1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
8 * New native configurations
10 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
15 * OBSOLETE configurations
17 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
18 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
20 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
21 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
22 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
25 * REMOVED configurations
27 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
30 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
35 * All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
37 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
41 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
43 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
45 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
47 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
48 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
49 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
50 greater level of detail.
52 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
54 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
55 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
56 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
59 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
61 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
62 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
63 machines ``out of the box''.
65 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
66 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
67 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
68 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
69 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
71 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
72 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
73 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
74 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
75 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
77 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
78 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
81 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
84 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
85 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
86 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
87 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
89 * New native configurations
91 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
92 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
96 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
97 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
98 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
99 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
101 * OBSOLETE configurations
103 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
104 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
106 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
109 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
110 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
111 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
112 be permanently REMOVED.
114 * Gould support removed
116 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
118 * New features for SVR4
120 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
121 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
122 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
124 * Many C++ enhancements
126 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
127 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
129 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
131 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
132 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
133 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
134 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
136 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
137 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
139 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
141 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
142 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
143 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
145 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
146 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
148 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
150 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
151 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
152 include ``set remote P-packet''.
154 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
156 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
157 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
158 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
160 * ``apropos'' command added.
162 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
163 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
164 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
168 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
169 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
170 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
171 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
172 enabled by configuring with:
174 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
176 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
178 * New native configurations
180 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
181 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
182 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
186 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
187 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
188 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
190 * OBSOLETE configurations
192 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
194 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
195 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
196 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
197 be permanently REMOVED.
201 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
202 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
203 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
204 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
205 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
206 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
207 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
212 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
214 * set extension-language
216 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
217 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
218 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
219 set extension-language .c c++
220 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
221 and their associated languages.
223 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
225 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
226 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
227 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
231 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
232 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
234 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
235 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
237 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
238 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
239 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
240 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
241 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
242 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
243 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
244 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
246 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
247 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
248 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
249 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
253 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
254 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
255 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
256 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
257 for xdb and dbx commands.
261 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
262 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
263 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
265 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
266 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
267 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
269 * Debugging across forks
271 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
276 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
277 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
278 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
280 * GDB remote protocol additions
282 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
283 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
284 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
285 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
287 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
288 full 64-bit address. The command
290 set remoteaddresssize 32
292 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
293 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
296 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
297 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
299 maint packet heythere
301 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
302 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
305 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
306 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
307 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
309 * Tracing can collect general expressions
311 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
312 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
313 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
315 * mask-address variable for Mips
317 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
318 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
319 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
321 * Higher serial baud rates
323 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
324 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
325 to achieve all of these rates.)
329 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
330 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
333 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
335 * New native configurations
337 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
338 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
339 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
340 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
341 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
342 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
343 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
347 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
348 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
349 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
350 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
351 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
352 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
353 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
354 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
355 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
356 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
357 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
359 * New debugging protocols
361 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
362 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
363 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
364 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
365 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
366 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
370 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
371 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
376 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
377 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
379 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
381 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
382 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
383 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
385 * Live range splitting
387 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
388 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
389 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
393 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
394 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
398 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
399 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
400 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
405 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
410 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
411 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
412 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
413 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
414 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
415 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
419 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
420 the symbol at the specified address.
424 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
425 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
426 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
427 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
428 file tracepoint.c for more details.
432 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
433 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
434 of most MIPS variants.
438 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
439 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
440 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
444 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
445 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
446 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
447 the possible architectures.
449 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
451 * New native configurations
453 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
454 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
455 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
456 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
457 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
458 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
462 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
463 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
464 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
465 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
466 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
468 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
472 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
473 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
474 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
475 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
476 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
480 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
482 * Windows 95/NT native
484 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
485 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
486 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
487 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
488 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
490 * dont-repeat command
492 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
493 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
494 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
495 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
497 * Send break instead of ^C
499 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
500 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
501 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
503 * Remote protocol timeout
505 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
506 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
507 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
509 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
511 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
512 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
513 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
514 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
515 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
517 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
518 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
519 automatically on hpux10.
521 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
523 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
525 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
527 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
528 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
529 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
530 every character. The default value is 1050.
532 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
534 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
535 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
536 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
537 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
538 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
539 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
541 * Speedups for remote debugging
543 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
544 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
545 and more efficient S-record downloading.
547 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
549 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
550 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
552 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
556 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
557 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
559 * Remote targets use caching
561 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
562 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
563 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
564 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
565 off' turns the the data cache off.
567 * Remote targets may have threads
569 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
570 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
571 gdb/remote.c for details.
575 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
576 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
577 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
578 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
579 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
580 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
581 sequence is something like
583 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
585 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
589 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
590 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
591 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
592 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
593 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
594 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
595 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
596 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
600 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
601 but does simplify configuration and building.
605 GDB now supports hpux10.
607 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
609 * New native configurations
611 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
612 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
613 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
614 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
618 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
619 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
620 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
621 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
624 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
626 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
627 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
628 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
629 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
630 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
632 * Arguments to user-defined commands
634 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
635 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
638 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
640 To execute the command use:
643 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
644 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
645 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
647 * New `if' and `while' commands
649 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
650 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
651 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
652 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
653 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
654 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
655 if the expression is zero.
657 * Fortran source language mode
659 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
660 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
661 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
662 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
665 * Better HPUX support
667 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
668 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
669 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
670 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
671 that behavior do the following before running the program:
677 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
678 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
684 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
685 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
688 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
689 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
691 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
693 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
694 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
695 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
696 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
697 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
698 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
700 * New DOS host serial code
702 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
703 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
706 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
708 * New "complete" command
710 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
711 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
713 * Trailing space optional in prompt
715 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
716 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
718 * Breakpoint hit counts
720 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
721 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
722 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
723 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
724 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
727 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
729 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
730 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
731 arrays actually contain only short strings.
733 * Shared library breakpoints
735 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
736 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
738 * Hardware watchpoints
740 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
741 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
743 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
747 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
748 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
750 * Improved Irix 5 support
752 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
754 * Improved HPPA support
756 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
758 * New native configurations
760 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
761 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
762 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
763 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
767 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
768 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
771 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
773 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
774 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
778 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
779 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
781 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
783 * Irix 5 is now supported
787 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
788 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
789 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
790 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
791 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
794 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
796 * User visible changes:
800 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
801 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
802 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
803 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
804 debugging info for the mips target).
806 * DEC Alpha native support
808 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
809 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
810 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
811 Alpha-specific notes.
813 * Preliminary thread implementation
815 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
817 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
819 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
820 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
823 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
825 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
826 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
827 call methods, ...etc.
829 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
831 * User visible changes:
833 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
834 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
835 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
836 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
838 Filename completion now works.
840 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
841 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
842 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
844 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
845 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
846 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
847 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
848 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
852 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
853 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
856 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
860 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
861 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
862 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
866 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
867 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
868 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
869 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
870 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
874 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
875 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
876 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
878 * New targets supported
880 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
881 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
882 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
883 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
884 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
886 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
887 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
888 GO32 memory extender.
890 * New remote protocols
892 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
894 * New source languages supported
896 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
897 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
898 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
901 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
903 * HP Precision Architecture supported
905 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
906 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
907 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
908 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
909 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
910 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
912 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
914 * Faster and better demangling
916 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
917 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
918 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
919 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
920 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
921 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
924 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
925 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
926 compiler does not actually implement.
928 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
930 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
931 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
932 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
933 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
934 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
935 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
938 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
939 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
941 * Improved configure script
943 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
944 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
945 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
946 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
948 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
949 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
950 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
951 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
952 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
953 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
955 * Documentation improvements
957 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
958 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
959 before submitting changes.
961 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
962 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
963 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
964 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
965 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
967 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
968 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
969 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
970 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
971 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
976 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
977 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
978 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
981 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
982 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
984 * New native hosts supported
986 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
987 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
989 * New targets supported
991 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
993 * New file formats supported
995 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
996 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1000 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1002 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1003 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1005 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1006 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1007 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1009 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1010 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1012 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1013 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1014 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1017 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1018 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1019 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1020 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1021 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1023 * Internal improvements
1025 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1026 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1028 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1029 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1030 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1031 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1032 shared code that handles any of them.
1034 * New command line options
1036 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1040 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1041 General Public License.
1043 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1045 * Host/native/target split
1047 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1048 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1049 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1050 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1051 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1053 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1054 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1055 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1056 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1057 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1058 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1059 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1061 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1062 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1063 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1065 * New hosts supported
1067 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1068 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1069 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1071 * New targets supported
1073 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1074 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1076 * New native hosts supported
1078 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1079 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1080 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1082 * New file formats supported
1084 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1085 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1086 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1090 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1091 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1092 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1094 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1096 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1097 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1098 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1099 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1103 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1104 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1105 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1107 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1111 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1112 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1115 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1116 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1118 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1119 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1120 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1121 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1122 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1123 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1125 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1126 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1127 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1128 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1132 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1133 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1134 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1135 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1136 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1138 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1139 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1140 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1141 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1145 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1146 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1147 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1148 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1149 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1150 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1151 each instruction being stepped through.
1153 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1154 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1156 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1157 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1158 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1159 processor with a serial port.
1163 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1164 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1165 supported, and what files each one uses.
1169 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1170 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1171 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1172 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1174 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1175 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1176 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1177 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1181 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1182 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1183 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1184 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1185 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1186 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1188 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1191 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1193 * Better support for C++ function names
1195 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1196 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1197 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1198 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1199 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1201 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1202 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1203 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1204 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1205 for the list of formats.
1207 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1209 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1210 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1211 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1212 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1213 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1214 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1217 * New 'maintenance' command
1219 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1220 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1221 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1223 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1224 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1225 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1226 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1227 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1228 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1230 The following commands are new:
1232 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1233 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1234 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1236 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1238 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1239 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1240 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1241 read after argv processing.
1243 * New hosts supported
1245 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1247 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1249 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1250 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1251 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1252 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1253 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1256 * New targets supported
1258 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1260 * More smarts about finding #include files
1262 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1263 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1264 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1265 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1266 the one that contains your sources.
1268 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1269 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1270 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1272 * Interesting infernals change
1274 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1275 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1276 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1277 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1279 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1281 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1282 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1283 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1285 See the ChangeLog for details.
1287 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1289 * New machines supported (host and target)
1291 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1293 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1295 * New malloc package
1297 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1298 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1299 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1300 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1301 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1302 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1306 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1307 'help info proc' for details.
1309 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1311 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1312 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1315 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1317 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1318 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1319 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1320 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1321 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1322 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1324 * Cross byte order fixes
1326 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1327 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1329 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1331 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1332 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1333 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1334 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1335 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1336 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1337 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1338 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1339 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1340 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1342 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1343 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1344 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1345 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1347 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1348 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1349 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1352 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1354 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1355 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1356 shared across multiple host platforms.
1358 * longjmp() handling
1360 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1361 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1362 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1363 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1367 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1368 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1373 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1374 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1375 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1377 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1379 * New machines supported (host and target)
1381 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1383 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1384 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1386 * New machines supported (target)
1388 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1392 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1393 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1394 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1396 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1397 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1398 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1399 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1400 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1403 * New features for SVR4
1405 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1406 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1407 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1409 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1410 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1411 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1413 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1414 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1416 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1418 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1419 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1420 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1421 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1422 same code linked statically.
1426 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1427 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1428 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1429 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1430 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1431 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1435 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1436 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1437 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1440 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1442 * New machines supported (host and target)
1444 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1445 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1446 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1448 * Almost SCO Unix support
1450 We had hoped to support:
1451 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1452 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1453 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1454 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1456 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1458 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1459 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1460 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1461 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1466 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1467 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1468 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1472 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1473 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1474 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1476 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1478 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1479 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1480 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1482 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1483 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1484 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1485 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1488 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1489 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1490 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1491 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1494 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1495 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1498 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1499 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1500 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1503 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1505 * Improved configuration
1507 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1508 Porting BFD is simpler.
1512 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1513 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1514 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1515 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1519 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1521 * New host supported (not target)
1523 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1526 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1528 * Multiple source language support
1530 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1531 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1532 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1533 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1534 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1535 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1539 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1540 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1541 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1542 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1544 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1545 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1546 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1548 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1549 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1553 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1554 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1555 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1556 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1559 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1561 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1562 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1563 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1564 examining core files.
1568 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1571 * New machines supported (host and target)
1573 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1574 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1575 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1577 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1579 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1581 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1583 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1584 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1585 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1587 * New remote interfaces
1593 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1597 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1599 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1600 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1601 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1602 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1603 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1604 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1605 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1606 stub on the target system.
1608 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1610 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1611 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1612 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1614 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1615 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1618 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1620 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1621 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1623 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1624 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1625 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1627 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1628 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1629 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1630 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1632 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1633 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1634 it is already running. Default is ON.
1636 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1637 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1638 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1639 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1642 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1643 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1644 or the value of the environment variable
1647 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1648 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1651 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1652 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1653 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1655 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1656 history expansion will be performed on
1657 command line input. The default is OFF.
1659 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1660 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1661 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1663 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1664 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1665 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1668 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1669 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1670 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1673 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1674 ``set width'' instead.
1676 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1677 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1678 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1679 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1681 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1684 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1687 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1690 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1693 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1695 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1696 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1697 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1701 * Support for Shared Libraries
1703 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1704 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1705 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1706 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1707 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1708 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1709 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1710 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1712 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1713 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1714 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1716 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1721 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1722 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1723 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1724 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1725 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1726 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1728 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1730 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1732 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1733 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1734 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1737 * C++ multiple inheritance
1739 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1742 * C++ exception handling
1744 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1745 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1746 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1749 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1750 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1751 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1753 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1754 current stack frame.
1757 * Minor command changes
1759 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1760 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1761 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1763 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1764 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1765 frames without printing.
1767 * New directory command
1769 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1770 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1771 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1772 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1773 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1775 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1777 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1780 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1781 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1782 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1783 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob