1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.2:
6 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multithreaded applications on some targets
8 Support for multithreaded applications using LinuxThreads has been added
9 for arm*-*-linux*, i[3456]86-*-linux*, mips*-*-linux*, powerpc*-*-linux*,
12 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
14 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
15 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
18 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
19 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
20 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
21 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
23 Here are the new commands for working with macros:
25 ** macro expand EXPRESSION
27 Expand any macro invocations in expression, and show the result.
29 ** show macro MACRO-NAME
31 Show the definition of the macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was
34 * Multi-arched targets.
36 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
37 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
39 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
40 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
41 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
45 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
48 * New native configurations
50 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
51 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
52 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
53 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
55 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
57 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
58 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
59 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
62 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
63 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
64 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
65 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
69 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
71 * REMOVED configurations and files
73 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
74 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
75 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
76 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
77 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
79 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
81 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
83 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
84 commands. The default is 1024.
86 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
88 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
90 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
92 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
93 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
94 from a file into memory (restore).
96 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
104 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
105 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
106 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
108 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
109 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
110 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
112 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
113 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
114 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
116 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
117 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
118 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
120 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
122 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
124 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
125 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
126 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
127 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
128 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
129 (notably embedded) targets.
131 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
133 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
134 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
135 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
136 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
138 * New command line option
140 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
142 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
144 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
145 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
146 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
147 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
148 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
149 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
150 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
151 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
152 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
153 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
155 * Changes in ARM configurations.
157 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
158 configuration is fully multi-arch.
160 * New native configurations
162 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
163 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
164 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
165 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
169 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
171 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
173 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
174 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
175 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
178 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
179 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
180 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
181 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
182 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
184 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
186 * REMOVED configurations and files
188 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
190 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
191 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
192 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
193 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
194 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
195 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
196 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
197 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
198 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
199 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
200 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
202 * Changes to command line processing
204 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
205 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
207 * Changes to key bindings
209 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
211 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
213 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
215 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
218 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
220 Numerous documentation fixes.
222 Numerous testsuite fixes.
224 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
226 * New native configurations
228 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
229 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
230 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
231 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
233 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
237 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
239 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
241 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
243 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
244 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
245 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
246 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
247 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
249 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
250 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
251 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
252 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
253 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
254 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
255 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
256 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
258 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
259 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
261 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
262 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
263 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
266 * REMOVED configurations and files
268 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
269 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
271 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
275 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
277 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
278 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
283 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
285 * The MI enabled by default.
287 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
288 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
289 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
290 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
291 which is now deprecated.
293 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
295 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
296 main features are supported:
298 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
300 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
303 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
305 - a Pascal expression parser.
307 However, some important features are not yet supported.
309 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
311 - there are some problems with boolean types;
313 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
314 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
316 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
318 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
320 * Changes in completion.
322 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
323 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
324 users expect at the shell prompt.
326 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
327 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
328 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
329 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
330 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
331 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
332 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
334 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
336 * New platform-independent commands:
338 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
339 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
340 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
342 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
344 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
345 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
346 many threads as your system allows you to have.
348 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
350 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
351 multi-threaded programs though.
353 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
355 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
357 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
358 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
361 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
363 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
364 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
365 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
366 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
367 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
370 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
371 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
372 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
374 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
376 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
377 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
379 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
380 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
383 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
384 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
385 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
386 a given linear address.
388 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
389 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
390 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
392 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
394 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
396 * Changes in documentation.
398 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
399 Documentation License.
401 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
404 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
406 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
409 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
410 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
411 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
413 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
415 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
416 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
417 contents of this file.
421 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
423 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
425 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
427 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
428 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
429 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
430 greater level of detail.
432 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
434 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
435 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
436 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
439 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
441 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
442 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
443 machines ``out of the box''.
445 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
446 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
447 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
448 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
449 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
451 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
452 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
453 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
454 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
455 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
457 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
458 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
461 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
464 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
465 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
466 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
467 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
469 * New native configurations
471 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
472 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
476 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
477 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
478 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
479 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
481 * OBSOLETE configurations
483 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
484 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
486 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
489 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
490 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
491 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
492 be permanently REMOVED.
494 * Gould support removed
496 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
498 * New features for SVR4
500 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
501 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
502 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
504 * Many C++ enhancements
506 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
507 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
509 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
511 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
512 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
513 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
514 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
516 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
517 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
519 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
521 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
522 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
523 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
525 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
526 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
528 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
530 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
531 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
532 include ``set remote P-packet''.
534 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
536 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
537 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
538 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
540 * ``apropos'' command added.
542 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
543 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
544 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
548 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
549 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
550 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
551 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
552 enabled by configuring with:
554 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
556 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
558 * New native configurations
560 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
561 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
562 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
566 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
567 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
568 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
570 * OBSOLETE configurations
572 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
574 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
575 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
576 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
577 be permanently REMOVED.
581 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
582 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
583 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
584 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
585 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
586 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
587 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
592 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
594 * set extension-language
596 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
597 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
598 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
599 set extension-language .c c++
600 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
601 and their associated languages.
603 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
605 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
606 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
607 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
611 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
612 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
614 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
615 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
617 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
618 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
619 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
620 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
621 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
622 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
623 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
624 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
626 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
627 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
628 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
629 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
633 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
634 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
635 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
636 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
637 for xdb and dbx commands.
641 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
642 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
643 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
645 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
646 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
647 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
649 * Debugging across forks
651 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
656 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
657 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
658 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
660 * GDB remote protocol additions
662 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
663 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
664 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
665 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
667 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
668 full 64-bit address. The command
670 set remoteaddresssize 32
672 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
673 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
676 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
677 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
679 maint packet heythere
681 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
682 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
685 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
686 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
687 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
689 * Tracing can collect general expressions
691 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
692 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
693 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
695 * mask-address variable for Mips
697 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
698 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
699 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
701 * Higher serial baud rates
703 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
704 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
705 to achieve all of these rates.)
709 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
710 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
713 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
715 * New native configurations
717 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
718 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
719 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
720 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
721 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
722 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
723 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
727 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
728 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
729 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
730 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
731 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
732 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
733 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
734 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
735 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
736 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
737 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
739 * New debugging protocols
741 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
742 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
743 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
744 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
745 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
746 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
750 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
751 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
756 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
757 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
759 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
761 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
762 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
763 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
765 * Live range splitting
767 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
768 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
769 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
773 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
774 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
778 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
779 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
780 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
785 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
790 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
791 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
792 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
793 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
794 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
795 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
799 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
800 the symbol at the specified address.
804 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
805 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
806 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
807 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
808 file tracepoint.c for more details.
812 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
813 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
814 of most MIPS variants.
818 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
819 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
820 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
824 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
825 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
826 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
827 the possible architectures.
829 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
831 * New native configurations
833 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
834 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
835 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
836 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
837 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
838 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
842 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
843 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
844 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
845 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
846 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
848 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
852 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
853 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
854 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
855 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
856 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
860 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
862 * Windows 95/NT native
864 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
865 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
866 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
867 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
868 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
870 * dont-repeat command
872 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
873 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
874 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
875 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
877 * Send break instead of ^C
879 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
880 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
881 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
883 * Remote protocol timeout
885 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
886 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
887 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
889 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
891 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
892 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
893 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
894 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
895 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
897 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
898 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
899 automatically on hpux10.
901 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
903 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
905 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
907 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
908 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
909 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
910 every character. The default value is 1050.
912 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
914 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
915 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
916 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
917 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
918 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
919 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
921 * Speedups for remote debugging
923 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
924 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
925 and more efficient S-record downloading.
927 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
929 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
930 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
932 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
936 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
937 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
939 * Remote targets use caching
941 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
942 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
943 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
944 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
945 off' turns the the data cache off.
947 * Remote targets may have threads
949 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
950 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
951 gdb/remote.c for details.
955 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
956 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
957 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
958 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
959 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
960 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
961 sequence is something like
963 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
965 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
969 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
970 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
971 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
972 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
973 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
974 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
975 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
976 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
980 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
981 but does simplify configuration and building.
985 GDB now supports hpux10.
987 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
989 * New native configurations
991 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
992 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
993 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
994 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
998 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
999 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1000 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1001 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1004 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1006 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1007 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1008 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1009 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1010 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1012 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1014 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1015 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1018 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1020 To execute the command use:
1023 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1024 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1025 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1027 * New `if' and `while' commands
1029 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1030 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1031 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1032 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1033 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1034 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1035 if the expression is zero.
1037 * Fortran source language mode
1039 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1040 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1041 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1042 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1045 * Better HPUX support
1047 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1048 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1049 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1050 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1051 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1057 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1058 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1064 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1065 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1068 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1069 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1071 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1073 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1074 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1075 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1076 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1077 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1078 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1080 * New DOS host serial code
1082 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1083 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1086 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1088 * New "complete" command
1090 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1091 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1093 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1095 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1096 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1098 * Breakpoint hit counts
1100 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1101 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1102 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1103 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1104 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1107 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1109 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1110 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1111 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1113 * Shared library breakpoints
1115 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1116 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1118 * Hardware watchpoints
1120 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1121 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1123 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1127 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1128 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1130 * Improved Irix 5 support
1132 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1134 * Improved HPPA support
1136 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1138 * New native configurations
1140 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1141 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1142 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1143 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1147 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1148 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1151 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1153 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1154 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1158 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1159 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1161 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1163 * Irix 5 is now supported
1167 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1168 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1169 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1170 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1171 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1174 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1176 * User visible changes:
1180 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1181 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1182 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1183 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1184 debugging info for the mips target).
1186 * DEC Alpha native support
1188 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1189 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1190 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1191 Alpha-specific notes.
1193 * Preliminary thread implementation
1195 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1197 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1199 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1200 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1203 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1205 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1206 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1207 call methods, ...etc.
1209 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1211 * User visible changes:
1213 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1214 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1215 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1216 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1218 Filename completion now works.
1220 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1221 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1222 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1224 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1225 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1226 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1227 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1228 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1232 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1233 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1236 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1240 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1241 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1242 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1246 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1247 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1248 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1249 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1250 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1254 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1255 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1256 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1258 * New targets supported
1260 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1261 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1262 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1263 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1264 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1266 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1267 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1268 GO32 memory extender.
1270 * New remote protocols
1272 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1274 * New source languages supported
1276 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1277 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1278 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1281 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1283 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1285 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1286 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1287 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1288 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1289 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1290 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1292 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1294 * Faster and better demangling
1296 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1297 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1298 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1299 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1300 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1301 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1304 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1305 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1306 compiler does not actually implement.
1308 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1310 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1311 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1312 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1313 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1314 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1315 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1318 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1319 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1321 * Improved configure script
1323 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1324 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1325 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1326 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1328 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1329 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1330 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1331 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1332 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1333 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1335 * Documentation improvements
1337 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1338 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1339 before submitting changes.
1341 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1342 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1343 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1344 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1345 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1347 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1348 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1349 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1350 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1351 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1352 around this problem.
1356 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1357 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1358 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1361 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1362 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1364 * New native hosts supported
1366 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1367 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1369 * New targets supported
1371 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1373 * New file formats supported
1375 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1376 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1380 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1382 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1383 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1385 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1386 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1387 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1389 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1390 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1392 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1393 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1394 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1397 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1398 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1399 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1400 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1401 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1403 * Internal improvements
1405 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1406 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1408 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1409 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1410 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1411 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1412 shared code that handles any of them.
1414 * New command line options
1416 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1420 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1421 General Public License.
1423 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1425 * Host/native/target split
1427 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1428 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1429 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1430 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1431 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1433 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1434 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1435 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1436 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1437 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1438 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1439 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1441 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1442 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1443 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1445 * New hosts supported
1447 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1448 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1449 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1451 * New targets supported
1453 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1454 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1456 * New native hosts supported
1458 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1459 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1460 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1462 * New file formats supported
1464 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1465 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1466 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1470 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1471 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1472 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1474 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1476 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1477 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1478 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1479 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1483 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1484 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1485 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1487 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1491 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1492 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1495 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1496 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1498 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1499 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1500 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1501 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1502 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1503 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1505 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1506 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1507 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1508 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1512 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1513 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1514 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1515 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1516 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1518 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1519 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1520 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1521 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1525 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1526 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1527 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1528 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1529 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1530 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1531 each instruction being stepped through.
1533 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1534 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1536 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1537 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1538 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1539 processor with a serial port.
1543 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1544 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1545 supported, and what files each one uses.
1549 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1550 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1551 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1552 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1554 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1555 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1556 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1557 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1561 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1562 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1563 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1564 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1565 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1566 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1568 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1571 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1573 * Better support for C++ function names
1575 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1576 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1577 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1578 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1579 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1581 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1582 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1583 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1584 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1585 for the list of formats.
1587 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1589 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1590 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1591 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1592 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1593 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1594 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1597 * New 'maintenance' command
1599 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1600 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1601 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1603 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1604 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1605 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1606 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1607 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1608 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1610 The following commands are new:
1612 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1613 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1614 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1616 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1618 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1619 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1620 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1621 read after argv processing.
1623 * New hosts supported
1625 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1627 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1629 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1630 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1631 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1632 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1633 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1636 * New targets supported
1638 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1640 * More smarts about finding #include files
1642 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1643 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1644 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1645 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1646 the one that contains your sources.
1648 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1649 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1650 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1652 * Interesting infernals change
1654 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1655 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1656 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1657 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1659 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1661 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1662 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1663 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1665 See the ChangeLog for details.
1667 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1669 * New machines supported (host and target)
1671 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1673 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1675 * New malloc package
1677 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1678 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1679 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1680 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1681 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1682 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1686 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1687 'help info proc' for details.
1689 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1691 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1692 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1695 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1697 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1698 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1699 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1700 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1701 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1702 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1704 * Cross byte order fixes
1706 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1707 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1709 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1711 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1712 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1713 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1714 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1715 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1716 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1717 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1718 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1719 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1720 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1722 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1723 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1724 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1725 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1727 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1728 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1729 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1732 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1734 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1735 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1736 shared across multiple host platforms.
1738 * longjmp() handling
1740 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1741 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1742 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1743 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1747 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1748 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1753 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1754 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1755 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1757 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1759 * New machines supported (host and target)
1761 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1763 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1764 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1766 * New machines supported (target)
1768 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1772 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1773 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1774 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1776 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1777 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1778 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1779 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1780 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1783 * New features for SVR4
1785 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1786 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1787 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1789 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1790 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1791 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1793 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1794 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1796 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1798 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1799 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1800 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1801 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1802 same code linked statically.
1806 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1807 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1808 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1809 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1810 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1811 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1815 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1816 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1817 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1820 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1822 * New machines supported (host and target)
1824 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1825 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1826 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1828 * Almost SCO Unix support
1830 We had hoped to support:
1831 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1832 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1833 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1834 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1836 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1838 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1839 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1840 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1841 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1846 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1847 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1848 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1852 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1853 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1854 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1856 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1858 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1859 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1860 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1862 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1863 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1864 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1865 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1868 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1869 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1870 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1871 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1874 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1875 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1878 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1879 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1880 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1883 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1885 * Improved configuration
1887 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1888 Porting BFD is simpler.
1892 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1893 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1894 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1895 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1899 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1901 * New host supported (not target)
1903 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1906 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1908 * Multiple source language support
1910 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1911 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1912 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1913 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1914 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1915 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1919 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1920 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1921 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1922 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1924 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1925 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1926 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1928 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1929 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1933 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1934 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1935 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1936 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1939 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1941 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1942 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1943 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1944 examining core files.
1948 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1951 * New machines supported (host and target)
1953 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1954 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1955 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1957 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1959 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1961 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1963 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1964 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1965 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1967 * New remote interfaces
1973 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1977 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1979 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1980 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1981 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1982 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1983 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1984 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1985 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1986 stub on the target system.
1988 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1990 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1991 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1992 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1994 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1995 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1998 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2000 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2001 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2003 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2004 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2005 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2007 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2008 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2009 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2010 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2012 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2013 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2014 it is already running. Default is ON.
2016 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2017 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2018 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2019 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2022 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2023 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2024 or the value of the environment variable
2027 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2028 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2031 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2032 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2033 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2035 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2036 history expansion will be performed on
2037 command line input. The default is OFF.
2039 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2040 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2041 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2043 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2044 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2045 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2048 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2049 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2050 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2053 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2054 ``set width'' instead.
2056 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2057 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2058 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2059 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2061 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2064 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2067 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2070 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2073 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2075 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2076 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2077 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2081 * Support for Shared Libraries
2083 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2084 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2085 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2086 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2087 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2088 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2089 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2090 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2092 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2093 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2094 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2096 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2101 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2102 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2103 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2104 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2105 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2106 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2108 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2110 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2112 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2113 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2114 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2117 * C++ multiple inheritance
2119 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2122 * C++ exception handling
2124 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2125 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2126 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2129 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2130 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2131 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2133 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2134 current stack frame.
2137 * Minor command changes
2139 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2140 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2141 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2143 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2144 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2145 frames without printing.
2147 * New directory command
2149 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2150 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2151 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2152 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2153 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2155 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2157 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2160 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2161 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2162 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2163 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob