1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.3
6 * REMOVED configurations and files
8 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
10 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
12 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
14 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
15 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
16 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
17 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
18 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
20 * Internationalization
22 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
23 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
24 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
28 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
29 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
30 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
32 * New native configurations
34 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
38 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
39 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
41 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
43 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
44 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
45 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
48 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
49 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
50 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
62 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
63 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
65 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
67 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
68 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
69 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
79 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
81 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
83 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
84 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
87 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
89 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
90 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
91 IRIX long double values).
95 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
96 command. This problem has been fixed.
98 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
100 * Fix for ``many threads''
102 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
103 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
106 ptrace: No such process.
107 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
109 This problem has been fixed.
111 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
113 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
116 * New ``start'' command.
118 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
120 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
122 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
123 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
124 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
126 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
127 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
128 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
129 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
130 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
131 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
132 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
133 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
134 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
136 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
138 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
139 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
140 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
141 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
142 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
144 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
145 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
146 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
148 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
150 * New native configurations
152 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
153 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
154 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
155 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
156 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
157 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
158 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
160 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
162 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
163 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
164 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
165 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
166 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
167 work, was also included.
169 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
170 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
180 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
181 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
183 * REMOVED configurations and files
185 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
186 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
187 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
188 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
189 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
190 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
191 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
192 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
193 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
195 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
197 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
199 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
201 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
202 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
203 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
204 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
207 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
209 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
210 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
211 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
212 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
213 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
214 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
217 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
219 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
221 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
222 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
223 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
225 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
227 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
228 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
230 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
232 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
233 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
234 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
236 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
238 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
239 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
241 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
243 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
244 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
245 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
247 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
249 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
250 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
251 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
253 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
255 * Removed --with-mmalloc
257 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
258 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
260 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
262 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
263 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
264 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
265 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
267 * Revised SPARC target
269 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
270 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
271 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
272 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
273 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
277 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
278 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
279 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
282 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
284 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
285 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
288 * C++ nested types and namespaces
290 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
291 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
292 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
293 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
294 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
295 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
296 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
297 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
298 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
300 * New native configurations
302 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
303 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
304 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
305 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
306 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
308 * New debugging protocols
310 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
312 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
314 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
315 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
316 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
318 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
320 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
321 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
322 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
325 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
326 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
327 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
328 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
329 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
330 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
331 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
332 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
333 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
335 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
337 * REMOVED configurations and files
339 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
340 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
341 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
342 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
343 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
344 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
345 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
346 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
347 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
348 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
349 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
350 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
351 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
352 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
353 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
354 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
355 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
357 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
361 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
364 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
366 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
367 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
368 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
371 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
372 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
377 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
378 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
379 remote protocol documentation for details.
381 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
383 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
384 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
385 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
388 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
390 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
391 per-thread variables.
393 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
395 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
396 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
398 * Separate debug info.
400 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
401 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
402 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
403 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
404 and optional debug files.
406 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
408 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
409 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
412 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
413 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
417 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
418 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
419 considered "useable".
421 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
423 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
424 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
427 * GDB supports logging output to a file
429 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
430 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
432 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
434 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
435 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
438 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
440 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
441 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
445 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
446 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
447 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
448 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
449 data, for more informative profiling results.
451 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
453 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
454 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
455 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
457 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
460 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
461 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
462 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
463 in a subsequent -var-update.
465 * New native configurations.
467 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
469 * Multi-arched targets.
471 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
472 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
474 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
476 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
477 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
478 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
481 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
482 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
483 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
484 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
485 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
486 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
487 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
488 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
489 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
490 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
491 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
492 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
494 * REMOVED configurations and files
497 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
498 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
499 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
500 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
501 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
502 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
504 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
505 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
506 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
507 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
508 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
509 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
511 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
513 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
514 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
515 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
516 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
517 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
519 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
521 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
523 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
524 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
525 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
526 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
527 shared libs like mad''.
529 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
531 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
532 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
533 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
534 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
536 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
538 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
539 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
542 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
543 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
545 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
546 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
548 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
549 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
550 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
551 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
553 * Multi-arched targets.
555 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
556 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
558 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
559 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
560 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
564 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
567 * New native configurations
569 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
570 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
571 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
572 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
574 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
576 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
577 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
578 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
581 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
582 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
583 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
584 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
585 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
586 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
587 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
588 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
589 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
590 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
592 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
593 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
597 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
599 * REMOVED configurations and files
601 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
602 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
603 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
604 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
605 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
607 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
609 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
611 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
612 commands. The default is 1024.
614 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
616 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
618 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
620 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
621 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
622 from a file into memory (restore).
624 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
626 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
627 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
628 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
630 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
638 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
639 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
640 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
642 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
643 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
644 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
646 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
647 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
648 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
650 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
651 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
652 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
654 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
656 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
658 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
659 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
660 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
661 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
662 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
663 (notably embedded) targets.
665 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
667 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
668 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
669 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
670 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
672 * New command line option
674 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
676 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
678 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
679 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
680 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
681 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
682 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
683 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
684 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
685 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
686 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
687 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
689 * Changes in ARM configurations.
691 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
692 configuration is fully multi-arch.
694 * New native configurations
696 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
697 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
698 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
699 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
703 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
705 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
707 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
708 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
709 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
712 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
713 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
714 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
715 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
716 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
718 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
720 * REMOVED configurations and files
722 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
724 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
725 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
726 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
727 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
728 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
729 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
730 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
731 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
732 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
733 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
734 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
736 * Changes to command line processing
738 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
739 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
741 * Changes to key bindings
743 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
745 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
747 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
749 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
752 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
754 Numerous documentation fixes.
756 Numerous testsuite fixes.
758 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
760 * New native configurations
762 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
763 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
764 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
765 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
767 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
771 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
773 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
775 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
777 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
778 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
779 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
780 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
781 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
783 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
784 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
785 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
786 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
787 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
788 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
789 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
790 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
792 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
793 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
795 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
796 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
797 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
800 * REMOVED configurations and files
802 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
803 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
805 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
809 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
811 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
812 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
817 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
819 * The MI enabled by default.
821 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
822 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
823 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
824 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
825 which is now deprecated.
827 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
829 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
830 main features are supported:
832 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
834 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
837 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
839 - a Pascal expression parser.
841 However, some important features are not yet supported.
843 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
845 - there are some problems with boolean types;
847 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
848 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
850 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
852 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
854 * Changes in completion.
856 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
857 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
858 users expect at the shell prompt.
860 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
861 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
862 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
863 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
864 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
865 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
866 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
868 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
870 * New platform-independent commands:
872 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
873 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
874 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
876 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
878 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
879 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
880 many threads as your system allows you to have.
882 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
884 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
885 multi-threaded programs though.
887 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
889 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
891 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
892 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
895 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
897 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
898 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
899 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
900 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
901 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
904 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
905 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
906 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
908 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
910 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
911 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
913 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
914 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
917 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
918 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
919 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
920 a given linear address.
922 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
923 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
924 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
926 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
928 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
930 * Changes in documentation.
932 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
933 Documentation License.
935 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
938 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
940 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
943 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
944 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
945 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
947 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
949 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
950 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
951 contents of this file.
955 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
957 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
959 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
961 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
962 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
963 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
964 greater level of detail.
966 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
968 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
969 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
970 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
973 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
975 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
976 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
977 machines ``out of the box''.
979 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
980 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
981 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
982 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
983 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
985 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
986 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
987 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
988 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
989 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
991 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
992 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
995 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
998 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
999 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1000 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1001 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1003 * New native configurations
1005 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1006 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1010 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1011 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1012 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1013 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1015 * OBSOLETE configurations
1017 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1018 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1020 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1023 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1024 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1025 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1026 be permanently REMOVED.
1028 * Gould support removed
1030 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1032 * New features for SVR4
1034 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1035 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1036 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1038 * Many C++ enhancements
1040 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1041 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1043 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1045 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1046 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1047 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1048 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1050 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1051 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1053 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1055 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1056 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1057 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1059 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1060 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1062 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1064 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1065 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1066 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1068 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1070 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1071 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1072 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1074 * ``apropos'' command added.
1076 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1077 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1078 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1082 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1083 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1084 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1085 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1086 enabled by configuring with:
1088 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1090 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1092 * New native configurations
1094 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1095 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1096 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1100 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1101 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1102 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1104 * OBSOLETE configurations
1106 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1108 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1109 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1110 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1111 be permanently REMOVED.
1115 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1116 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1117 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1118 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1119 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1120 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1121 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1126 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1128 * set extension-language
1130 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1131 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1132 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1133 set extension-language .c c++
1134 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1135 and their associated languages.
1137 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1139 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1140 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1141 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1145 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1146 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1148 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1149 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1151 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1152 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1153 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1154 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1155 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1156 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1157 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1158 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1160 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1161 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1162 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1163 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1167 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1168 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1169 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1170 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1171 for xdb and dbx commands.
1175 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1176 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1177 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1179 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1180 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1181 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1183 * Debugging across forks
1185 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1190 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1191 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1192 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1194 * GDB remote protocol additions
1196 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1197 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1198 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1199 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1201 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1202 full 64-bit address. The command
1204 set remoteaddresssize 32
1206 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1207 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1210 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1211 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1213 maint packet heythere
1215 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1216 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1219 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1220 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1221 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1223 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1225 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1226 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1227 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1229 * mask-address variable for Mips
1231 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1232 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1233 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1235 * Higher serial baud rates
1237 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1238 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1239 to achieve all of these rates.)
1243 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1244 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1247 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1249 * New native configurations
1251 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1252 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1253 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1254 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1255 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1256 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1257 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1261 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1262 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1263 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1264 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1265 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1266 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1267 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1268 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1269 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1270 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1271 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1273 * New debugging protocols
1275 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1276 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1277 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1278 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1279 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1280 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1284 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1285 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1290 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1291 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1293 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1295 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1296 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1297 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1299 * Live range splitting
1301 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1302 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1303 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1307 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1308 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1312 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1313 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1314 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1319 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1324 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1325 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1326 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1327 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1328 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1329 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1333 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1334 the symbol at the specified address.
1338 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1339 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1340 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1341 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1342 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1346 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1347 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1348 of most MIPS variants.
1352 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1353 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1354 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1358 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1359 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1360 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1361 the possible architectures.
1363 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1365 * New native configurations
1367 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1368 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1369 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1370 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1371 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1372 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1376 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1377 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1378 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1379 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1380 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1382 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1386 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1387 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1388 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1389 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1390 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1394 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1396 * Windows 95/NT native
1398 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1399 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1400 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1401 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1402 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1404 * dont-repeat command
1406 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1407 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1408 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1409 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1411 * Send break instead of ^C
1413 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1414 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1415 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1417 * Remote protocol timeout
1419 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1420 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1421 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1423 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1425 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1426 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1427 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1428 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1429 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1431 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1432 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1433 automatically on hpux10.
1435 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1437 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1439 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1441 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1442 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1443 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1444 every character. The default value is 1050.
1446 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1448 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1449 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1450 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1451 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1452 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1453 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1455 * Speedups for remote debugging
1457 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1458 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1459 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1461 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1463 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1464 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1466 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1468 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1470 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1471 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1473 * Remote targets use caching
1475 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1476 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1477 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1478 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1479 off' turns the the data cache off.
1481 * Remote targets may have threads
1483 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1484 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1485 gdb/remote.c for details.
1489 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1490 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1491 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1492 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1493 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1494 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1495 sequence is something like
1497 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1499 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1503 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1504 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1505 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1506 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1507 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1508 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1509 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1510 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1514 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1515 but does simplify configuration and building.
1519 GDB now supports hpux10.
1521 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1523 * New native configurations
1525 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1526 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1527 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1528 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1532 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1533 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1534 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1535 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1538 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1540 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1541 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1542 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1543 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1544 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1546 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1548 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1549 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1552 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1554 To execute the command use:
1557 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1558 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1559 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1561 * New `if' and `while' commands
1563 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1564 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1565 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1566 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1567 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1568 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1569 if the expression is zero.
1571 * Fortran source language mode
1573 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1574 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1575 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1576 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1579 * Better HPUX support
1581 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1582 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1583 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1584 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1585 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1591 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1592 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1598 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1599 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1602 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1603 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1605 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1607 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1608 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1609 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1610 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1611 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1612 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1614 * New DOS host serial code
1616 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1617 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1620 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1622 * New "complete" command
1624 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1625 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1627 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1629 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1630 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1632 * Breakpoint hit counts
1634 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1635 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1636 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1637 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1638 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1641 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1643 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1644 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1645 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1647 * Shared library breakpoints
1649 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1650 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1652 * Hardware watchpoints
1654 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1655 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1657 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1661 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1662 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1664 * Improved Irix 5 support
1666 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1668 * Improved HPPA support
1670 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1672 * New native configurations
1674 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1675 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1676 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1677 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1681 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1682 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1685 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1687 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1688 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1692 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1693 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1695 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1697 * Irix 5 is now supported
1701 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1702 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1703 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1704 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1705 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1708 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1710 * User visible changes:
1714 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1715 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1716 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1717 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1718 debugging info for the mips target).
1720 * DEC Alpha native support
1722 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1723 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1724 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1725 Alpha-specific notes.
1727 * Preliminary thread implementation
1729 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1731 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1733 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1734 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1737 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1739 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1740 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1741 call methods, ...etc.
1743 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1745 * User visible changes:
1747 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1748 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1749 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1750 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1752 Filename completion now works.
1754 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1755 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1756 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1758 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1759 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1760 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1761 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1762 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1766 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1767 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1770 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1774 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1775 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1776 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1780 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1781 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1782 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1783 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1784 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1788 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1789 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1790 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1792 * New targets supported
1794 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1795 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1796 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1797 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1798 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1800 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1801 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1802 GO32 memory extender.
1804 * New remote protocols
1806 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1808 * New source languages supported
1810 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1811 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1812 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1815 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1817 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1819 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1820 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1821 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1822 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1823 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1824 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1826 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1828 * Faster and better demangling
1830 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1831 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1832 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1833 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1834 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1835 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1838 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1839 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1840 compiler does not actually implement.
1842 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1844 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1845 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1846 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1847 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1848 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1849 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1852 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1853 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1855 * Improved configure script
1857 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1858 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1859 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1860 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1862 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1863 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1864 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1865 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1866 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1867 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1869 * Documentation improvements
1871 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1872 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1873 before submitting changes.
1875 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1876 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1877 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1878 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1879 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1881 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1882 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1883 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1884 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1885 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1886 around this problem.
1890 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1891 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1892 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1895 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1896 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1898 * New native hosts supported
1900 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1901 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1903 * New targets supported
1905 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1907 * New file formats supported
1909 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1910 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1914 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1916 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1917 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1919 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1920 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1921 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1923 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1924 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1926 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1927 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1928 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1931 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1932 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1933 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1934 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1935 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1937 * Internal improvements
1939 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1940 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1942 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1943 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1944 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1945 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1946 shared code that handles any of them.
1948 * New command line options
1950 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1954 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1955 General Public License.
1957 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1959 * Host/native/target split
1961 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1962 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1963 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1964 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1965 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1967 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1968 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1969 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1970 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1971 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1972 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1973 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1975 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1976 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1977 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1979 * New hosts supported
1981 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1982 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1983 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1985 * New targets supported
1987 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1988 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1990 * New native hosts supported
1992 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1993 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1994 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1996 * New file formats supported
1998 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1999 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2000 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2004 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2005 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2006 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2008 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2010 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2011 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2012 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2013 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2017 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2018 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2019 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2021 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2025 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2026 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2029 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2030 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2032 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2033 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2034 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2035 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2036 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2037 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2039 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2040 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2041 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2042 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2046 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2047 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2048 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2049 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2050 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2052 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2053 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2054 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2055 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2059 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2060 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2061 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2062 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2063 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2064 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2065 each instruction being stepped through.
2067 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2068 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2070 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2071 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2072 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2073 processor with a serial port.
2077 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2078 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2079 supported, and what files each one uses.
2083 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2084 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2085 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2086 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2088 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2089 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2090 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2091 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2095 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2096 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2097 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2098 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2099 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2100 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2102 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2105 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2107 * Better support for C++ function names
2109 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2110 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2111 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2112 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2113 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2115 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2116 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2117 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2118 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2119 for the list of formats.
2121 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2123 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2124 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2125 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2126 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2127 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2128 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2131 * New 'maintenance' command
2133 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2134 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2135 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2137 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2138 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2139 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2140 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2141 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2142 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2144 The following commands are new:
2146 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2147 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2148 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2150 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2152 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2153 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2154 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2155 read after argv processing.
2157 * New hosts supported
2159 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2161 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2163 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2164 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2165 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2166 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2167 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2170 * New targets supported
2172 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2174 * More smarts about finding #include files
2176 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2177 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2178 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2179 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2180 the one that contains your sources.
2182 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2183 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2184 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2186 * Interesting infernals change
2188 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2189 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2190 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2191 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2193 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2195 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2196 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2197 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2199 See the ChangeLog for details.
2201 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2203 * New machines supported (host and target)
2205 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2207 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2209 * New malloc package
2211 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2212 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2213 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2214 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2215 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2216 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2220 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2221 'help info proc' for details.
2223 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2225 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2226 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2229 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2231 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2232 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2233 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2234 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2235 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2236 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2238 * Cross byte order fixes
2240 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2241 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2243 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2245 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2246 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2247 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2248 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2249 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2250 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2251 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2252 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2253 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2254 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2256 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2257 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2258 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2259 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2261 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2262 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2263 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2266 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2268 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2269 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2270 shared across multiple host platforms.
2272 * longjmp() handling
2274 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2275 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2276 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2277 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2281 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2282 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2287 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2288 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2289 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2291 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2293 * New machines supported (host and target)
2295 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2297 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2298 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2300 * New machines supported (target)
2302 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2306 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2307 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2308 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2310 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2311 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2312 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2313 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2314 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2317 * New features for SVR4
2319 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2320 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2321 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2323 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2324 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2325 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2327 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2328 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2330 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2332 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2333 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2334 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2335 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2336 same code linked statically.
2340 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2341 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2342 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2343 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2344 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2345 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2349 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2350 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2351 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2354 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2356 * New machines supported (host and target)
2358 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2359 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2360 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2362 * Almost SCO Unix support
2364 We had hoped to support:
2365 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2366 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2367 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2368 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2370 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2372 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2373 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2374 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2375 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2380 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2381 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2382 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2386 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2387 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2388 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2390 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2392 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2393 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2394 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2396 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2397 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2398 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2399 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2402 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2403 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2404 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2405 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2408 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2409 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2412 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2413 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2414 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2417 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2419 * Improved configuration
2421 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2422 Porting BFD is simpler.
2426 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2427 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2428 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2429 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2433 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2435 * New host supported (not target)
2437 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2440 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2442 * Multiple source language support
2444 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2445 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2446 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2447 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2448 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2449 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2453 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2454 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2455 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2456 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2458 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2459 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2460 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2462 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2463 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2467 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2468 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2469 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2470 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2473 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2475 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2476 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2477 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2478 examining core files.
2482 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2485 * New machines supported (host and target)
2487 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2488 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2489 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2491 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2493 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2495 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2497 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2498 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2499 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2501 * New remote interfaces
2507 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2511 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2513 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2514 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2515 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2516 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2517 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2518 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2519 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2520 stub on the target system.
2522 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2524 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2525 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2526 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2528 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2529 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2532 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2534 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2535 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2537 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2538 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2539 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2541 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2542 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2543 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2544 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2546 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2547 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2548 it is already running. Default is ON.
2550 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2551 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2552 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2553 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2556 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2557 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2558 or the value of the environment variable
2561 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2562 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2565 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2566 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2567 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2569 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2570 history expansion will be performed on
2571 command line input. The default is OFF.
2573 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2574 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2575 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2577 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2578 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2579 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2582 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2583 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2584 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2587 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2588 ``set width'' instead.
2590 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2591 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2592 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2593 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2595 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2598 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2601 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2604 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2607 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2609 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2610 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2611 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2615 * Support for Shared Libraries
2617 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2618 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2619 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2620 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2621 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2622 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2623 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2624 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2626 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2627 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2628 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2630 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2635 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2636 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2637 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2638 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2639 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2640 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2642 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2644 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2646 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2647 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2648 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2651 * C++ multiple inheritance
2653 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2656 * C++ exception handling
2658 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2659 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2660 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2663 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2664 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2665 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2667 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2668 current stack frame.
2671 * Minor command changes
2673 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2674 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2675 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2677 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2678 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2679 frames without printing.
2681 * New directory command
2683 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2684 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2685 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2686 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2687 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2689 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2691 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2694 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2695 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2696 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2697 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob