1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.3
6 * New native configurations
8 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
9 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
13 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
15 * New command line options
17 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
18 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
19 the child (debugged) program exited with.
20 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
21 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
22 specified multiple times and in conjunction
23 with the --command (-x) option.
25 * Deprecated commands removed
27 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
31 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
32 othernames set arm disassembler
33 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
34 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
35 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
38 * New BSD user-level threads support
40 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
41 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
44 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
45 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
46 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
48 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
49 are not yet supported.
51 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
52 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
54 * REMOVED configurations and files
56 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
57 Renesas H8/300S h8300*-*-*
58 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
59 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
60 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
63 * New "set print array-indexes" command
65 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
66 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
69 * VAX floating point support
71 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
73 * User-defined command support
75 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
76 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
77 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
79 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
81 * New command line option
83 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
86 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
88 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
89 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
90 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
91 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
92 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
94 * Internationalization
96 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
97 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
98 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
102 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
103 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
104 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
106 * New native configurations
108 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
112 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
113 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
115 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
117 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
118 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
119 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
122 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
123 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
124 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
136 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
137 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
139 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
141 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
142 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
143 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
153 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
155 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
157 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
158 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
161 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
163 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
164 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
165 IRIX long double values).
169 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
170 command. This problem has been fixed.
172 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
174 * Fix for ``many threads''
176 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
177 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
180 ptrace: No such process.
181 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
183 This problem has been fixed.
185 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
187 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
190 * New ``start'' command.
192 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
194 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
196 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
197 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
198 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
200 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
201 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
202 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
203 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
204 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
205 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
206 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
207 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
208 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
210 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
212 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
213 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
214 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
215 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
216 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
218 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
219 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
220 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
222 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
224 * New native configurations
226 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
227 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
228 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
229 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
230 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
231 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
232 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
234 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
236 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
237 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
238 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
239 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
240 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
241 work, was also included.
243 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
244 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
254 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
255 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
257 * REMOVED configurations and files
259 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
260 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
261 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
262 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
263 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
264 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
265 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
266 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
267 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
269 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
271 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
273 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
275 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
276 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
277 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
278 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
281 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
283 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
284 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
285 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
286 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
287 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
288 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
291 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
293 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
295 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
296 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
297 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
299 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
301 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
302 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
304 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
306 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
307 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
308 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
310 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
312 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
313 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
315 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
317 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
318 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
319 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
321 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
323 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
324 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
325 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
327 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
329 * Removed --with-mmalloc
331 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
332 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
334 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
336 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
337 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
338 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
339 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
341 * Revised SPARC target
343 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
344 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
345 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
346 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
347 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
351 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
352 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
353 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
356 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
358 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
359 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
362 * C++ nested types and namespaces
364 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
365 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
366 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
367 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
368 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
369 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
370 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
371 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
372 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
374 * New native configurations
376 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
377 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
378 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
379 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
380 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
382 * New debugging protocols
384 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
386 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
388 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
389 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
390 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
392 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
394 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
395 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
396 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
399 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
400 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
401 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
402 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
403 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
404 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
405 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
406 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
407 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
409 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
411 * REMOVED configurations and files
413 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
414 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
415 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
416 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
417 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
418 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
419 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
420 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
421 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
422 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
423 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
424 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
425 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
426 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
427 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
428 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
429 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
431 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
435 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
438 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
440 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
441 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
442 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
445 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
446 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
451 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
452 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
453 remote protocol documentation for details.
455 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
457 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
458 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
459 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
462 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
464 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
465 per-thread variables.
467 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
469 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
470 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
472 * Separate debug info.
474 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
475 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
476 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
477 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
478 and optional debug files.
480 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
482 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
483 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
486 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
487 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
491 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
492 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
493 considered "useable".
495 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
497 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
498 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
501 * GDB supports logging output to a file
503 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
504 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
506 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
508 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
509 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
512 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
514 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
515 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
519 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
520 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
521 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
522 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
523 data, for more informative profiling results.
525 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
527 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
528 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
529 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
531 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
534 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
535 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
536 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
537 in a subsequent -var-update.
539 * New native configurations.
541 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
543 * Multi-arched targets.
545 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
546 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
548 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
550 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
551 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
552 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
555 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
556 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
557 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
558 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
559 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
560 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
561 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
562 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
563 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
564 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
565 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
566 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
568 * REMOVED configurations and files
571 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
572 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
573 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
574 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
575 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
576 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
578 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
579 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
580 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
581 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
582 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
583 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
585 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
587 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
588 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
589 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
590 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
591 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
593 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
595 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
597 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
598 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
599 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
600 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
601 shared libs like mad''.
603 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
605 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
606 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
607 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
608 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
610 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
612 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
613 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
616 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
617 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
619 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
620 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
622 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
623 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
624 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
625 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
627 * Multi-arched targets.
629 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
630 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
632 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
633 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
634 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
638 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
641 * New native configurations
643 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
644 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
645 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
646 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
648 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
650 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
651 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
652 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
655 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
656 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
657 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
658 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
659 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
660 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
661 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
662 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
663 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
664 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
666 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
667 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
671 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
673 * REMOVED configurations and files
675 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
676 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
677 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
678 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
679 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
681 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
683 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
685 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
686 commands. The default is 1024.
688 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
690 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
692 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
694 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
695 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
696 from a file into memory (restore).
698 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
700 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
701 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
702 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
704 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
712 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
713 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
714 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
716 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
717 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
718 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
720 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
721 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
722 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
724 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
725 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
726 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
728 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
730 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
732 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
733 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
734 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
735 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
736 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
737 (notably embedded) targets.
739 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
741 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
742 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
743 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
744 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
746 * New command line option
748 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
750 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
752 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
753 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
754 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
755 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
756 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
757 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
758 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
759 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
760 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
761 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
763 * Changes in ARM configurations.
765 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
766 configuration is fully multi-arch.
768 * New native configurations
770 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
771 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
772 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
773 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
777 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
779 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
781 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
782 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
783 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
786 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
787 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
788 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
789 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
790 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
792 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
794 * REMOVED configurations and files
796 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
798 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
799 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
800 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
801 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
802 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
803 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
804 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
805 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
806 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
807 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
808 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
810 * Changes to command line processing
812 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
813 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
815 * Changes to key bindings
817 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
819 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
821 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
823 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
826 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
828 Numerous documentation fixes.
830 Numerous testsuite fixes.
832 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
834 * New native configurations
836 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
837 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
838 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
839 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
841 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
845 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
847 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
849 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
851 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
852 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
853 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
854 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
855 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
857 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
858 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
859 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
860 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
861 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
862 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
863 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
864 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
866 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
867 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
869 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
870 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
871 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
874 * REMOVED configurations and files
876 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
877 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
879 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
883 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
885 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
886 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
891 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
893 * The MI enabled by default.
895 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
896 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
897 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
898 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
899 which is now deprecated.
901 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
903 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
904 main features are supported:
906 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
908 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
911 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
913 - a Pascal expression parser.
915 However, some important features are not yet supported.
917 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
919 - there are some problems with boolean types;
921 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
922 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
924 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
926 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
928 * Changes in completion.
930 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
931 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
932 users expect at the shell prompt.
934 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
935 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
936 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
937 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
938 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
939 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
940 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
942 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
944 * New platform-independent commands:
946 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
947 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
948 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
950 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
952 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
953 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
954 many threads as your system allows you to have.
956 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
958 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
959 multi-threaded programs though.
961 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
963 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
965 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
966 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
969 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
971 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
972 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
973 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
974 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
975 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
978 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
979 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
980 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
982 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
984 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
985 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
987 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
988 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
991 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
992 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
993 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
994 a given linear address.
996 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
997 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
998 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1000 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1002 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1004 * Changes in documentation.
1006 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1007 Documentation License.
1009 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1012 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1014 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1017 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1018 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1019 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1021 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1023 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1024 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1025 contents of this file.
1029 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1031 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1033 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1035 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1036 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1037 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1038 greater level of detail.
1040 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1042 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1043 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1044 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1047 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1049 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1050 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1051 machines ``out of the box''.
1053 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1054 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1055 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1056 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1057 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1059 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1060 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1061 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1062 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1063 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1065 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1066 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1069 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1072 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1073 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1074 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1075 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1077 * New native configurations
1079 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1080 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1084 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1085 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1086 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1087 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1089 * OBSOLETE configurations
1091 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1092 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1094 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1097 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1098 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1099 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1100 be permanently REMOVED.
1102 * Gould support removed
1104 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1106 * New features for SVR4
1108 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1109 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1110 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1112 * Many C++ enhancements
1114 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1115 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1117 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1119 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1120 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1121 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1122 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1124 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1125 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1127 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1129 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1130 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1131 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1133 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1134 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1136 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1138 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1139 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1140 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1142 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1144 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1145 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1146 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1148 * ``apropos'' command added.
1150 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1151 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1152 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1156 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1157 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1158 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1159 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1160 enabled by configuring with:
1162 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1164 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1166 * New native configurations
1168 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1169 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1170 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1174 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1175 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1176 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1178 * OBSOLETE configurations
1180 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1182 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1183 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1184 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1185 be permanently REMOVED.
1189 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1190 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1191 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1192 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1193 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1194 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1195 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1200 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1202 * set extension-language
1204 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1205 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1206 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1207 set extension-language .c c++
1208 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1209 and their associated languages.
1211 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1213 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1214 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1215 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1219 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1220 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1222 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1223 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1225 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1226 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1227 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1228 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1229 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1230 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1231 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1232 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1234 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1235 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1236 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1237 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1241 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1242 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1243 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1244 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1245 for xdb and dbx commands.
1249 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1250 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1251 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1253 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1254 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1255 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1257 * Debugging across forks
1259 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1264 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1265 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1266 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1268 * GDB remote protocol additions
1270 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1271 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1272 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1273 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1275 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1276 full 64-bit address. The command
1278 set remoteaddresssize 32
1280 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1281 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1284 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1285 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1287 maint packet heythere
1289 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1290 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1293 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1294 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1295 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1297 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1299 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1300 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1301 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1303 * mask-address variable for Mips
1305 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1306 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1307 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1309 * Higher serial baud rates
1311 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1312 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1313 to achieve all of these rates.)
1317 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1318 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1321 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1323 * New native configurations
1325 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1326 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1327 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1328 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1329 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1330 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1331 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1335 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1336 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1337 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1338 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1339 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1340 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1341 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1342 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1343 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1344 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1345 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1347 * New debugging protocols
1349 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1350 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1351 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1352 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1353 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1354 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1358 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1359 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1364 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1365 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1367 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1369 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1370 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1371 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1373 * Live range splitting
1375 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1376 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1377 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1381 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1382 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1386 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1387 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1388 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1393 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1398 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1399 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1400 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1401 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1402 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1403 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1407 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1408 the symbol at the specified address.
1412 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1413 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1414 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1415 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1416 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1420 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1421 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1422 of most MIPS variants.
1426 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1427 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1428 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1432 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1433 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1434 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1435 the possible architectures.
1437 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1439 * New native configurations
1441 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1442 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1443 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1444 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1445 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1446 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1450 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1451 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1452 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1453 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1454 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1456 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1460 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1461 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1462 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1463 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1464 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1468 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1470 * Windows 95/NT native
1472 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1473 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1474 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1475 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1476 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1478 * dont-repeat command
1480 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1481 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1482 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1483 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1485 * Send break instead of ^C
1487 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1488 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1489 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1491 * Remote protocol timeout
1493 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1494 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1495 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1497 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1499 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1500 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1501 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1502 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1503 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1505 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1506 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1507 automatically on hpux10.
1509 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1511 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1513 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1515 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1516 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1517 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1518 every character. The default value is 1050.
1520 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1522 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1523 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1524 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1525 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1526 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1527 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1529 * Speedups for remote debugging
1531 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1532 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1533 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1535 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1537 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1538 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1540 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1542 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1544 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1545 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1547 * Remote targets use caching
1549 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1550 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1551 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1552 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1553 off' turns the the data cache off.
1555 * Remote targets may have threads
1557 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1558 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1559 gdb/remote.c for details.
1563 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1564 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1565 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1566 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1567 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1568 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1569 sequence is something like
1571 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1573 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1577 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1578 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1579 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1580 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1581 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1582 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1583 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1584 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1588 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1589 but does simplify configuration and building.
1593 GDB now supports hpux10.
1595 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1597 * New native configurations
1599 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1600 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1601 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1602 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1606 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1607 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1608 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1609 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1612 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1614 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1615 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1616 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1617 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1618 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1620 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1622 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1623 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1626 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1628 To execute the command use:
1631 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1632 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1633 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1635 * New `if' and `while' commands
1637 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1638 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1639 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1640 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1641 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1642 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1643 if the expression is zero.
1645 * Fortran source language mode
1647 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1648 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1649 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1650 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1653 * Better HPUX support
1655 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1656 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1657 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1658 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1659 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1665 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1666 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1672 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1673 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1676 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1677 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1679 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1681 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1682 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1683 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1684 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1685 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1686 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1688 * New DOS host serial code
1690 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1691 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1694 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1696 * New "complete" command
1698 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1699 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1701 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1703 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1704 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1706 * Breakpoint hit counts
1708 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1709 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1710 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1711 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1712 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1715 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1717 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1718 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1719 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1721 * Shared library breakpoints
1723 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1724 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1726 * Hardware watchpoints
1728 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1729 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1731 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1735 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1736 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1738 * Improved Irix 5 support
1740 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1742 * Improved HPPA support
1744 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1746 * New native configurations
1748 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1749 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1750 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1751 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1755 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1756 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1759 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1761 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1762 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1766 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1767 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1769 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1771 * Irix 5 is now supported
1775 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1776 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1777 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1778 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1779 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1782 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1784 * User visible changes:
1788 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1789 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1790 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1791 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1792 debugging info for the mips target).
1794 * DEC Alpha native support
1796 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1797 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1798 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1799 Alpha-specific notes.
1801 * Preliminary thread implementation
1803 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1805 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1807 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1808 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1811 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1813 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1814 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1815 call methods, ...etc.
1817 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1819 * User visible changes:
1821 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1822 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1823 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1824 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1826 Filename completion now works.
1828 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1829 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1830 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1832 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1833 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1834 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1835 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1836 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1840 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1841 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1844 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1848 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1849 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1850 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1854 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1855 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1856 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1857 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1858 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1862 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1863 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1864 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1866 * New targets supported
1868 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1869 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1870 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1871 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1872 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1874 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1875 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1876 GO32 memory extender.
1878 * New remote protocols
1880 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1882 * New source languages supported
1884 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1885 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1886 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1889 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1891 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1893 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1894 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1895 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1896 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1897 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1898 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1900 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1902 * Faster and better demangling
1904 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1905 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1906 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1907 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1908 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1909 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1912 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1913 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1914 compiler does not actually implement.
1916 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1918 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1919 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1920 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1921 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1922 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1923 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1926 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1927 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1929 * Improved configure script
1931 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1932 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1933 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1934 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1936 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1937 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1938 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1939 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1940 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1941 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1943 * Documentation improvements
1945 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1946 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1947 before submitting changes.
1949 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1950 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1951 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1952 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1953 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1955 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1956 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1957 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1958 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1959 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1960 around this problem.
1964 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1965 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1966 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1969 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1970 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1972 * New native hosts supported
1974 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1975 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1977 * New targets supported
1979 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1981 * New file formats supported
1983 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1984 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1988 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1990 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1991 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1993 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1994 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1995 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1997 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1998 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2000 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2001 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2002 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2005 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2006 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2007 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2008 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2009 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2011 * Internal improvements
2013 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2014 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2016 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2017 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2018 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2019 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2020 shared code that handles any of them.
2022 * New command line options
2024 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2028 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2029 General Public License.
2031 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2033 * Host/native/target split
2035 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2036 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2037 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2038 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2039 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2041 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2042 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2043 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2044 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2045 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2046 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2047 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2049 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2050 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2051 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2053 * New hosts supported
2055 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2056 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2057 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2059 * New targets supported
2061 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2062 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2064 * New native hosts supported
2066 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2067 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2068 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2070 * New file formats supported
2072 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2073 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2074 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2078 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2079 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2080 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2082 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2084 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2085 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2086 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2087 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2091 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2092 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2093 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2095 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2099 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2100 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2103 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2104 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2106 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2107 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2108 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2109 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2110 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2111 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2113 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2114 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2115 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2116 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2120 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2121 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2122 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2123 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2124 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2126 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2127 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2128 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2129 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2133 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2134 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2135 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2136 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2137 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2138 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2139 each instruction being stepped through.
2141 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2142 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2144 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2145 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2146 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2147 processor with a serial port.
2151 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2152 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2153 supported, and what files each one uses.
2157 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2158 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2159 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2160 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2162 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2163 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2164 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2165 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2169 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2170 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2171 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2172 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2173 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2174 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2176 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2179 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2181 * Better support for C++ function names
2183 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2184 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2185 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2186 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2187 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2189 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2190 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2191 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2192 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2193 for the list of formats.
2195 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2197 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2198 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2199 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2200 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2201 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2202 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2205 * New 'maintenance' command
2207 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2208 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2209 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2211 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2212 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2213 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2214 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2215 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2216 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2218 The following commands are new:
2220 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2221 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2222 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2224 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2226 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2227 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2228 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2229 read after argv processing.
2231 * New hosts supported
2233 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2235 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2237 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2238 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2239 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2240 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2241 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2244 * New targets supported
2246 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2248 * More smarts about finding #include files
2250 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2251 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2252 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2253 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2254 the one that contains your sources.
2256 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2257 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2258 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2260 * Interesting infernals change
2262 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2263 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2264 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2265 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2267 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2269 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2270 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2271 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2273 See the ChangeLog for details.
2275 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2277 * New machines supported (host and target)
2279 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2281 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2283 * New malloc package
2285 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2286 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2287 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2288 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2289 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2290 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2294 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2295 'help info proc' for details.
2297 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2299 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2300 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2303 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2305 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2306 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2307 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2308 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2309 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2310 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2312 * Cross byte order fixes
2314 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2315 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2317 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2319 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2320 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2321 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2322 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2323 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2324 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2325 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2326 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2327 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2328 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2330 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2331 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2332 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2333 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2335 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2336 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2337 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2340 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2342 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2343 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2344 shared across multiple host platforms.
2346 * longjmp() handling
2348 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2349 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2350 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2351 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2355 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2356 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2361 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2362 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2363 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2365 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2367 * New machines supported (host and target)
2369 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2371 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2372 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2374 * New machines supported (target)
2376 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2380 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2381 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2382 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2384 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2385 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2386 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2387 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2388 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2391 * New features for SVR4
2393 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2394 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2395 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2397 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2398 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2399 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2401 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2402 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2404 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2406 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2407 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2408 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2409 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2410 same code linked statically.
2414 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2415 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2416 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2417 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2418 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2419 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2423 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2424 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2425 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2428 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2430 * New machines supported (host and target)
2432 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2433 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2434 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2436 * Almost SCO Unix support
2438 We had hoped to support:
2439 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2440 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2441 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2442 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2444 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2446 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2447 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2448 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2449 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2454 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2455 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2456 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2460 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2461 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2462 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2464 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2466 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2467 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2468 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2470 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2471 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2472 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2473 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2476 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2477 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2478 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2479 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2482 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2483 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2486 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2487 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2488 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2491 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2493 * Improved configuration
2495 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2496 Porting BFD is simpler.
2500 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2501 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2502 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2503 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2507 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2509 * New host supported (not target)
2511 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2514 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2516 * Multiple source language support
2518 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2519 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2520 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2521 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2522 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2523 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2527 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2528 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2529 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2530 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2532 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2533 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2534 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2536 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2537 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2541 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2542 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2543 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2544 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2547 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2549 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2550 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2551 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2552 examining core files.
2556 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2559 * New machines supported (host and target)
2561 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2562 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2563 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2565 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2567 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2569 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2571 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2572 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2573 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2575 * New remote interfaces
2581 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2585 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2587 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2588 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2589 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2590 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2591 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2592 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2593 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2594 stub on the target system.
2596 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2598 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2599 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2600 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2602 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2603 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2606 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2608 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2609 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2611 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2612 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2613 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2615 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2616 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2617 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2618 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2620 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2621 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2622 it is already running. Default is ON.
2624 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2625 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2626 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2627 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2630 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2631 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2632 or the value of the environment variable
2635 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2636 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2639 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2640 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2641 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2643 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2644 history expansion will be performed on
2645 command line input. The default is OFF.
2647 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2648 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2649 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2651 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2652 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2653 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2656 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2657 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2658 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2661 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2662 ``set width'' instead.
2664 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2665 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2666 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2667 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2669 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2672 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2675 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2678 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2681 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2683 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2684 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2685 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2689 * Support for Shared Libraries
2691 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2692 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2693 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2694 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2695 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2696 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2697 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2698 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2700 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2701 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2702 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2704 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2709 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2710 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2711 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2712 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2713 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2714 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2716 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2718 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2720 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2721 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2722 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2725 * C++ multiple inheritance
2727 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2730 * C++ exception handling
2732 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2733 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2734 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2737 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2738 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2739 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2741 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2742 current stack frame.
2745 * Minor command changes
2747 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2748 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2749 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2751 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2752 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2753 frames without printing.
2755 * New directory command
2757 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2758 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2759 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2760 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2761 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2763 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2765 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2768 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2769 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2770 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2771 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob