1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * New native configurations
8 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
9 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
13 * OBSOLETE configurations
15 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
17 * Deleted configurations
21 * All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
23 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
26 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
28 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
30 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
31 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
32 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
33 greater level of detail.
35 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
37 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
38 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
39 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
42 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
44 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
45 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
46 machines ``out of the box''.
48 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
49 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
50 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
51 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
52 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
54 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
55 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
56 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
57 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
58 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
60 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
61 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
64 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
67 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
68 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
69 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
70 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
72 * New native configurations
74 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
75 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
79 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
80 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
81 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
82 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
84 * OBSOLETE configurations
86 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
89 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
92 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
93 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
94 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
95 be permanently REMOVED.
97 * Gould support removed
99 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
101 * New features for SVR4
103 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
104 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
105 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
107 * Many C++ enhancements
109 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
110 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
112 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
114 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
115 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
116 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
117 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
119 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
120 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
122 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
124 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
125 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
126 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
128 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
129 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
131 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
133 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
134 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
135 include ``set remote P-packet''.
137 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
139 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
140 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
141 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
143 * ``apropos'' command added.
145 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
146 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
147 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
151 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
152 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
153 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
154 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
155 enabled by configuring with:
157 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
159 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
161 * New native configurations
163 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
164 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
165 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
169 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
170 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
171 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
173 * OBSOLETE configurations
175 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
177 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
178 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
179 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
180 be permanently REMOVED.
184 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
185 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
186 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
187 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
188 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
189 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
190 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
195 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
197 * set extension-language
199 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
200 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
201 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
202 set extension-language .c c++
203 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
204 and their associated languages.
206 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
208 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
209 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
210 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
214 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
215 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
217 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
218 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
220 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
221 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
222 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
223 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
224 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
225 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
226 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
227 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
229 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
230 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
231 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
232 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
236 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
237 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
238 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
239 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
240 for xdb and dbx commands.
244 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
245 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
246 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
248 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
249 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
250 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
252 * Debugging across forks
254 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
259 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
260 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
261 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
263 * GDB remote protocol additions
265 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
266 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
267 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
268 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
270 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
271 full 64-bit address. The command
273 set remoteaddresssize 32
275 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
276 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
279 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
280 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
282 maint packet heythere
284 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
285 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
288 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
289 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
290 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
292 * Tracing can collect general expressions
294 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
295 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
296 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
298 * mask-address variable for Mips
300 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
301 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
302 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
304 * Higher serial baud rates
306 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
307 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
308 to achieve all of these rates.)
312 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
313 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
316 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
318 * New native configurations
320 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
321 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
322 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
323 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
324 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
325 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
326 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
330 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
331 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
332 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
333 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
334 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
335 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
336 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
337 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
338 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
339 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
340 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
342 * New debugging protocols
344 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
345 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
346 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
347 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
348 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
349 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
353 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
354 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
359 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
360 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
362 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
364 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
365 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
366 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
368 * Live range splitting
370 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
371 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
372 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
376 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
377 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
381 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
382 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
383 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
388 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
393 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
394 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
395 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
396 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
397 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
398 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
402 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
403 the symbol at the specified address.
407 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
408 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
409 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
410 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
411 file tracepoint.c for more details.
415 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
416 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
417 of most MIPS variants.
421 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
422 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
423 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
427 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
428 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
429 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
430 the possible architectures.
432 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
434 * New native configurations
436 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
437 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
438 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
439 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
440 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
441 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
445 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
446 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
447 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
448 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
449 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
451 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
455 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
456 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
457 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
458 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
459 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
463 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
465 * Windows 95/NT native
467 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
468 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
469 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
470 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
471 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
473 * dont-repeat command
475 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
476 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
477 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
478 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
480 * Send break instead of ^C
482 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
483 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
484 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
486 * Remote protocol timeout
488 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
489 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
490 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
492 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
494 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
495 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
496 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
497 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
498 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
500 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
501 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
502 automatically on hpux10.
504 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
506 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
508 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
510 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
511 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
512 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
513 every character. The default value is 1050.
515 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
517 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
518 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
519 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
520 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
521 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
522 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
524 * Speedups for remote debugging
526 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
527 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
528 and more efficient S-record downloading.
530 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
532 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
533 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
535 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
539 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
540 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
542 * Remote targets use caching
544 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
545 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
546 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
547 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
548 off' turns the the data cache off.
550 * Remote targets may have threads
552 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
553 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
554 gdb/remote.c for details.
558 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
559 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
560 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
561 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
562 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
563 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
564 sequence is something like
566 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
568 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
572 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
573 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
574 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
575 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
576 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
577 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
578 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
579 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
583 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
584 but does simplify configuration and building.
588 GDB now supports hpux10.
590 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
592 * New native configurations
594 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
595 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
596 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
597 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
601 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
602 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
603 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
604 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
607 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
609 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
610 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
611 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
612 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
613 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
615 * Arguments to user-defined commands
617 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
618 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
621 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
623 To execute the command use:
626 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
627 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
628 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
630 * New `if' and `while' commands
632 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
633 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
634 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
635 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
636 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
637 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
638 if the expression is zero.
640 * Fortran source language mode
642 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
643 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
644 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
645 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
648 * Better HPUX support
650 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
651 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
652 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
653 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
654 that behavior do the following before running the program:
660 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
661 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
667 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
668 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
671 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
672 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
674 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
676 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
677 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
678 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
679 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
680 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
681 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
683 * New DOS host serial code
685 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
686 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
689 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
691 * New "complete" command
693 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
694 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
696 * Trailing space optional in prompt
698 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
699 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
701 * Breakpoint hit counts
703 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
704 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
705 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
706 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
707 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
710 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
712 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
713 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
714 arrays actually contain only short strings.
716 * Shared library breakpoints
718 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
719 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
721 * Hardware watchpoints
723 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
724 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
726 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
730 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
731 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
733 * Improved Irix 5 support
735 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
737 * Improved HPPA support
739 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
741 * New native configurations
743 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
744 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
745 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
746 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
750 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
751 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
754 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
756 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
757 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
761 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
762 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
764 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
766 * Irix 5 is now supported
770 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
771 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
772 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
773 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
774 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
777 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
779 * User visible changes:
783 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
784 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
785 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
786 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
787 debugging info for the mips target).
789 * DEC Alpha native support
791 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
792 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
793 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
794 Alpha-specific notes.
796 * Preliminary thread implementation
798 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
800 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
802 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
803 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
806 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
808 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
809 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
810 call methods, ...etc.
812 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
814 * User visible changes:
816 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
817 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
818 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
819 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
821 Filename completion now works.
823 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
824 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
825 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
827 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
828 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
829 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
830 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
831 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
835 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
836 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
839 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
843 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
844 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
845 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
849 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
850 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
851 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
852 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
853 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
857 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
858 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
859 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
861 * New targets supported
863 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
864 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
865 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
866 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
867 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
869 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
870 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
871 GO32 memory extender.
873 * New remote protocols
875 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
877 * New source languages supported
879 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
880 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
881 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
884 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
886 * HP Precision Architecture supported
888 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
889 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
890 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
891 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
892 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
893 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
895 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
897 * Faster and better demangling
899 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
900 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
901 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
902 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
903 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
904 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
907 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
908 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
909 compiler does not actually implement.
911 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
913 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
914 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
915 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
916 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
917 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
918 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
921 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
922 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
924 * Improved configure script
926 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
927 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
928 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
929 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
931 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
932 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
933 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
934 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
935 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
936 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
938 * Documentation improvements
940 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
941 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
942 before submitting changes.
944 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
945 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
946 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
947 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
948 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
950 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
951 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
952 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
953 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
954 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
959 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
960 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
961 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
964 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
965 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
967 * New native hosts supported
969 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
970 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
972 * New targets supported
974 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
976 * New file formats supported
978 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
979 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
983 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
985 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
986 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
988 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
989 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
990 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
992 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
993 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
995 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
996 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
997 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1000 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1001 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1002 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1003 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1004 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1006 * Internal improvements
1008 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1009 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1011 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1012 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1013 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1014 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1015 shared code that handles any of them.
1017 * New command line options
1019 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1023 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1024 General Public License.
1026 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1028 * Host/native/target split
1030 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1031 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1032 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1033 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1034 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1036 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1037 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1038 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1039 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1040 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1041 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1042 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1044 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1045 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1046 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1048 * New hosts supported
1050 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1051 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1052 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1054 * New targets supported
1056 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1057 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1059 * New native hosts supported
1061 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1062 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1063 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1065 * New file formats supported
1067 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1068 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1069 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1073 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1074 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1075 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1077 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1079 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1080 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1081 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1082 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1086 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1087 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1088 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1090 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1094 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1095 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1098 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1099 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1101 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1102 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1103 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1104 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1105 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1106 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1108 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1109 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1110 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1111 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1115 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1116 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1117 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1118 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1119 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1121 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1122 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1123 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1124 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1128 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1129 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1130 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1131 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1132 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1133 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1134 each instruction being stepped through.
1136 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1137 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1139 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1140 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1141 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1142 processor with a serial port.
1146 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1147 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1148 supported, and what files each one uses.
1152 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1153 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1154 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1155 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1157 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1158 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1159 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1160 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1164 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1165 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1166 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1167 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1168 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1169 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1171 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1174 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1176 * Better support for C++ function names
1178 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1179 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1180 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1181 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1182 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1184 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1185 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1186 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1187 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1188 for the list of formats.
1190 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1192 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1193 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1194 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1195 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1196 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1197 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1200 * New 'maintenance' command
1202 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1203 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1204 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1206 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1207 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1208 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1209 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1210 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1211 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1213 The following commands are new:
1215 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1216 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1217 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1219 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1221 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1222 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1223 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1224 read after argv processing.
1226 * New hosts supported
1228 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1230 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1232 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1233 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1234 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1235 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1236 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1239 * New targets supported
1241 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1243 * More smarts about finding #include files
1245 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1246 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1247 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1248 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1249 the one that contains your sources.
1251 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1252 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1253 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1255 * Interesting infernals change
1257 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1258 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1259 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1260 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1262 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1264 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1265 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1266 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1268 See the ChangeLog for details.
1270 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1272 * New machines supported (host and target)
1274 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1276 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1278 * New malloc package
1280 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1281 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1282 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1283 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1284 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1285 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1289 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1290 'help info proc' for details.
1292 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1294 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1295 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1298 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1300 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1301 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1302 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1303 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1304 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1305 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1307 * Cross byte order fixes
1309 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1310 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1312 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1314 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1315 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1316 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1317 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1318 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1319 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1320 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1321 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1322 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1323 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1325 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1326 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1327 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1328 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1330 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1331 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1332 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1335 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1337 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1338 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1339 shared across multiple host platforms.
1341 * longjmp() handling
1343 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1344 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1345 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1346 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1350 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1351 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1356 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1357 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1358 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1360 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1362 * New machines supported (host and target)
1364 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1366 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1367 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1369 * New machines supported (target)
1371 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1375 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1376 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1377 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1379 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1380 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1381 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1382 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1383 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1386 * New features for SVR4
1388 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1389 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1390 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1392 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1393 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1394 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1396 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1397 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1399 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1401 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1402 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1403 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1404 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1405 same code linked statically.
1409 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1410 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1411 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1412 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1413 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1414 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1418 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1419 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1420 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1423 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1425 * New machines supported (host and target)
1427 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1428 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1429 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1431 * Almost SCO Unix support
1433 We had hoped to support:
1434 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1435 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1436 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1437 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1439 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1441 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1442 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1443 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1444 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1449 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1450 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1451 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1455 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1456 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1457 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1459 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1461 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1462 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1463 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1465 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1466 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1467 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1468 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1471 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1472 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1473 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1474 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1477 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1478 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1481 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1482 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1483 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1486 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1488 * Improved configuration
1490 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1491 Porting BFD is simpler.
1495 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1496 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1497 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1498 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1502 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1504 * New host supported (not target)
1506 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1509 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1511 * Multiple source language support
1513 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1514 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1515 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1516 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1517 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1518 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1522 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1523 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1524 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1525 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1527 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1528 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1529 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1531 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1532 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1536 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1537 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1538 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1539 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1542 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1544 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1545 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1546 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1547 examining core files.
1551 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1554 * New machines supported (host and target)
1556 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1557 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1558 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1560 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1562 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1564 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1566 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1567 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1568 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1570 * New remote interfaces
1576 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1580 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1582 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1583 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1584 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1585 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1586 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1587 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1588 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1589 stub on the target system.
1591 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1593 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1594 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1595 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1597 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1598 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1601 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1603 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1604 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1606 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1607 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1608 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1610 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1611 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1612 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1613 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1615 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1616 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1617 it is already running. Default is ON.
1619 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1620 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1621 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1622 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1625 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1626 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1627 or the value of the environment variable
1630 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1631 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1634 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1635 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1636 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1638 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1639 history expansion will be performed on
1640 command line input. The default is OFF.
1642 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1643 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1644 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1646 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1647 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1648 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1651 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1652 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1653 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1656 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1657 ``set width'' instead.
1659 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1660 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1661 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1662 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1664 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1667 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1670 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1673 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1676 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1678 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1679 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1680 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1684 * Support for Shared Libraries
1686 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1687 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1688 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1689 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1690 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1691 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1692 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1693 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1695 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1696 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1697 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1699 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1704 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1705 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1706 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1707 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1708 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1709 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1711 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1713 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1715 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1716 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1717 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1720 * C++ multiple inheritance
1722 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1725 * C++ exception handling
1727 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1728 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1729 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1732 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1733 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1734 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1736 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1737 current stack frame.
1740 * Minor command changes
1742 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1743 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1744 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1746 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1747 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1748 frames without printing.
1750 * New directory command
1752 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1753 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1754 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1755 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1756 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1758 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1760 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1763 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1764 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1765 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1766 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob