1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB-4.18:
8 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
9 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
10 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
12 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
13 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
15 * New native configurations
17 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
18 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
22 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
23 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
24 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
25 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
27 * OBSOLETE configurations
29 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
32 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
35 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
37 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
38 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
39 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
40 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
42 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
43 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
45 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
47 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
48 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
49 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
51 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
52 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
54 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
56 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
57 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
58 include ``set remote P-packet''.
60 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
62 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
63 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
64 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
66 * ``apropos'' command added.
68 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
69 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
70 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
72 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
74 * New native configurations
76 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
77 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
78 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
82 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
83 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
84 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
86 * OBSOLETE configurations
88 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
90 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
91 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
92 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
93 be permanently REMOVED.
97 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
98 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
99 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
100 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
101 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
102 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
103 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
108 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
110 * set extension-language
112 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
113 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
114 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
115 set extension-language .c c++
116 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
117 and their associated languages.
119 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
121 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
122 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
123 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
127 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
128 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
130 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
131 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
133 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
134 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
135 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
136 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
137 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
138 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
139 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
140 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
142 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
143 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
144 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
145 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
149 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
150 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
151 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
152 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
153 for xdb and dbx commands.
157 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
158 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
159 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
161 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
162 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
163 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
165 * Debugging across forks
167 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
172 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
173 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
174 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
176 * GDB remote protocol additions
178 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
179 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
180 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
181 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
183 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
184 full 64-bit address. The command
186 set remoteaddresssize 32
188 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
189 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
192 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
193 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
195 maint packet heythere
197 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
198 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
201 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
202 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
203 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
205 * Tracing can collect general expressions
207 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
208 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
209 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
211 * mask-address variable for Mips
213 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
214 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
215 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
217 * Higher serial baud rates
219 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
220 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
221 to achieve all of these rates.)
225 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
226 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
229 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
231 * New native configurations
233 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
234 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
235 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
236 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
237 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
238 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
239 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
243 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
244 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
245 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
246 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
247 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
248 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
249 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
250 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
251 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
252 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
253 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
255 * New debugging protocols
257 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
258 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
259 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
260 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
261 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
262 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
266 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
267 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
272 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
273 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
275 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
277 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
278 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
279 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
281 * Live range splitting
283 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
284 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
285 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
289 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
290 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
294 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
295 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
296 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
301 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
306 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
307 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
308 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
309 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
310 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
311 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
315 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
316 the symbol at the specified address.
320 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
321 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
322 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
323 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
324 file tracepoint.c for more details.
328 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
329 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
330 of most MIPS variants.
334 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
335 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
336 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
340 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
341 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
342 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
343 the possible architectures.
345 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
347 * New native configurations
349 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
350 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
351 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
352 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
353 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
354 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
358 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
359 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
360 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
361 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
362 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
364 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
368 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
369 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
370 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
371 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
372 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
376 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
378 * Windows 95/NT native
380 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
381 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
382 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
383 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
384 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
386 * dont-repeat command
388 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
389 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
390 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
391 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
393 * Send break instead of ^C
395 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
396 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
397 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
399 * Remote protocol timeout
401 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
402 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
403 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
405 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
407 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
408 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
409 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
410 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
411 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
413 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
414 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
415 automatically on hpux10.
417 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
419 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
421 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
423 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
424 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
425 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
426 every character. The default value is 1050.
428 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
430 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
431 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
432 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
433 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
434 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
435 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
437 * Speedups for remote debugging
439 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
440 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
441 and more efficient S-record downloading.
443 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
445 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
446 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
448 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
452 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
453 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
455 * Remote targets use caching
457 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
458 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
459 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
460 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
461 off' turns the the data cache off.
463 * Remote targets may have threads
465 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
466 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
467 gdb/remote.c for details.
471 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
472 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
473 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
474 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
475 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
476 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
477 sequence is something like
479 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
481 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
485 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
486 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
487 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
488 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
489 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
490 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
491 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
492 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
496 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
497 but does simplify configuration and building.
501 GDB now supports hpux10.
503 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
505 * New native configurations
507 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
508 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
509 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
510 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
514 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
515 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
516 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
517 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
520 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
522 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
523 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
524 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
525 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
526 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
528 * Arguments to user-defined commands
530 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
531 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
534 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
536 To execute the command use:
539 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
540 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
541 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
543 * New `if' and `while' commands
545 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
546 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
547 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
548 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
549 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
550 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
551 if the expression is zero.
553 * Fortran source language mode
555 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
556 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
557 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
558 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
561 * Better HPUX support
563 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
564 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
565 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
566 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
567 that behavior do the following before running the program:
573 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
574 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
580 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
581 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
584 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
585 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
587 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
589 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
590 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
591 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
592 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
593 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
594 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
596 * New DOS host serial code
598 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
599 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
602 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
604 * New "complete" command
606 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
607 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
609 * Trailing space optional in prompt
611 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
612 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
614 * Breakpoint hit counts
616 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
617 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
618 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
619 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
620 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
623 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
625 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
626 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
627 arrays actually contain only short strings.
629 * Shared library breakpoints
631 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
632 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
634 * Hardware watchpoints
636 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
637 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
639 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
643 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
644 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
646 * Improved Irix 5 support
648 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
650 * Improved HPPA support
652 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
654 * New native configurations
656 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
657 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
658 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
659 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
663 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
664 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
667 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
669 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
670 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
674 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
675 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
677 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
679 * Irix 5 is now supported
683 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
684 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
685 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
686 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
687 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
690 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
692 * User visible changes:
696 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
697 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
698 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
699 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
700 debugging info for the mips target).
702 * DEC Alpha native support
704 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
705 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
706 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
707 Alpha-specific notes.
709 * Preliminary thread implementation
711 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
713 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
715 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
716 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
719 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
721 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
722 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
723 call methods, ...etc.
725 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
727 * User visible changes:
729 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
730 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
731 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
732 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
734 Filename completion now works.
736 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
737 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
738 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
740 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
741 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
742 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
743 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
744 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
748 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
749 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
752 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
756 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
757 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
758 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
762 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
763 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
764 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
765 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
766 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
770 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
771 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
772 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
774 * New targets supported
776 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
777 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
778 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
779 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
780 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
782 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
783 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
784 GO32 memory extender.
786 * New remote protocols
788 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
790 * New source languages supported
792 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
793 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
794 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
797 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
799 * HP Precision Architecture supported
801 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
802 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
803 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
804 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
805 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
806 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
808 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
810 * Faster and better demangling
812 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
813 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
814 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
815 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
816 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
817 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
820 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
821 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
822 compiler does not actually implement.
824 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
826 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
827 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
828 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
829 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
830 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
831 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
834 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
835 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
837 * Improved configure script
839 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
840 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
841 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
842 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
844 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
845 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
846 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
847 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
848 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
849 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
851 * Documentation improvements
853 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
854 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
855 before submitting changes.
857 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
858 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
859 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
860 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
861 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
863 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
864 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
865 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
866 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
867 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
872 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
873 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
874 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
877 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
878 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
880 * New native hosts supported
882 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
883 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
885 * New targets supported
887 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
889 * New file formats supported
891 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
892 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
896 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
898 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
899 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
901 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
902 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
903 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
905 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
906 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
908 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
909 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
910 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
913 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
914 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
915 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
916 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
917 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
919 * Internal improvements
921 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
922 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
924 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
925 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
926 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
927 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
928 shared code that handles any of them.
930 * New command line options
932 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
936 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
937 General Public License.
939 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
941 * Host/native/target split
943 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
944 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
945 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
946 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
947 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
949 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
950 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
951 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
952 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
953 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
954 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
955 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
957 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
958 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
959 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
961 * New hosts supported
963 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
964 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
965 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
967 * New targets supported
969 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
970 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
972 * New native hosts supported
974 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
975 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
976 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
978 * New file formats supported
980 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
981 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
982 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
986 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
987 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
988 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
990 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
992 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
993 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
994 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
995 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
999 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1000 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1001 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1003 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1007 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1008 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1011 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1012 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1014 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1015 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1016 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1017 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1018 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1019 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1021 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1022 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1023 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1024 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1028 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1029 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1030 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1031 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1032 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1034 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1035 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1036 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1037 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1041 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1042 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1043 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1044 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1045 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1046 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1047 each instruction being stepped through.
1049 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1050 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1052 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1053 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1054 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1055 processor with a serial port.
1059 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1060 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1061 supported, and what files each one uses.
1065 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1066 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1067 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1068 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1070 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1071 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1072 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1073 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1077 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1078 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1079 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1080 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1081 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1082 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1084 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1087 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1089 * Better support for C++ function names
1091 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1092 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1093 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1094 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1095 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1097 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1098 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1099 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1100 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1101 for the list of formats.
1103 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1105 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1106 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1107 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1108 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1109 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1110 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1113 * New 'maintenance' command
1115 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1116 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1117 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1119 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1120 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1121 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1122 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1123 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1124 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1126 The following commands are new:
1128 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1129 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1130 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1132 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1134 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1135 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1136 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1137 read after argv processing.
1139 * New hosts supported
1141 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1143 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1145 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1146 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1147 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1148 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1149 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1152 * New targets supported
1154 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1156 * More smarts about finding #include files
1158 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1159 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1160 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1161 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1162 the one that contains your sources.
1164 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1165 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1166 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1168 * Interesting infernals change
1170 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1171 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1172 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1173 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1175 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1177 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1178 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1179 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1181 See the ChangeLog for details.
1183 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1185 * New machines supported (host and target)
1187 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1189 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1191 * New malloc package
1193 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1194 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1195 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1196 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1197 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1198 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1202 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1203 'help info proc' for details.
1205 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1207 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1208 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1211 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1213 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1214 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1215 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1216 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1217 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1218 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1220 * Cross byte order fixes
1222 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1223 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1225 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1227 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1228 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1229 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1230 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1231 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1232 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1233 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1234 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1235 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1236 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1238 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1239 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1240 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1241 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1243 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1244 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1245 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1248 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1250 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1251 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1252 shared across multiple host platforms.
1254 * longjmp() handling
1256 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1257 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1258 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1259 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1263 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1264 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1269 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1270 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1271 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1273 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1275 * New machines supported (host and target)
1277 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1279 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1280 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1282 * New machines supported (target)
1284 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1288 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1289 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1290 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1292 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1293 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1294 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1295 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1296 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1299 * New features for SVR4
1301 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1302 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1303 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1305 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1306 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1307 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1309 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1310 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1312 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1314 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1315 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1316 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1317 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1318 same code linked statically.
1322 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1323 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1324 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1325 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1326 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1327 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1331 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1332 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1333 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1336 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1338 * New machines supported (host and target)
1340 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1341 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1342 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1344 * Almost SCO Unix support
1346 We had hoped to support:
1347 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1348 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1349 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1350 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1352 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1354 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1355 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1356 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1357 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1362 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1363 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1364 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1368 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1369 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1370 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1372 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1374 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1375 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1376 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1378 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1379 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1380 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1381 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1384 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1385 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1386 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1387 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1390 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1391 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1394 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1395 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1396 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1399 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1401 * Improved configuration
1403 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1404 Porting BFD is simpler.
1408 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1409 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1410 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1411 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1415 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1417 * New host supported (not target)
1419 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1422 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1424 * Multiple source language support
1426 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1427 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1428 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1429 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1430 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1431 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1435 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1436 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1437 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1438 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1440 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1441 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1442 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1444 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1445 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1449 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1450 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1451 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1452 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1455 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1457 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1458 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1459 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1460 examining core files.
1464 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1467 * New machines supported (host and target)
1469 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1470 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1471 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1473 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1475 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1477 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1479 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1480 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1481 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1483 * New remote interfaces
1489 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1493 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1495 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1496 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1497 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1498 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1499 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1500 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1501 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1502 stub on the target system.
1504 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1506 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1507 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1508 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1510 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1511 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1514 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1516 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1517 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1519 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1520 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1521 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1523 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1524 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1525 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1526 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1528 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1529 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1530 it is already running. Default is ON.
1532 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1533 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1534 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1535 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1538 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1539 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1540 or the value of the environment variable
1543 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1544 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1547 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1548 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1549 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1551 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1552 history expansion will be performed on
1553 command line input. The default is OFF.
1555 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1556 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1557 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1559 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1560 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1561 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1564 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1565 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1566 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1569 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1570 ``set width'' instead.
1572 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1573 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1574 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1575 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1577 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1580 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1583 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1586 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1589 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1591 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1592 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1593 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1597 * Support for Shared Libraries
1599 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1600 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1601 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1602 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1603 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1604 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1605 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1606 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1608 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1609 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1610 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1612 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1617 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1618 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1619 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1620 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1621 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1622 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1624 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1626 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1628 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1629 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1630 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1633 * C++ multiple inheritance
1635 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1638 * C++ exception handling
1640 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1641 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1642 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1645 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1646 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1647 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1649 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1650 current stack frame.
1653 * Minor command changes
1655 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1656 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1657 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1659 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1660 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1661 frames without printing.
1663 * New directory command
1665 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1666 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1667 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1668 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1669 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1671 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1673 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1676 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1677 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1678 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1679 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob