1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.1:
6 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
8 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
9 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
10 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
12 * New native configurations
14 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
15 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
16 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
18 * REMOVED configurations and files
20 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
21 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
22 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
23 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
24 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
25 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
26 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
27 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
28 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
30 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
32 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
34 * Removed --with-mmalloc
36 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
37 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
39 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
41 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
42 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
43 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
44 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
46 * Revised SPARC target
48 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
49 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
50 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
51 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
52 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
56 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
57 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
58 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
61 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
63 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
64 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
67 * C++ nested types and namespaces
69 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
70 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
71 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
72 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
73 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
74 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
75 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
76 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
77 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
79 * New native configurations
81 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
82 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
83 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
84 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
85 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
87 * New debugging protocols
89 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
91 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
93 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
94 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
95 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
97 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
99 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
100 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
101 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
104 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
105 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
106 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
107 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
108 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
109 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
110 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
111 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
112 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
114 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
116 * REMOVED configurations and files
118 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
119 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
120 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
121 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
122 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
123 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
124 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
125 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
126 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
127 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
128 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
129 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
130 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
131 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
132 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
133 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
134 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
136 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
140 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
143 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
145 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
146 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
147 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
150 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
151 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
156 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
157 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
158 remote protocol documentation for details.
160 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
162 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
163 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
164 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
167 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
169 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
170 per-thread variables.
172 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
174 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
175 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
177 * Separate debug info.
179 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
180 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
181 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
182 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
183 and optional debug files.
185 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
187 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
188 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
191 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
192 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
196 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
197 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
198 considered "useable".
200 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
202 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
203 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
206 * GDB supports logging output to a file
208 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
209 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
211 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
213 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
214 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
217 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
219 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
220 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
224 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
225 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
226 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
227 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
228 data, for more informative profiling results.
230 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
232 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
233 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
234 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
236 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
239 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
240 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
241 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
242 in a subsequent -var-update.
244 * New native configurations.
246 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
248 * Multi-arched targets.
250 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
251 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
253 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
255 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
256 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
257 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
260 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
261 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
262 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
263 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
264 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
265 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
266 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
267 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
268 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
269 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
270 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
271 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
273 * REMOVED configurations and files
276 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
277 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
278 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
279 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
280 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
281 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
283 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
284 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
285 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
286 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
287 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
288 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
290 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
292 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
293 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
294 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
295 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
296 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
298 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
300 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
302 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
303 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
304 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
305 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
306 shared libs like mad''.
308 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
310 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
311 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
312 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
313 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
315 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
317 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
318 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
321 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
322 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
324 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
325 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
327 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
328 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
329 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
330 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
332 * Multi-arched targets.
334 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
335 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
337 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
338 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
339 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
343 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
346 * New native configurations
348 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
349 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
350 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
351 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
353 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
355 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
356 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
357 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
360 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
361 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
362 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
363 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
364 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
365 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
366 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
367 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
368 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
369 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
371 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
372 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
376 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
378 * REMOVED configurations and files
380 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
381 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
382 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
383 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
384 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
386 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
388 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
390 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
391 commands. The default is 1024.
393 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
395 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
397 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
399 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
400 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
401 from a file into memory (restore).
403 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
405 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
406 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
407 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
409 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
417 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
418 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
419 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
421 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
422 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
423 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
425 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
426 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
427 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
429 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
430 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
431 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
433 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
435 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
437 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
438 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
439 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
440 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
441 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
442 (notably embedded) targets.
444 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
446 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
447 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
448 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
449 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
451 * New command line option
453 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
455 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
457 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
458 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
459 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
460 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
461 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
462 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
463 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
464 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
465 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
466 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
468 * Changes in ARM configurations.
470 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
471 configuration is fully multi-arch.
473 * New native configurations
475 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
476 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
477 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
478 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
482 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
484 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
486 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
487 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
488 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
491 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
492 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
493 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
494 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
495 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
497 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
499 * REMOVED configurations and files
501 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
503 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
504 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
505 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
506 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
507 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
508 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
509 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
510 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
511 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
512 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
513 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
515 * Changes to command line processing
517 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
518 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
520 * Changes to key bindings
522 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
524 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
526 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
528 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
531 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
533 Numerous documentation fixes.
535 Numerous testsuite fixes.
537 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
539 * New native configurations
541 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
542 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
543 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
544 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
546 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
550 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
552 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
554 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
556 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
557 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
558 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
559 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
560 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
562 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
563 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
564 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
565 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
566 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
567 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
568 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
569 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
571 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
572 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
574 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
575 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
576 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
579 * REMOVED configurations and files
581 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
582 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
584 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
588 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
590 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
591 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
596 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
598 * The MI enabled by default.
600 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
601 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
602 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
603 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
604 which is now deprecated.
606 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
608 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
609 main features are supported:
611 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
613 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
616 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
618 - a Pascal expression parser.
620 However, some important features are not yet supported.
622 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
624 - there are some problems with boolean types;
626 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
627 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
629 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
631 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
633 * Changes in completion.
635 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
636 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
637 users expect at the shell prompt.
639 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
640 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
641 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
642 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
643 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
644 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
645 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
647 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
649 * New platform-independent commands:
651 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
652 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
653 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
655 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
657 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
658 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
659 many threads as your system allows you to have.
661 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
663 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
664 multi-threaded programs though.
666 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
668 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
670 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
671 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
674 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
676 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
677 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
678 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
679 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
680 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
683 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
684 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
685 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
687 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
689 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
690 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
692 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
693 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
696 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
697 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
698 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
699 a given linear address.
701 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
702 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
703 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
705 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
707 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
709 * Changes in documentation.
711 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
712 Documentation License.
714 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
717 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
719 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
722 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
723 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
724 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
726 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
728 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
729 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
730 contents of this file.
734 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
736 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
738 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
740 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
741 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
742 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
743 greater level of detail.
745 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
747 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
748 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
749 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
752 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
754 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
755 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
756 machines ``out of the box''.
758 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
759 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
760 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
761 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
762 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
764 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
765 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
766 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
767 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
768 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
770 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
771 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
774 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
777 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
778 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
779 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
780 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
782 * New native configurations
784 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
785 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
789 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
790 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
791 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
792 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
794 * OBSOLETE configurations
796 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
797 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
799 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
802 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
803 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
804 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
805 be permanently REMOVED.
807 * Gould support removed
809 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
811 * New features for SVR4
813 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
814 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
815 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
817 * Many C++ enhancements
819 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
820 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
822 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
824 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
825 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
826 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
827 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
829 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
830 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
832 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
834 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
835 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
836 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
838 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
839 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
841 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
843 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
844 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
845 include ``set remote P-packet''.
847 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
849 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
850 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
851 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
853 * ``apropos'' command added.
855 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
856 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
857 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
861 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
862 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
863 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
864 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
865 enabled by configuring with:
867 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
869 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
871 * New native configurations
873 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
874 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
875 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
879 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
880 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
881 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
883 * OBSOLETE configurations
885 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
887 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
888 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
889 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
890 be permanently REMOVED.
894 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
895 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
896 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
897 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
898 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
899 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
900 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
905 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
907 * set extension-language
909 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
910 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
911 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
912 set extension-language .c c++
913 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
914 and their associated languages.
916 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
918 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
919 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
920 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
924 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
925 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
927 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
928 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
930 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
931 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
932 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
933 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
934 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
935 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
936 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
937 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
939 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
940 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
941 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
942 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
946 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
947 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
948 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
949 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
950 for xdb and dbx commands.
954 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
955 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
956 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
958 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
959 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
960 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
962 * Debugging across forks
964 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
969 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
970 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
971 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
973 * GDB remote protocol additions
975 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
976 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
977 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
978 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
980 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
981 full 64-bit address. The command
983 set remoteaddresssize 32
985 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
986 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
989 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
990 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
992 maint packet heythere
994 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
995 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
998 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
999 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1000 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1002 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1004 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1005 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1006 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1008 * mask-address variable for Mips
1010 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1011 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1012 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1014 * Higher serial baud rates
1016 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1017 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1018 to achieve all of these rates.)
1022 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1023 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1026 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1028 * New native configurations
1030 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1031 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1032 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1033 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1034 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1035 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1036 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1040 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1041 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1042 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1043 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1044 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1045 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1046 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1047 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1048 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1049 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1050 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1052 * New debugging protocols
1054 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1055 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1056 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1057 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1058 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1059 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1063 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1064 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1069 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1070 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1072 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1074 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1075 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1076 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1078 * Live range splitting
1080 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1081 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1082 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1086 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1087 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1091 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1092 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1093 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1098 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1103 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1104 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1105 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1106 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1107 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1108 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1112 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1113 the symbol at the specified address.
1117 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1118 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1119 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1120 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1121 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1125 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1126 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1127 of most MIPS variants.
1131 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1132 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1133 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1137 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1138 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1139 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1140 the possible architectures.
1142 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1144 * New native configurations
1146 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1147 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1148 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1149 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1150 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1151 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1155 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1156 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1157 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1158 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1159 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1161 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1165 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1166 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1167 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1168 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1169 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1173 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1175 * Windows 95/NT native
1177 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1178 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1179 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1180 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1181 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1183 * dont-repeat command
1185 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1186 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1187 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1188 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1190 * Send break instead of ^C
1192 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1193 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1194 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1196 * Remote protocol timeout
1198 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1199 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1200 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1202 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1204 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1205 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1206 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1207 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1208 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1210 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1211 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1212 automatically on hpux10.
1214 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1216 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1218 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1220 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1221 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1222 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1223 every character. The default value is 1050.
1225 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1227 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1228 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1229 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1230 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1231 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1232 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1234 * Speedups for remote debugging
1236 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1237 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1238 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1240 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1242 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1243 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1245 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1247 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1249 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1250 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1252 * Remote targets use caching
1254 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1255 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1256 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1257 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1258 off' turns the the data cache off.
1260 * Remote targets may have threads
1262 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1263 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1264 gdb/remote.c for details.
1268 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1269 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1270 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1271 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1272 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1273 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1274 sequence is something like
1276 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1278 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1282 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1283 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1284 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1285 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1286 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1287 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1288 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1289 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1293 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1294 but does simplify configuration and building.
1298 GDB now supports hpux10.
1300 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1302 * New native configurations
1304 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1305 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1306 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1307 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1311 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1312 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1313 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1314 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1317 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1319 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1320 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1321 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1322 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1323 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1325 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1327 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1328 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1331 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1333 To execute the command use:
1336 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1337 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1338 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1340 * New `if' and `while' commands
1342 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1343 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1344 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1345 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1346 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1347 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1348 if the expression is zero.
1350 * Fortran source language mode
1352 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1353 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1354 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1355 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1358 * Better HPUX support
1360 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1361 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1362 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1363 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1364 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1370 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1371 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1377 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1378 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1381 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1382 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1384 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1386 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1387 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1388 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1389 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1390 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1391 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1393 * New DOS host serial code
1395 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1396 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1399 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1401 * New "complete" command
1403 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1404 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1406 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1408 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1409 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1411 * Breakpoint hit counts
1413 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1414 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1415 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1416 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1417 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1420 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1422 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1423 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1424 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1426 * Shared library breakpoints
1428 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1429 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1431 * Hardware watchpoints
1433 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1434 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1436 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1440 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1441 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1443 * Improved Irix 5 support
1445 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1447 * Improved HPPA support
1449 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1451 * New native configurations
1453 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1454 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1455 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1456 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1460 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1461 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1464 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1466 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1467 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1471 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1472 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1474 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1476 * Irix 5 is now supported
1480 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1481 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1482 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1483 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1484 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1487 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1489 * User visible changes:
1493 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1494 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1495 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1496 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1497 debugging info for the mips target).
1499 * DEC Alpha native support
1501 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1502 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1503 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1504 Alpha-specific notes.
1506 * Preliminary thread implementation
1508 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1510 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1512 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1513 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1516 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1518 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1519 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1520 call methods, ...etc.
1522 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1524 * User visible changes:
1526 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1527 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1528 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1529 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1531 Filename completion now works.
1533 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1534 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1535 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1537 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1538 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1539 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1540 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1541 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1545 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1546 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1549 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1553 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1554 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1555 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1559 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1560 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1561 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1562 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1563 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1567 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1568 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1569 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1571 * New targets supported
1573 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1574 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1575 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1576 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1577 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1579 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1580 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1581 GO32 memory extender.
1583 * New remote protocols
1585 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1587 * New source languages supported
1589 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1590 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1591 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1594 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1596 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1598 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1599 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1600 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1601 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1602 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1603 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1605 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1607 * Faster and better demangling
1609 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1610 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1611 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1612 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1613 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1614 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1617 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1618 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1619 compiler does not actually implement.
1621 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1623 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1624 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1625 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1626 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1627 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1628 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1631 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1632 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1634 * Improved configure script
1636 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1637 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1638 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1639 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1641 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1642 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1643 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1644 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1645 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1646 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1648 * Documentation improvements
1650 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1651 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1652 before submitting changes.
1654 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1655 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1656 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1657 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1658 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1660 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1661 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1662 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1663 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1664 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1665 around this problem.
1669 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1670 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1671 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1674 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1675 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1677 * New native hosts supported
1679 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1680 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1682 * New targets supported
1684 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1686 * New file formats supported
1688 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1689 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1693 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1695 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1696 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1698 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1699 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1700 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1702 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1703 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1705 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1706 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1707 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1710 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1711 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1712 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1713 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1714 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1716 * Internal improvements
1718 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1719 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1721 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1722 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1723 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1724 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1725 shared code that handles any of them.
1727 * New command line options
1729 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1733 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1734 General Public License.
1736 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1738 * Host/native/target split
1740 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1741 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1742 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1743 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1744 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1746 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1747 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1748 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1749 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1750 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1751 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1752 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1754 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1755 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1756 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1758 * New hosts supported
1760 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1761 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1762 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1764 * New targets supported
1766 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1767 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1769 * New native hosts supported
1771 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1772 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1773 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1775 * New file formats supported
1777 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1778 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1779 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1783 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1784 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1785 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1787 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1789 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1790 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1791 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1792 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1796 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1797 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1798 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1800 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1804 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1805 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1808 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1809 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1811 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1812 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1813 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1814 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1815 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1816 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1818 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1819 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1820 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1821 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1825 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1826 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1827 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1828 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1829 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1831 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1832 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1833 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1834 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1838 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1839 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1840 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1841 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1842 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1843 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1844 each instruction being stepped through.
1846 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1847 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1849 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1850 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1851 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1852 processor with a serial port.
1856 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1857 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1858 supported, and what files each one uses.
1862 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1863 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1864 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1865 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1867 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1868 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1869 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1870 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1874 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1875 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1876 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1877 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1878 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1879 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1881 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1884 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1886 * Better support for C++ function names
1888 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1889 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1890 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1891 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1892 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1894 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1895 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1896 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1897 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1898 for the list of formats.
1900 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1902 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1903 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1904 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1905 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1906 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1907 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1910 * New 'maintenance' command
1912 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1913 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1914 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1916 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1917 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1918 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1919 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1920 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1921 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1923 The following commands are new:
1925 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1926 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1927 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1929 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1931 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1932 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1933 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1934 read after argv processing.
1936 * New hosts supported
1938 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1940 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1942 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1943 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1944 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1945 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1946 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1949 * New targets supported
1951 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1953 * More smarts about finding #include files
1955 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1956 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1957 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1958 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1959 the one that contains your sources.
1961 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1962 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1963 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1965 * Interesting infernals change
1967 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1968 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1969 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1970 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1972 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1974 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1975 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1976 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1978 See the ChangeLog for details.
1980 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1982 * New machines supported (host and target)
1984 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1986 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1988 * New malloc package
1990 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1991 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1992 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1993 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1994 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1995 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1999 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2000 'help info proc' for details.
2002 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2004 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2005 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2008 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2010 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2011 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2012 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2013 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2014 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2015 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2017 * Cross byte order fixes
2019 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2020 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2022 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2024 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2025 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2026 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2027 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2028 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2029 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2030 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2031 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2032 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2033 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2035 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2036 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2037 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2038 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2040 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2041 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2042 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2045 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2047 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2048 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2049 shared across multiple host platforms.
2051 * longjmp() handling
2053 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2054 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2055 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2056 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2060 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2061 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2066 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2067 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2068 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2070 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2072 * New machines supported (host and target)
2074 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2076 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2077 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2079 * New machines supported (target)
2081 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2085 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2086 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2087 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2089 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2090 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2091 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2092 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2093 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2096 * New features for SVR4
2098 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2099 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2100 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2102 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2103 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2104 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2106 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2107 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2109 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2111 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2112 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2113 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2114 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2115 same code linked statically.
2119 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2120 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2121 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2122 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2123 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2124 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2128 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2129 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2130 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2133 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2135 * New machines supported (host and target)
2137 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2138 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2139 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2141 * Almost SCO Unix support
2143 We had hoped to support:
2144 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2145 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2146 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2147 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2149 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2151 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2152 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2153 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2154 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2159 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2160 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2161 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2165 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2166 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2167 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2169 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2171 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2172 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2173 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2175 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2176 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2177 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2178 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2181 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2182 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2183 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2184 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2187 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2188 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2191 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2192 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2193 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2196 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2198 * Improved configuration
2200 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2201 Porting BFD is simpler.
2205 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2206 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2207 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2208 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2212 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2214 * New host supported (not target)
2216 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2219 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2221 * Multiple source language support
2223 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2224 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2225 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2226 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2227 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2228 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2232 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2233 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2234 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2235 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2237 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2238 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2239 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2241 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2242 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2246 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2247 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2248 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2249 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2252 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2254 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2255 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2256 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2257 examining core files.
2261 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2264 * New machines supported (host and target)
2266 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2267 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2268 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2270 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2272 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2274 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2276 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2277 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2278 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2280 * New remote interfaces
2286 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2290 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2292 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2293 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2294 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2295 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2296 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2297 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2298 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2299 stub on the target system.
2301 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2303 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2304 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2305 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2307 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2308 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2311 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2313 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2314 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2316 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2317 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2318 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2320 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2321 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2322 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2323 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2325 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2326 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2327 it is already running. Default is ON.
2329 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2330 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2331 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2332 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2335 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2336 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2337 or the value of the environment variable
2340 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2341 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2344 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2345 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2346 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2348 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2349 history expansion will be performed on
2350 command line input. The default is OFF.
2352 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2353 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2354 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2356 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2357 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2358 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2361 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2362 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2363 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2366 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2367 ``set width'' instead.
2369 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2370 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2371 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2372 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2374 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2377 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2380 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2383 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2386 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2388 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2389 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2390 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2394 * Support for Shared Libraries
2396 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2397 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2398 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2399 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2400 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2401 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2402 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2403 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2405 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2406 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2407 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2409 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2414 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2415 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2416 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2417 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2418 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2419 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2421 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2423 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2425 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2426 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2427 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2430 * C++ multiple inheritance
2432 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2435 * C++ exception handling
2437 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2438 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2439 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2442 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2443 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2444 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2446 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2447 current stack frame.
2450 * Minor command changes
2452 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2453 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2454 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2456 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2457 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2458 frames without printing.
2460 * New directory command
2462 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2463 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2464 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2465 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2466 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2468 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2470 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2473 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2474 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2475 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2476 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob