1803 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1804 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1805 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1806 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1807 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1808 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1810 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1811 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1812 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1813 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1817 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1818 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1819 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1820 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1821 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1823 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1824 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1825 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1826 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1830 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1831 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1832 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1833 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1834 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1835 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1836 each instruction being stepped through.
1838 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1839 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1841 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1842 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1843 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1844 processor with a serial port.
1848 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1849 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1850 supported, and what files each one uses.
1854 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1855 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1856 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1857 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1859 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1860 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1861 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1862 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1866 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1867 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1868 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1869 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1870 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1871 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1873 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1876 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1878 * Better support for C++ function names
1880 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1881 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1882 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1883 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1884 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1886 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1887 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1888 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1889 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1890 for the list of formats.
1892 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1894 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1895 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1896 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1897 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1898 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1899 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1902 * New 'maintenance' command
1904 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1905 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1906 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1908 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1909 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1910 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1911 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1912 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1913 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1915 The following commands are new:
1917 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1918 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1919 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1921 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1923 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1924 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1925 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1926 read after argv processing.
1928 * New hosts supported
1930 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1932 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1934 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1935 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1936 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1937 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1938 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1941 * New targets supported
1943 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1945 * More smarts about finding #include files
1947 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1948 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1949 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1950 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1951 the one that contains your sources.
1953 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1954 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1955 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1957 * Interesting infernals change
1959 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1960 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1961 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1962 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1964 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1966 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1967 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1968 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1970 See the ChangeLog for details.
1972 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1974 * New machines supported (host and target)
1976 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1978 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1980 * New malloc package
1982 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1983 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1984 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1985 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1986 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1987 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1991 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1992 'help info proc' for details.
1994 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1996 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1997 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2000 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2002 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2003 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2004 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2005 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2006 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2007 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2009 * Cross byte order fixes
2011 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2012 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2014 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2016 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2017 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2018 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2019 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2020 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2021 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2022 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2023 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2024 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2025 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2027 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2028 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2029 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2030 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2032 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2033 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2034 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2037 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2039 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2040 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2041 shared across multiple host platforms.
2043 * longjmp() handling
2045 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2046 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2047 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2048 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2052 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2053 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2058 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2059 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2060 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2062 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2064 * New machines supported (host and target)
2066 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2068 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2069 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2071 * New machines supported (target)
2073 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2077 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2078 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2079 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2081 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2082 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2083 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2084 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2085 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2088 * New features for SVR4
2090 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2091 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2092 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2094 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2095 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2096 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2098 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2099 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2101 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2103 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2104 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2105 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2106 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2107 same code linked statically.
2111 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2112 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2113 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2114 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2115 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2116 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2120 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2121 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2122 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2125 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2127 * New machines supported (host and target)
2129 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2130 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2131 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2133 * Almost SCO Unix support
2135 We had hoped to support:
2136 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2137 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2138 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2139 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2141 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2143 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2144 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2145 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2146 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2151 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2152 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2153 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2157 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2158 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2159 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2161 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2163 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2164 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2165 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2167 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2168 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2169 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2170 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2173 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2174 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2175 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2176 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2179 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2180 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2183 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2184 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2185 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2188 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2190 * Improved configuration
2192 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2193 Porting BFD is simpler.
2197 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2198 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2199 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2200 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2204 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2206 * New host supported (not target)
2208 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2211 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2213 * Multiple source language support
2215 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2216 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2217 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2218 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2219 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2220 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2224 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2225 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2226 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2227 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2229 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2230 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2231 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2233 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2234 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2238 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2239 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2240 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2241 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2244 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2246 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2247 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2248 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2249 examining core files.
2253 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2256 * New machines supported (host and target)
2258 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2259 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2260 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2262 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2264 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2266 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2268 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2269 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2270 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2272 * New remote interfaces
2278 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2282 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2284 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2285 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2286 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2287 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2288 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2289 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2290 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2291 stub on the target system.
2293 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2295 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2296 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2297 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2299 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2300 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2303 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2305 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2306 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2308 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2309 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2310 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2312 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2313 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2314 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2315 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2317 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2318 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2319 it is already running. Default is ON.
2321 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2322 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2323 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2324 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2327 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2328 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2329 or the value of the environment variable
2332 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2333 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2336 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2337 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2338 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2340 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2341 history expansion will be performed on
2342 command line input. The default is OFF.
2344 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2345 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2346 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2348 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2349 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2350 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2353 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2354 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2355 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2358 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2359 ``set width'' instead.
2361 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2362 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2363 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2364 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2366 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2369 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2372 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2375 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2378 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2380 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2381 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2382 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2386 * Support for Shared Libraries
2388 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2389 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2390 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2391 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2392 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2393 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2394 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2395 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2397 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2398 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2399 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2401 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2406 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2407 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2408 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2409 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2410 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2411 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2413 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2415 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2417 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2418 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2419 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2422 * C++ multiple inheritance
2424 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2427 * C++ exception handling
2429 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2430 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2431 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2434 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2435 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2436 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2438 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2439 current stack frame.
2442 * Minor command changes
2444 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2445 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2446 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2448 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2449 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2450 frames without printing.
2452 * New directory command
2454 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2455 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2456 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2457 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2458 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2460 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2462 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2465 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2466 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2467 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2468 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob