1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
6 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
9 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
10 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
12 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
14 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
18 * Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
21 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
22 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
25 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
30 set mem inaccessible-by-default
31 show mem inaccessible-by-default
32 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
33 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
34 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
35 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
36 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
38 set breakpoint auto-hw
39 show breakpoint auto-hw
40 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
41 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
42 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
43 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
44 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
45 including "next" and "finish".
48 catch exception unhandled
49 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
52 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
56 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
57 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
58 an alias to "set sysroot".
60 * New native configurations
62 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
67 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
68 not query the target for its built-in description.
72 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
73 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
74 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
79 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
80 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
83 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
88 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
96 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
97 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
102 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
103 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
110 * Other removed features
117 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
121 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
122 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
124 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
129 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
131 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
132 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
133 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
135 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
136 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
139 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
140 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
142 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
143 stub provides the required support.
145 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
146 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
151 unset substitute-path
153 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
154 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
155 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
156 between compilation and debugging.
160 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
161 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
162 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
166 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
168 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
169 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
171 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
176 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
177 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
178 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
179 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
183 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
184 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
186 qXfer:memory-map:read:
187 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
188 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
193 Erase and program a flash memory device.
195 * Removed remote packets
198 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
199 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
201 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
205 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
207 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
211 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
212 only if it doesn't already have a value.
214 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
216 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
218 restart <n> Return the program state to a
219 previously saved state.
221 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
223 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
225 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
226 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
228 info forks List forks of the user program that
229 are available to be debugged.
231 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
232 forks of the user program that are
233 available to be debugged.
235 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
236 that are available to be debugged (and
237 kill the forked process).
239 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
240 that are available to be debugged (and
241 allow the process to continue).
245 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
247 * Improved Windows host support
249 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
250 native console support, and remote communications using either
251 network sockets or serial ports.
253 * Improved Modula-2 language support
255 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
256 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
257 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
258 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
259 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
260 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
264 The ARM rdi-share module.
266 The Netware NLM debug server.
268 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
270 * New native configurations
272 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
273 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
277 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
279 * New command line options
281 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
282 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
283 the child (debugged) program exited with.
284 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
285 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
286 specified multiple times and in conjunction
287 with the --command (-x) option.
289 * Deprecated commands removed
291 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
295 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
296 othernames set arm disassembler
297 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
298 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
299 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
302 * New BSD user-level threads support
304 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
305 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
308 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
309 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
310 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
312 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
313 are not yet supported.
315 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
316 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
318 * REMOVED configurations and files
320 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
321 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
322 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
324 * New "set print array-indexes" command
326 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
327 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
330 * VAX floating point support
332 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
334 * User-defined command support
336 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
337 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
338 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
340 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
342 * New command line option
344 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
347 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
349 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
350 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
351 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
352 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
353 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
355 * Internationalization
357 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
358 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
359 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
363 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
364 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
365 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
367 * New native configurations
369 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
373 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
374 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
376 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
378 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
379 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
380 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
383 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
384 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
385 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
397 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
398 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
400 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
402 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
403 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
404 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
414 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
416 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
418 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
419 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
422 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
424 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
425 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
426 IRIX long double values).
430 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
431 command. This problem has been fixed.
433 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
435 * Fix for ``many threads''
437 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
438 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
441 ptrace: No such process.
442 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
444 This problem has been fixed.
446 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
448 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
451 * New ``start'' command.
453 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
455 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
457 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
458 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
459 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
461 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
462 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
463 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
464 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
465 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
466 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
467 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
468 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
469 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
471 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
473 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
474 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
475 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
476 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
477 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
479 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
480 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
481 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
483 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
485 * New native configurations
487 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
488 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
489 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
490 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
491 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
492 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
493 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
495 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
497 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
498 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
499 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
500 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
501 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
502 work, was also included.
504 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
505 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
515 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
516 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
518 * REMOVED configurations and files
520 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
521 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
522 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
523 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
524 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
525 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
526 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
527 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
528 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
530 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
532 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
534 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
536 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
537 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
538 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
539 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
542 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
544 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
545 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
546 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
547 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
548 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
549 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
552 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
554 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
556 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
557 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
558 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
560 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
562 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
563 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
565 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
567 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
568 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
569 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
571 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
573 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
574 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
576 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
578 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
579 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
580 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
582 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
584 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
585 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
586 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
588 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
590 * Removed --with-mmalloc
592 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
593 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
595 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
597 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
598 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
599 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
600 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
602 * Revised SPARC target
604 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
605 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
606 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
607 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
608 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
612 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
613 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
614 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
617 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
619 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
620 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
623 * C++ nested types and namespaces
625 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
626 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
627 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
628 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
629 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
630 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
631 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
632 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
633 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
635 * New native configurations
637 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
638 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
639 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
640 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
641 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
643 * New debugging protocols
645 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
647 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
649 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
650 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
651 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
653 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
655 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
656 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
657 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
660 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
661 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
662 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
663 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
664 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
665 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
666 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
667 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
668 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
670 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
672 * REMOVED configurations and files
674 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
675 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
676 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
677 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
678 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
679 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
680 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
681 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
682 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
683 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
684 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
685 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
686 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
687 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
688 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
689 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
690 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
692 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
696 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
699 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
701 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
702 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
703 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
706 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
707 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
712 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
713 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
714 remote protocol documentation for details.
716 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
718 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
719 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
720 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
723 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
725 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
726 per-thread variables.
728 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
730 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
731 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
733 * Separate debug info.
735 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
736 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
737 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
738 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
739 and optional debug files.
741 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
743 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
744 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
747 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
748 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
752 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
753 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
754 considered "useable".
756 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
758 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
759 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
762 * GDB supports logging output to a file
764 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
765 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
767 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
769 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
770 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
773 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
775 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
776 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
780 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
781 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
782 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
783 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
784 data, for more informative profiling results.
786 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
788 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
789 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
790 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
792 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
795 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
796 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
797 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
798 in a subsequent -var-update.
800 * New native configurations.
802 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
804 * Multi-arched targets.
806 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
807 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
809 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
811 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
812 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
813 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
816 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
817 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
818 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
819 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
820 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
821 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
822 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
823 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
824 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
825 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
826 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
827 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
829 * REMOVED configurations and files
832 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
833 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
834 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
835 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
836 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
837 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
839 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
840 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
841 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
842 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
843 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
844 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
846 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
848 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
849 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
850 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
851 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
852 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
854 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
856 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
858 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
859 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
860 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
861 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
862 shared libs like mad''.
864 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
866 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
867 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
868 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
869 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
871 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
873 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
874 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
877 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
878 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
880 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
881 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
883 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
884 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
885 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
886 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
888 * Multi-arched targets.
890 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
891 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
893 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
894 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
895 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
899 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
902 * New native configurations
904 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
905 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
906 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
907 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
909 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
911 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
912 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
913 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
916 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
917 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
918 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
919 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
920 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
921 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
922 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
923 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
924 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
925 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
927 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
928 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
932 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
934 * REMOVED configurations and files
936 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
937 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
938 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
939 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
940 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
942 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
944 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
946 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
947 commands. The default is 1024.
949 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
951 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
953 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
955 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
956 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
957 from a file into memory (restore).
959 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
961 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
962 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
963 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
965 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
973 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
974 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
975 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
977 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
978 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
979 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
981 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
982 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
983 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
985 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
986 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
987 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
989 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
991 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
993 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
994 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
995 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
996 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
997 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
998 (notably embedded) targets.
1000 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1002 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1003 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1004 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1005 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1007 * New command line option
1009 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1011 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1013 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1014 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1015 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1016 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1017 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1018 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1019 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1020 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1021 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1022 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1024 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1026 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1027 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1029 * New native configurations
1031 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1032 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1033 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1034 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1038 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1040 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1042 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1043 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1044 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1045 permanently REMOVED.
1047 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1048 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1049 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1050 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1051 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1053 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1055 * REMOVED configurations and files
1057 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1059 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1060 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1061 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1062 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1063 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1064 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1065 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1066 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1067 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1068 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1069 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1071 * Changes to command line processing
1073 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1074 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1076 * Changes to key bindings
1078 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1080 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1082 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1084 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1087 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1089 Numerous documentation fixes.
1091 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1093 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1095 * New native configurations
1097 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1098 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1099 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1100 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1101 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1102 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1106 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1108 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1110 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1112 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1113 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1114 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1115 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1116 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1118 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1119 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1120 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1121 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1122 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1123 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1124 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1125 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1127 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1128 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1130 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1131 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1132 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1133 permanently REMOVED.
1135 * REMOVED configurations and files
1137 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1138 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1140 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1144 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1146 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1147 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1152 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1154 * The MI enabled by default.
1156 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1157 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1158 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1159 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1160 which is now deprecated.
1162 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1164 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1165 main features are supported:
1167 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1169 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1172 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1174 - a Pascal expression parser.
1176 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1178 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1180 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1182 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1183 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1185 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1187 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1189 * Changes in completion.
1191 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1192 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1193 users expect at the shell prompt.
1195 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1196 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1197 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1198 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1199 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1200 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1201 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1203 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1205 * New platform-independent commands:
1207 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1208 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1209 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1211 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1213 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1214 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1215 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1217 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1219 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1220 multi-threaded programs though.
1222 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1224 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1226 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1227 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1230 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1232 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1233 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1234 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1235 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1236 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1239 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1240 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1241 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1243 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1245 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1246 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1248 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1249 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1252 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1253 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1254 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1255 a given linear address.
1257 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1258 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1259 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1261 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1263 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1265 * Changes in documentation.
1267 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1268 Documentation License.
1270 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1273 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1275 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1278 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1279 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1280 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1282 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1284 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1285 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1286 contents of this file.
1290 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1292 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1294 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1296 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1297 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1298 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1299 greater level of detail.
1301 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1303 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1304 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1305 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1308 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1310 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1311 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1312 machines ``out of the box''.
1314 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1315 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1316 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1317 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1318 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1320 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1321 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1322 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1323 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1324 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1326 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1327 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1330 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1333 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1334 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1335 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1336 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1338 * New native configurations
1340 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1341 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1345 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1346 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1347 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1348 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1350 * OBSOLETE configurations
1352 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1353 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1355 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1358 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1359 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1360 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1361 be permanently REMOVED.
1363 * Gould support removed
1365 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1367 * New features for SVR4
1369 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1370 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1371 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1373 * Many C++ enhancements
1375 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1376 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1378 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1380 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1381 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1382 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1383 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1385 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1386 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1388 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1390 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1391 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1392 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1394 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1395 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1397 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1399 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1400 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1401 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1403 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1405 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1406 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1407 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1409 * ``apropos'' command added.
1411 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1412 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1413 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1417 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1418 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1419 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1420 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1421 enabled by configuring with:
1423 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1425 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1427 * New native configurations
1429 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1430 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1431 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1435 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1436 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1437 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1439 * OBSOLETE configurations
1441 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1443 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1444 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1445 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1446 be permanently REMOVED.
1450 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1451 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1452 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1453 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1454 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1455 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1456 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1461 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1463 * set extension-language
1465 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1466 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1467 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1468 set extension-language .c c++
1469 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1470 and their associated languages.
1472 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1474 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1475 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1476 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1480 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1481 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1483 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1484 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1486 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1487 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1488 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1489 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1490 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1491 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1492 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1493 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1495 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1496 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1497 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1498 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1502 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1503 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1504 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1505 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1506 for xdb and dbx commands.
1510 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1511 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1512 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1514 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1515 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1516 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1518 * Debugging across forks
1520 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1525 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1526 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1527 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1529 * GDB remote protocol additions
1531 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1532 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1533 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1534 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1536 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1537 full 64-bit address. The command
1539 set remoteaddresssize 32
1541 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1542 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1545 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1546 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1548 maint packet heythere
1550 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1551 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1554 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1555 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1556 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1558 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1560 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1561 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1562 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1564 * mask-address variable for Mips
1566 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1567 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1568 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1570 * Higher serial baud rates
1572 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1573 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1574 to achieve all of these rates.)
1578 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1579 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1582 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1584 * New native configurations
1586 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1587 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1588 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1589 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1590 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1591 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1592 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1596 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1597 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1598 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1599 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1600 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1601 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1602 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1603 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1604 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1605 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1606 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1608 * New debugging protocols
1610 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1611 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1612 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1613 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1614 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1615 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1619 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1620 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1625 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1626 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1628 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1630 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1631 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1632 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1634 * Live range splitting
1636 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1637 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1638 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1642 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1643 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1647 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1648 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1649 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1654 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1659 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1660 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1661 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1662 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1663 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1664 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1668 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1669 the symbol at the specified address.
1673 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1674 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1675 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1676 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1677 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1681 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1682 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1683 of most MIPS variants.
1687 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1688 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1689 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1693 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1694 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1695 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1696 the possible architectures.
1698 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1700 * New native configurations
1702 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1703 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1704 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1705 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1706 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1707 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1711 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1712 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1713 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1714 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1715 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1717 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1721 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1722 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1723 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1724 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1725 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1729 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1731 * Windows 95/NT native
1733 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1734 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1735 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1736 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1737 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1739 * dont-repeat command
1741 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1742 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1743 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1744 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1746 * Send break instead of ^C
1748 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1749 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1750 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1752 * Remote protocol timeout
1754 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1755 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1756 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1758 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1760 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1761 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1762 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1763 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1764 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1766 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1767 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1768 automatically on hpux10.
1770 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1772 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1774 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1776 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1777 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1778 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1779 every character. The default value is 1050.
1781 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1783 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1784 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1785 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1786 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1787 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1788 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1790 * Speedups for remote debugging
1792 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1793 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1794 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1796 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1798 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1799 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1801 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1803 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1805 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1806 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1808 * Remote targets use caching
1810 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1811 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1812 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1813 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1814 off' turns the the data cache off.
1816 * Remote targets may have threads
1818 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1819 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1820 gdb/remote.c for details.
1824 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1825 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1826 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1827 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1828 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1829 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1830 sequence is something like
1832 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1834 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1838 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1839 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1840 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1841 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1842 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1843 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1844 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1845 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1849 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1850 but does simplify configuration and building.
1854 GDB now supports hpux10.
1856 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1858 * New native configurations
1860 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1861 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1862 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1863 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1867 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1868 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1869 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1870 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1873 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1875 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1876 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1877 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1878 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1879 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1881 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1883 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1884 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1887 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1889 To execute the command use:
1892 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1893 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1894 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1896 * New `if' and `while' commands
1898 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1899 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1900 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1901 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1902 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1903 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1904 if the expression is zero.
1906 * Fortran source language mode
1908 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1909 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1910 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1911 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1914 * Better HPUX support
1916 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1917 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1918 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1919 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1920 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1926 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1927 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1933 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1934 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1937 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1938 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1940 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1942 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1943 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1944 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1945 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1946 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1947 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1949 * New DOS host serial code
1951 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1952 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1955 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1957 * New "complete" command
1959 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1960 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1962 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1964 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1965 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1967 * Breakpoint hit counts
1969 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1970 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1971 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1972 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1973 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1976 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1978 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1979 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1980 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1982 * Shared library breakpoints
1984 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1985 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1987 * Hardware watchpoints
1989 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1990 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1992 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1996 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1997 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1999 * Improved Irix 5 support
2001 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2003 * Improved HPPA support
2005 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2007 * New native configurations
2009 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2010 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2011 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2012 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2016 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2017 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2020 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2022 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2023 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2027 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2028 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2030 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2032 * Irix 5 is now supported
2036 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2037 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2038 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2039 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2040 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2043 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2045 * User visible changes:
2049 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2050 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2051 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2052 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2053 debugging info for the mips target).
2055 * DEC Alpha native support
2057 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2058 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2059 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2060 Alpha-specific notes.
2062 * Preliminary thread implementation
2064 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2066 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2068 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2069 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2072 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2074 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2075 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2076 call methods, ...etc.
2078 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2080 * User visible changes:
2082 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2083 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2084 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2085 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2087 Filename completion now works.
2089 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2090 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2091 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2093 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2094 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2095 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2096 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2097 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2101 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2102 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2105 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2109 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2110 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2111 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2115 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2116 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2117 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2118 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2119 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2123 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2124 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2125 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2127 * New targets supported
2129 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2130 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2131 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2132 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2133 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2135 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2136 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2137 GO32 memory extender.
2139 * New remote protocols
2141 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2143 * New source languages supported
2145 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2146 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2147 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2150 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2152 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2154 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2155 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2156 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2157 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2158 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2159 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2161 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2163 * Faster and better demangling
2165 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2166 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2167 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2168 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2169 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2170 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2173 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2174 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2175 compiler does not actually implement.
2177 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2179 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2180 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2181 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2182 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2183 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2184 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2187 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2188 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2190 * Improved configure script
2192 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2193 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2194 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2195 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2197 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2198 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2199 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2200 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2201 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2202 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2204 * Documentation improvements
2206 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2207 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2208 before submitting changes.
2210 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2211 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2212 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2213 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2214 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2216 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2217 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2218 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2219 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2220 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2221 around this problem.
2225 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2226 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2227 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2230 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2231 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2233 * New native hosts supported
2235 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2236 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2238 * New targets supported
2240 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2242 * New file formats supported
2244 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2245 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2249 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2251 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2252 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2254 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2255 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2256 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2258 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2259 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2261 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2262 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2263 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2266 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2267 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2268 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2269 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2270 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2272 * Internal improvements
2274 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2275 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2277 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2278 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2279 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2280 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2281 shared code that handles any of them.
2283 * New command line options
2285 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2289 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2290 General Public License.
2292 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2294 * Host/native/target split
2296 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2297 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2298 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2299 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2300 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2302 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2303 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2304 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2305 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2306 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2307 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2308 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2310 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2311 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2312 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2314 * New hosts supported
2316 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2317 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2318 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2320 * New targets supported
2322 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2323 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2325 * New native hosts supported
2327 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2328 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2329 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2331 * New file formats supported
2333 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2334 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2335 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2339 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2340 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2341 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2343 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2345 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2346 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2347 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2348 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2352 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2353 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2354 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2356 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2360 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2361 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2364 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2365 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2367 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2368 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2369 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2370 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2371 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2372 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2374 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2375 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2376 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2377 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2381 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2382 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2383 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2384 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2385 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2387 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2388 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2389 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2390 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2394 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2395 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2396 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2397 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2398 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2399 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2400 each instruction being stepped through.
2402 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2403 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2405 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2406 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2407 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2408 processor with a serial port.
2412 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2413 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2414 supported, and what files each one uses.
2418 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2419 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2420 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2421 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2423 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2424 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2425 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2426 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2430 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2431 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2432 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2433 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2434 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2435 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2437 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2440 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2442 * Better support for C++ function names
2444 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2445 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2446 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2447 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2448 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2450 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2451 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2452 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2453 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2454 for the list of formats.
2456 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2458 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2459 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2460 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2461 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2462 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2463 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2466 * New 'maintenance' command
2468 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2469 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2470 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2472 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2473 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2474 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2475 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2476 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2477 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2479 The following commands are new:
2481 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2482 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2483 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2485 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2487 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2488 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2489 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2490 read after argv processing.
2492 * New hosts supported
2494 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2496 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2498 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2499 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2500 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2501 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2502 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2505 * New targets supported
2507 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2509 * More smarts about finding #include files
2511 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2512 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2513 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2514 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2515 the one that contains your sources.
2517 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2518 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2519 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2521 * Interesting infernals change
2523 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2524 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2525 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2526 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2528 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2530 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2531 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2532 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2534 See the ChangeLog for details.
2536 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2538 * New machines supported (host and target)
2540 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2542 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2544 * New malloc package
2546 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2547 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2548 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2549 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2550 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2551 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2555 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2556 'help info proc' for details.
2558 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2560 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2561 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2564 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2566 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2567 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2568 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2569 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2570 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2571 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2573 * Cross byte order fixes
2575 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2576 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2578 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2580 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2581 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2582 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2583 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2584 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2585 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2586 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2587 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2588 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2589 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2591 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2592 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2593 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2594 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2596 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2597 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2598 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2601 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2603 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2604 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2605 shared across multiple host platforms.
2607 * longjmp() handling
2609 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2610 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2611 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2612 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2616 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2617 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2622 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2623 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2624 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2626 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2628 * New machines supported (host and target)
2630 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2632 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2633 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2635 * New machines supported (target)
2637 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2641 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2642 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2643 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2645 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2646 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2647 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2648 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2649 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2652 * New features for SVR4
2654 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2655 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2656 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2658 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2659 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2660 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2662 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2663 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2665 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2667 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2668 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2669 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2670 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2671 same code linked statically.
2675 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2676 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2677 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2678 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2679 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2680 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2684 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2685 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2686 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2689 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2691 * New machines supported (host and target)
2693 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2694 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2695 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2697 * Almost SCO Unix support
2699 We had hoped to support:
2700 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2701 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2702 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2703 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2705 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2707 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2708 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2709 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2710 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2715 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2716 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2717 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2721 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2722 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2723 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2725 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2727 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2728 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2729 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2731 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2732 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2733 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2734 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2737 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2738 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2739 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2740 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2743 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2744 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2747 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2748 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2749 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2752 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2754 * Improved configuration
2756 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2757 Porting BFD is simpler.
2761 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2762 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2763 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2764 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2768 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2770 * New host supported (not target)
2772 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2775 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2777 * Multiple source language support
2779 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2780 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2781 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2782 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2783 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2784 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2788 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2789 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2790 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2791 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2793 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2794 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2795 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2797 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2798 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2802 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2803 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2804 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2805 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2808 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2810 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2811 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2812 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2813 examining core files.
2817 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2820 * New machines supported (host and target)
2822 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2823 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2824 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2826 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2828 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2830 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2832 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2833 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2834 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2836 * New remote interfaces
2842 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2846 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2848 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2849 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2850 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2851 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2852 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2853 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2854 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2855 stub on the target system.
2857 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2859 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2860 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2861 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2863 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2864 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2867 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2869 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2870 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2872 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2873 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2874 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2876 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2877 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2878 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2879 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2881 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2882 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2883 it is already running. Default is ON.
2885 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2886 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2887 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2888 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2891 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2892 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2893 or the value of the environment variable
2896 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2897 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2900 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2901 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2902 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2904 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2905 history expansion will be performed on
2906 command line input. The default is OFF.
2908 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2909 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2910 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2912 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2913 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2914 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2917 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2918 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2919 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2922 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2923 ``set width'' instead.
2925 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2926 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2927 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2928 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2930 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2933 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2936 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2939 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2942 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2944 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2945 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2946 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2950 * Support for Shared Libraries
2952 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2953 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2954 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2955 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2956 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2957 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2958 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2959 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2961 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2962 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2963 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2965 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2970 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2971 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2972 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2973 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2974 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2975 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2977 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2979 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2981 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2982 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2983 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2986 * C++ multiple inheritance
2988 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2991 * C++ exception handling
2993 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2994 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2995 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2998 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2999 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3000 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3002 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3003 current stack frame.
3006 * Minor command changes
3008 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3009 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3010 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3012 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3013 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3014 frames without printing.
3016 * New directory command
3018 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3019 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3020 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3021 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3022 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3024 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3026 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3029 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3030 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3031 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3032 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob