1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
6 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
7 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
9 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
10 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
12 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
14 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
15 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
16 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
18 * Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
23 set mem inaccessible-by-default
24 show mem inaccessible-by-default
25 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
26 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
27 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
28 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
29 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
31 set breakpoint auto-hw
32 show breakpoint auto-hw
33 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
34 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
35 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
36 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
37 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
38 including "next" and "finish".
41 catch exception unhandled
42 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
45 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
49 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
50 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
51 an alias to "set sysroot".
53 * New native configurations
55 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
60 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
61 not query the target for its built-in description.
65 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
66 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
71 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
72 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
75 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
78 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
83 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
85 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
86 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
87 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
89 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
90 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
93 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
94 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
96 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
97 stub provides the required support.
99 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
100 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
105 unset substitute-path
107 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
108 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
109 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
110 between compilation and debugging.
114 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
115 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
116 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
120 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
122 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
123 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
125 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
130 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
131 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
132 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
133 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
137 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
138 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
140 qXfer:memory-map:read:
141 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
142 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
147 Erase and program a flash memory device.
149 * Removed remote packets
152 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
153 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
155 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
159 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
161 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
165 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
166 only if it doesn't already have a value.
168 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
170 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
172 restart <n> Return the program state to a
173 previously saved state.
175 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
177 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
179 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
180 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
182 info forks List forks of the user program that
183 are available to be debugged.
185 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
186 forks of the user program that are
187 available to be debugged.
189 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
190 that are available to be debugged (and
191 kill the forked process).
193 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
194 that are available to be debugged (and
195 allow the process to continue).
199 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
201 * Improved Windows host support
203 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
204 native console support, and remote communications using either
205 network sockets or serial ports.
207 * Improved Modula-2 language support
209 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
210 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
211 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
212 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
213 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
214 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
218 The ARM rdi-share module.
220 The Netware NLM debug server.
222 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
224 * New native configurations
226 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
227 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
231 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
233 * New command line options
235 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
236 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
237 the child (debugged) program exited with.
238 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
239 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
240 specified multiple times and in conjunction
241 with the --command (-x) option.
243 * Deprecated commands removed
245 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
249 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
250 othernames set arm disassembler
251 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
252 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
253 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
256 * New BSD user-level threads support
258 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
259 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
262 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
263 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
264 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
266 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
267 are not yet supported.
269 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
270 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
272 * REMOVED configurations and files
274 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
275 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
276 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
278 * New "set print array-indexes" command
280 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
281 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
284 * VAX floating point support
286 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
288 * User-defined command support
290 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
291 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
292 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
294 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
296 * New command line option
298 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
301 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
303 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
304 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
305 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
306 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
307 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
309 * Internationalization
311 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
312 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
313 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
317 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
318 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
319 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
321 * New native configurations
323 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
327 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
328 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
330 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
332 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
333 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
334 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
337 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
338 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
339 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
351 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
352 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
354 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
356 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
357 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
358 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
368 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
370 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
372 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
373 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
376 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
378 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
379 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
380 IRIX long double values).
384 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
385 command. This problem has been fixed.
387 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
389 * Fix for ``many threads''
391 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
392 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
395 ptrace: No such process.
396 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
398 This problem has been fixed.
400 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
402 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
405 * New ``start'' command.
407 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
409 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
411 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
412 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
413 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
415 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
416 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
417 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
418 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
419 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
420 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
421 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
422 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
423 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
425 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
427 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
428 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
429 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
430 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
431 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
433 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
434 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
435 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
437 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
439 * New native configurations
441 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
442 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
443 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
444 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
445 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
446 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
447 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
449 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
451 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
452 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
453 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
454 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
455 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
456 work, was also included.
458 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
459 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
469 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
470 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
472 * REMOVED configurations and files
474 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
475 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
476 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
477 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
478 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
479 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
480 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
481 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
482 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
484 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
486 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
488 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
490 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
491 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
492 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
493 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
496 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
498 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
499 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
500 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
501 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
502 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
503 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
506 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
508 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
510 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
511 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
512 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
514 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
516 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
517 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
519 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
521 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
522 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
523 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
525 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
527 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
528 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
530 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
532 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
533 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
534 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
536 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
538 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
539 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
540 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
542 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
544 * Removed --with-mmalloc
546 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
547 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
549 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
551 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
552 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
553 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
554 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
556 * Revised SPARC target
558 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
559 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
560 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
561 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
562 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
566 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
567 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
568 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
571 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
573 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
574 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
577 * C++ nested types and namespaces
579 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
580 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
581 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
582 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
583 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
584 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
585 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
586 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
587 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
589 * New native configurations
591 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
592 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
593 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
594 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
595 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
597 * New debugging protocols
599 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
601 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
603 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
604 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
605 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
607 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
609 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
610 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
611 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
614 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
615 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
616 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
617 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
618 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
619 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
620 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
621 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
622 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
624 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
626 * REMOVED configurations and files
628 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
629 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
630 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
631 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
632 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
633 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
634 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
635 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
636 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
637 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
638 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
639 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
640 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
641 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
642 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
643 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
644 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
646 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
650 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
653 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
655 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
656 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
657 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
660 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
661 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
666 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
667 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
668 remote protocol documentation for details.
670 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
672 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
673 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
674 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
677 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
679 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
680 per-thread variables.
682 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
684 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
685 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
687 * Separate debug info.
689 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
690 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
691 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
692 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
693 and optional debug files.
695 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
697 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
698 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
701 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
702 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
706 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
707 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
708 considered "useable".
710 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
712 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
713 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
716 * GDB supports logging output to a file
718 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
719 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
721 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
723 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
724 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
727 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
729 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
730 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
734 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
735 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
736 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
737 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
738 data, for more informative profiling results.
740 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
742 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
743 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
744 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
746 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
749 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
750 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
751 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
752 in a subsequent -var-update.
754 * New native configurations.
756 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
758 * Multi-arched targets.
760 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
761 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
763 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
765 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
766 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
767 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
770 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
771 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
772 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
773 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
774 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
775 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
776 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
777 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
778 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
779 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
780 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
781 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
783 * REMOVED configurations and files
786 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
787 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
788 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
789 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
790 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
791 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
793 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
794 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
795 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
796 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
797 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
798 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
800 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
802 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
803 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
804 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
805 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
806 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
808 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
810 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
812 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
813 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
814 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
815 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
816 shared libs like mad''.
818 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
820 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
821 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
822 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
823 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
825 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
827 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
828 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
831 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
832 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
834 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
835 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
837 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
838 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
839 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
840 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
842 * Multi-arched targets.
844 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
845 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
847 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
848 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
849 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
853 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
856 * New native configurations
858 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
859 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
860 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
861 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
863 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
865 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
866 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
867 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
870 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
871 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
872 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
873 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
874 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
875 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
876 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
877 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
878 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
879 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
881 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
882 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
886 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
888 * REMOVED configurations and files
890 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
891 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
892 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
893 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
894 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
896 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
898 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
900 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
901 commands. The default is 1024.
903 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
905 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
907 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
909 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
910 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
911 from a file into memory (restore).
913 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
915 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
916 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
917 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
919 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
927 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
928 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
929 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
931 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
932 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
933 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
935 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
936 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
937 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
939 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
940 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
941 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
943 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
945 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
947 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
948 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
949 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
950 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
951 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
952 (notably embedded) targets.
954 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
956 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
957 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
958 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
959 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
961 * New command line option
963 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
965 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
967 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
968 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
969 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
970 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
971 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
972 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
973 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
974 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
975 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
976 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
978 * Changes in ARM configurations.
980 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
981 configuration is fully multi-arch.
983 * New native configurations
985 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
986 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
987 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
988 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
992 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
994 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
996 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
997 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
998 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1001 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1002 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1003 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1004 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1005 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1007 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1009 * REMOVED configurations and files
1011 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1013 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1014 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1015 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1016 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1017 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1018 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1019 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1020 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1021 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1022 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1023 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1025 * Changes to command line processing
1027 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1028 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1030 * Changes to key bindings
1032 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1034 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1036 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1038 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1041 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1043 Numerous documentation fixes.
1045 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1047 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1049 * New native configurations
1051 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1052 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1053 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1054 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1055 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1056 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1060 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1062 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1064 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1066 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1067 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1068 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1069 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1070 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1072 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1073 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1074 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1075 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1076 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1077 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1078 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1079 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1081 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1082 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1084 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1085 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1086 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1087 permanently REMOVED.
1089 * REMOVED configurations and files
1091 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1092 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1094 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1098 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1100 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1101 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1106 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1108 * The MI enabled by default.
1110 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1111 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1112 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1113 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1114 which is now deprecated.
1116 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1118 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1119 main features are supported:
1121 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1123 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1126 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1128 - a Pascal expression parser.
1130 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1132 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1134 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1136 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1137 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1139 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1141 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1143 * Changes in completion.
1145 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1146 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1147 users expect at the shell prompt.
1149 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1150 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1151 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1152 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1153 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1154 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1155 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1157 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1159 * New platform-independent commands:
1161 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1162 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1163 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1165 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1167 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1168 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1169 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1171 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1173 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1174 multi-threaded programs though.
1176 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1178 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1180 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1181 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1184 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1186 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1187 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1188 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1189 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1190 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1193 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1194 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1195 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1197 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1199 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1200 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1202 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1203 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1206 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1207 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1208 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1209 a given linear address.
1211 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1212 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1213 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1215 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1217 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1219 * Changes in documentation.
1221 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1222 Documentation License.
1224 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1227 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1229 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1232 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1233 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1234 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1236 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1238 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1239 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1240 contents of this file.
1244 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1246 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1248 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1250 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1251 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1252 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1253 greater level of detail.
1255 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1257 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1258 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1259 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1262 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1264 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1265 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1266 machines ``out of the box''.
1268 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1269 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1270 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1271 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1272 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1274 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1275 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1276 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1277 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1278 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1280 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1281 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1284 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1287 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1288 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1289 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1290 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1292 * New native configurations
1294 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1295 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1299 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1300 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1301 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1302 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1304 * OBSOLETE configurations
1306 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1307 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1309 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1312 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1313 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1314 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1315 be permanently REMOVED.
1317 * Gould support removed
1319 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1321 * New features for SVR4
1323 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1324 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1325 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1327 * Many C++ enhancements
1329 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1330 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1332 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1334 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1335 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1336 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1337 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1339 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1340 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1342 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1344 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1345 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1346 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1348 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1349 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1351 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1353 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1354 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1355 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1357 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1359 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1360 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1361 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1363 * ``apropos'' command added.
1365 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1366 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1367 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1371 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1372 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1373 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1374 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1375 enabled by configuring with:
1377 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1379 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1381 * New native configurations
1383 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1384 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1385 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1389 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1390 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1391 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1393 * OBSOLETE configurations
1395 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1397 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1398 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1399 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1400 be permanently REMOVED.
1404 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1405 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1406 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1407 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1408 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1409 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1410 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1415 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1417 * set extension-language
1419 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1420 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1421 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1422 set extension-language .c c++
1423 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1424 and their associated languages.
1426 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1428 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1429 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1430 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1434 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1435 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1437 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1438 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1440 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1441 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1442 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1443 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1444 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1445 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1446 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1447 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1449 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1450 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1451 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1452 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1456 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1457 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1458 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1459 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1460 for xdb and dbx commands.
1464 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1465 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1466 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1468 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1469 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1470 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1472 * Debugging across forks
1474 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1479 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1480 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1481 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1483 * GDB remote protocol additions
1485 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1486 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1487 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1488 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1490 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1491 full 64-bit address. The command
1493 set remoteaddresssize 32
1495 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1496 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1499 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1500 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1502 maint packet heythere
1504 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1505 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1508 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1509 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1510 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1512 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1514 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1515 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1516 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1518 * mask-address variable for Mips
1520 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1521 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1522 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1524 * Higher serial baud rates
1526 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1527 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1528 to achieve all of these rates.)
1532 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1533 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1536 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1538 * New native configurations
1540 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1541 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1542 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1543 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1544 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1545 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1546 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1550 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1551 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1552 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1553 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1554 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1555 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1556 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1557 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1558 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1559 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1560 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1562 * New debugging protocols
1564 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1565 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1566 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1567 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1568 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1569 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1573 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1574 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1579 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1580 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1582 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1584 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1585 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1586 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1588 * Live range splitting
1590 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1591 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1592 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1596 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1597 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1601 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1602 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1603 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1608 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1613 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1614 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1615 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1616 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1617 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1618 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1622 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1623 the symbol at the specified address.
1627 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1628 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1629 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1630 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1631 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1635 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1636 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1637 of most MIPS variants.
1641 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1642 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1643 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1647 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1648 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1649 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1650 the possible architectures.
1652 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1654 * New native configurations
1656 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1657 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1658 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1659 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1660 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1661 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1665 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1666 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1667 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1668 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1669 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1671 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1675 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1676 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1677 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1678 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1679 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1683 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1685 * Windows 95/NT native
1687 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1688 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1689 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1690 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1691 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1693 * dont-repeat command
1695 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1696 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1697 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1698 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1700 * Send break instead of ^C
1702 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1703 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1704 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1706 * Remote protocol timeout
1708 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1709 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1710 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1712 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1714 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1715 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1716 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1717 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1718 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1720 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1721 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1722 automatically on hpux10.
1724 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1726 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1728 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1730 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1731 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1732 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1733 every character. The default value is 1050.
1735 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1737 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1738 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1739 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1740 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1741 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1742 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1744 * Speedups for remote debugging
1746 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1747 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1748 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1750 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1752 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1753 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1755 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1757 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1759 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1760 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1762 * Remote targets use caching
1764 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1765 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1766 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1767 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1768 off' turns the the data cache off.
1770 * Remote targets may have threads
1772 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1773 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1774 gdb/remote.c for details.
1778 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1779 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1780 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1781 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1782 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1783 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1784 sequence is something like
1786 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1788 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1792 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1793 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1794 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1795 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1796 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1797 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1798 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1799 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1803 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1804 but does simplify configuration and building.
1808 GDB now supports hpux10.
1810 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1812 * New native configurations
1814 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1815 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1816 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1817 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1821 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1822 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1823 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1824 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1827 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1829 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1830 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1831 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1832 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1833 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1835 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1837 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1838 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1841 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1843 To execute the command use:
1846 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1847 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1848 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1850 * New `if' and `while' commands
1852 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1853 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1854 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1855 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1856 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1857 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1858 if the expression is zero.
1860 * Fortran source language mode
1862 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1863 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1864 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1865 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1868 * Better HPUX support
1870 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1871 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1872 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1873 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1874 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1880 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1881 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1887 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1888 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1891 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1892 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1894 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1896 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1897 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1898 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1899 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1900 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1901 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1903 * New DOS host serial code
1905 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1906 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1909 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1911 * New "complete" command
1913 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1914 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1916 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1918 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1919 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1921 * Breakpoint hit counts
1923 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1924 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1925 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1926 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1927 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1930 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1932 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1933 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1934 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1936 * Shared library breakpoints
1938 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1939 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1941 * Hardware watchpoints
1943 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1944 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1946 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1950 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1951 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1953 * Improved Irix 5 support
1955 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1957 * Improved HPPA support
1959 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1961 * New native configurations
1963 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1964 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1965 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1966 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1970 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1971 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1974 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1976 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1977 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1981 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1982 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1984 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1986 * Irix 5 is now supported
1990 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1991 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1992 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1993 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1994 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1997 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1999 * User visible changes:
2003 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2004 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2005 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2006 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2007 debugging info for the mips target).
2009 * DEC Alpha native support
2011 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2012 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2013 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2014 Alpha-specific notes.
2016 * Preliminary thread implementation
2018 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2020 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2022 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2023 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2026 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2028 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2029 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2030 call methods, ...etc.
2032 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2034 * User visible changes:
2036 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2037 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2038 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2039 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2041 Filename completion now works.
2043 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2044 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2045 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2047 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2048 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2049 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2050 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2051 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2055 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2056 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2059 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2063 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2064 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2065 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2069 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2070 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2071 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2072 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2073 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2077 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2078 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2079 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2081 * New targets supported
2083 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2084 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2085 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2086 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2087 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2089 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2090 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2091 GO32 memory extender.
2093 * New remote protocols
2095 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2097 * New source languages supported
2099 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2100 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2101 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2104 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2106 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2108 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2109 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2110 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2111 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2112 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2113 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2115 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2117 * Faster and better demangling
2119 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2120 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2121 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2122 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2123 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2124 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2127 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2128 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2129 compiler does not actually implement.
2131 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2133 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2134 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2135 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2136 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2137 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2138 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2141 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2142 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2144 * Improved configure script
2146 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2147 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2148 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2149 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2151 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2152 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2153 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2154 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2155 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2156 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2158 * Documentation improvements
2160 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2161 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2162 before submitting changes.
2164 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2165 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2166 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2167 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2168 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2170 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2171 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2172 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2173 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2174 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2175 around this problem.
2179 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2180 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2181 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2184 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2185 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2187 * New native hosts supported
2189 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2190 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2192 * New targets supported
2194 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2196 * New file formats supported
2198 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2199 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2203 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2205 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2206 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2208 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2209 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2210 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2212 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2213 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2215 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2216 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2217 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2220 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2221 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2222 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2223 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2224 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2226 * Internal improvements
2228 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2229 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2231 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2232 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2233 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2234 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2235 shared code that handles any of them.
2237 * New command line options
2239 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2243 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2244 General Public License.
2246 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2248 * Host/native/target split
2250 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2251 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2252 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2253 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2254 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2256 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2257 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2258 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2259 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2260 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2261 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2262 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2264 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2265 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2266 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2268 * New hosts supported
2270 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2271 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2272 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2274 * New targets supported
2276 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2277 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2279 * New native hosts supported
2281 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2282 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2283 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2285 * New file formats supported
2287 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2288 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2289 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2293 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2294 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2295 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2297 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2299 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2300 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2301 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2302 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2306 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2307 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2308 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2310 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2314 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2315 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2318 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2319 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2321 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2322 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2323 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2324 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2325 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2326 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2328 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2329 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2330 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2331 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2335 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2336 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2337 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2338 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2339 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2341 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2342 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2343 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2344 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2348 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2349 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2350 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2351 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2352 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2353 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2354 each instruction being stepped through.
2356 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2357 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2359 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2360 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2361 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2362 processor with a serial port.
2366 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2367 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2368 supported, and what files each one uses.
2372 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2373 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2374 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2375 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2377 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2378 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2379 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2380 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2384 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2385 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2386 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2387 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2388 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2389 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2391 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2394 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2396 * Better support for C++ function names
2398 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2399 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2400 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2401 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2402 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2404 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2405 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2406 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2407 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2408 for the list of formats.
2410 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2412 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2413 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2414 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2415 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2416 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2417 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2420 * New 'maintenance' command
2422 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2423 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2424 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2426 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2427 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2428 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2429 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2430 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2431 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2433 The following commands are new:
2435 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2436 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2437 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2439 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2441 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2442 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2443 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2444 read after argv processing.
2446 * New hosts supported
2448 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2450 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2452 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2453 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2454 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2455 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2456 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2459 * New targets supported
2461 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2463 * More smarts about finding #include files
2465 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2466 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2467 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2468 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2469 the one that contains your sources.
2471 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2472 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2473 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2475 * Interesting infernals change
2477 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2478 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2479 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2480 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2482 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2484 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2485 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2486 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2488 See the ChangeLog for details.
2490 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2492 * New machines supported (host and target)
2494 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2496 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2498 * New malloc package
2500 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2501 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2502 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2503 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2504 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2505 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2509 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2510 'help info proc' for details.
2512 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2514 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2515 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2518 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2520 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2521 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2522 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2523 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2524 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2525 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2527 * Cross byte order fixes
2529 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2530 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2532 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2534 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2535 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2536 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2537 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2538 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2539 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2540 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2541 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2542 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2543 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2545 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2546 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2547 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2548 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2550 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2551 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2552 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2555 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2557 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2558 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2559 shared across multiple host platforms.
2561 * longjmp() handling
2563 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2564 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2565 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2566 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2570 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2571 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2576 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2577 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2578 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2580 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2582 * New machines supported (host and target)
2584 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2586 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2587 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2589 * New machines supported (target)
2591 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2595 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2596 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2597 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2599 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2600 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2601 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2602 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2603 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2606 * New features for SVR4
2608 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2609 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2610 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2612 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2613 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2614 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2616 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2617 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2619 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2621 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2622 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2623 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2624 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2625 same code linked statically.
2629 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2630 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2631 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2632 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2633 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2634 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2638 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2639 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2640 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2643 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2645 * New machines supported (host and target)
2647 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2648 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2649 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2651 * Almost SCO Unix support
2653 We had hoped to support:
2654 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2655 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2656 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2657 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2659 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2661 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2662 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2663 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2664 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2669 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2670 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2671 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2675 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2676 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2677 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2679 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2681 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2682 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2683 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2685 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2686 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2687 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2688 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2691 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2692 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2693 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2694 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2697 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2698 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2701 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2702 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2703 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2706 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2708 * Improved configuration
2710 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2711 Porting BFD is simpler.
2715 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2716 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2717 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2718 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2722 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2724 * New host supported (not target)
2726 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2729 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2731 * Multiple source language support
2733 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2734 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2735 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2736 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2737 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2738 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2742 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2743 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2744 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2745 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2747 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2748 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2749 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2751 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2752 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2756 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2757 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2758 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2759 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2762 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2764 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2765 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2766 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2767 examining core files.
2771 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2774 * New machines supported (host and target)
2776 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2777 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2778 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2780 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2782 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2784 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2786 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2787 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2788 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2790 * New remote interfaces
2796 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2800 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2802 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2803 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2804 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2805 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2806 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2807 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2808 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2809 stub on the target system.
2811 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2813 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2814 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2815 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2817 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2818 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2821 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2823 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2824 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2826 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2827 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2828 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2830 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2831 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2832 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2833 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2835 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2836 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2837 it is already running. Default is ON.
2839 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2840 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2841 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2842 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2845 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2846 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2847 or the value of the environment variable
2850 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2851 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2854 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2855 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2856 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2858 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2859 history expansion will be performed on
2860 command line input. The default is OFF.
2862 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2863 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2864 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2866 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2867 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2868 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2871 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2872 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2873 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2876 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2877 ``set width'' instead.
2879 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2880 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2881 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2882 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2884 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2887 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2890 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2893 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2896 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2898 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2899 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2900 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2904 * Support for Shared Libraries
2906 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2907 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2908 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2909 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2910 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2911 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2912 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2913 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2915 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2916 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2917 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2919 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2924 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2925 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2926 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2927 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2928 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2929 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2931 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2933 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2935 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2936 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2937 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2940 * C++ multiple inheritance
2942 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2945 * C++ exception handling
2947 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2948 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2949 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2952 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2953 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2954 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2956 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2957 current stack frame.
2960 * Minor command changes
2962 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2963 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2964 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2966 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2967 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2968 frames without printing.
2970 * New directory command
2972 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2973 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2974 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2975 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2976 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2978 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2980 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2983 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2984 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2985 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2986 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob