1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.6
6 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
7 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
10 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
11 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
13 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
14 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
16 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
18 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
19 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
20 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
22 * Arrays of explicitly SIGNED or UNSIGNED CHARs are now printed as arrays
25 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
26 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
29 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
32 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
33 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
34 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
36 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
38 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
40 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
41 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
42 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
44 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
45 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
51 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
52 when debugging using remote targets.
54 set mem inaccessible-by-default
55 show mem inaccessible-by-default
56 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
57 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
58 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
59 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
60 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
62 set breakpoint auto-hw
63 show breakpoint auto-hw
64 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
65 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
66 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
67 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
68 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
69 including "next" and "finish".
72 catch exception unhandled
73 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
76 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
80 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
81 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
82 an alias to "set sysroot".
85 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
86 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
89 * New native configurations
91 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
96 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
97 not query the target for its built-in description.
101 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
102 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
103 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
108 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
109 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
112 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
117 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
118 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
122 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
131 i[34567]86-*-netware*
132 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
133 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
135 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
138 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
139 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
148 * Other removed features
155 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
162 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
167 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
168 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
173 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
174 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
176 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
178 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
179 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
180 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
181 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
185 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
186 in debugging information.
190 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
191 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
193 set mips stack-arg-size
194 set mips saved-gpreg-size
196 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
198 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
203 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
205 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
206 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
207 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
209 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
210 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
213 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
214 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
216 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
217 stub provides the required support.
219 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
220 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
225 unset substitute-path
227 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
228 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
229 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
230 between compilation and debugging.
234 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
235 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
236 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
240 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
242 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
243 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
245 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
250 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
251 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
252 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
253 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
257 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
258 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
260 qXfer:memory-map:read:
261 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
262 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
267 Erase and program a flash memory device.
269 * Removed remote packets
272 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
273 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
275 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
279 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
281 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
285 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
286 only if it doesn't already have a value.
288 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
290 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
292 restart <n> Return the program state to a
293 previously saved state.
295 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
297 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
299 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
300 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
302 info forks List forks of the user program that
303 are available to be debugged.
305 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
306 forks of the user program that are
307 available to be debugged.
309 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
310 that are available to be debugged (and
311 kill the forked process).
313 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
314 that are available to be debugged (and
315 allow the process to continue).
319 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
321 * Improved Windows host support
323 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
324 native console support, and remote communications using either
325 network sockets or serial ports.
327 * Improved Modula-2 language support
329 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
330 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
331 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
332 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
333 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
334 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
338 The ARM rdi-share module.
340 The Netware NLM debug server.
342 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
344 * New native configurations
346 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
347 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
351 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
353 * New command line options
355 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
356 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
357 the child (debugged) program exited with.
358 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
359 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
360 specified multiple times and in conjunction
361 with the --command (-x) option.
363 * Deprecated commands removed
365 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
369 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
370 othernames set arm disassembler
371 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
372 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
373 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
376 * New BSD user-level threads support
378 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
379 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
382 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
383 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
384 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
386 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
387 are not yet supported.
389 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
390 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
392 * REMOVED configurations and files
394 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
395 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
396 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
398 * New "set print array-indexes" command
400 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
401 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
404 * VAX floating point support
406 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
408 * User-defined command support
410 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
411 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
412 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
414 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
416 * New command line option
418 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
421 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
423 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
424 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
425 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
426 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
427 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
429 * Internationalization
431 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
432 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
433 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
437 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
438 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
439 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
441 * New native configurations
443 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
447 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
448 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
450 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
452 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
453 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
454 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
457 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
458 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
459 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
471 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
472 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
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
488 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
490 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
492 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
493 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
496 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
498 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
499 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
500 IRIX long double values).
504 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
505 command. This problem has been fixed.
507 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
509 * Fix for ``many threads''
511 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
512 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
515 ptrace: No such process.
516 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
518 This problem has been fixed.
520 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
522 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
525 * New ``start'' command.
527 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
529 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
531 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
532 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
533 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
535 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
536 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
537 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
538 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
539 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
540 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
541 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
542 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
543 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
545 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
547 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
548 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
549 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
550 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
551 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
553 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
554 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
555 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
557 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
559 * New native configurations
561 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
562 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
563 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
564 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
565 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
566 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
567 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
569 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
571 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
572 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
573 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
574 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
575 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
576 work, was also included.
578 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
579 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
589 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
590 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
592 * REMOVED configurations and files
594 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
595 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
596 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
597 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
598 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
599 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
600 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
601 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
602 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
604 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
606 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
608 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
610 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
611 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
612 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
613 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
616 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
618 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
619 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
620 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
621 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
622 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
623 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
626 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
628 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
630 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
631 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
632 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
634 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
636 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
637 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
639 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
641 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
642 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
643 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
645 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
647 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
648 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
650 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
652 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
653 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
654 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
656 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
658 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
659 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
660 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
662 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
664 * Removed --with-mmalloc
666 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
667 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
669 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
671 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
672 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
673 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
674 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
676 * Revised SPARC target
678 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
679 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
680 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
681 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
682 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
686 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
687 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
688 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
691 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
693 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
694 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
697 * C++ nested types and namespaces
699 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
700 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
701 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
702 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
703 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
704 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
705 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
706 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
707 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
709 * New native configurations
711 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
712 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
713 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
714 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
715 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
717 * New debugging protocols
719 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
721 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
723 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
724 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
725 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
727 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
729 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
730 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
731 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
734 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
735 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
736 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
737 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
738 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
739 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
740 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
741 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
742 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
744 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
746 * REMOVED configurations and files
748 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
749 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
750 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
751 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
752 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
753 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
754 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
755 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
756 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
757 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
758 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
759 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
760 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
761 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
762 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
763 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
764 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
766 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
770 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
773 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
775 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
776 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
777 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
780 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
781 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
786 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
787 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
788 remote protocol documentation for details.
790 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
792 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
793 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
794 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
797 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
799 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
800 per-thread variables.
802 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
804 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
805 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
807 * Separate debug info.
809 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
810 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
811 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
812 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
813 and optional debug files.
815 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
817 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
818 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
821 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
822 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
826 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
827 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
828 considered "useable".
830 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
832 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
833 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
836 * GDB supports logging output to a file
838 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
839 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
841 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
843 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
844 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
847 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
849 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
850 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
854 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
855 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
856 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
857 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
858 data, for more informative profiling results.
860 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
862 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
863 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
864 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
866 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
869 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
870 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
871 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
872 in a subsequent -var-update.
874 * New native configurations.
876 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
878 * Multi-arched targets.
880 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
881 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
883 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
885 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
886 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
887 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
890 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
891 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
892 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
893 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
894 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
895 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
896 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
897 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
898 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
899 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
900 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
901 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
903 * REMOVED configurations and files
906 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
907 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
908 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
909 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
910 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
911 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
913 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
914 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
915 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
916 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
917 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
918 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
920 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
922 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
923 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
924 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
925 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
926 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
928 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
930 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
932 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
933 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
934 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
935 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
936 shared libs like mad''.
938 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
940 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
941 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
942 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
943 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
945 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
947 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
948 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
951 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
952 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
954 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
955 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
957 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
958 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
959 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
960 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
962 * Multi-arched targets.
964 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
965 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
967 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
968 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
969 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
973 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
976 * New native configurations
978 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
979 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
980 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
981 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
983 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
985 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
986 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
987 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
990 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
991 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
992 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
993 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
994 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
995 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
996 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
997 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
998 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
999 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1001 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1002 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1004 * OBSOLETE languages
1006 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1008 * REMOVED configurations and files
1010 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1011 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1012 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1013 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1014 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1016 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1018 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1020 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1021 commands. The default is 1024.
1023 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1025 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1027 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1029 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1030 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1031 from a file into memory (restore).
1033 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1035 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1036 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1037 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1039 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1047 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1048 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1049 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1051 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1052 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1053 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1055 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1056 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1057 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1059 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1060 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1061 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1063 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1065 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1067 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1068 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1069 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1070 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1071 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1072 (notably embedded) targets.
1074 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1076 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1077 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1078 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1079 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1081 * New command line option
1083 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1085 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1087 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1088 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1089 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1090 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1091 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1092 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1093 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1094 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1095 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1096 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1098 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1100 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1101 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1103 * New native configurations
1105 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1106 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1107 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1108 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1112 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1114 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1116 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1117 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1118 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1119 permanently REMOVED.
1121 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1122 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1123 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1124 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1125 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1127 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1129 * REMOVED configurations and files
1131 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1133 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1134 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1135 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1136 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1137 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1138 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1139 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1140 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1141 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1142 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1143 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1145 * Changes to command line processing
1147 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1148 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1150 * Changes to key bindings
1152 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1154 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1156 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1158 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1161 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1163 Numerous documentation fixes.
1165 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1167 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1169 * New native configurations
1171 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1172 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1173 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1174 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1175 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1176 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1180 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1182 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1184 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1186 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1187 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1188 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1189 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1190 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1192 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1193 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1194 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1195 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1196 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1197 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1198 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1199 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1201 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1202 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1204 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1205 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1206 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1207 permanently REMOVED.
1209 * REMOVED configurations and files
1211 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1212 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1214 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1218 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1220 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1221 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1226 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1228 * The MI enabled by default.
1230 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1231 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1232 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1233 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1234 which is now deprecated.
1236 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1238 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1239 main features are supported:
1241 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1243 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1246 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1248 - a Pascal expression parser.
1250 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1252 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1254 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1256 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1257 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1259 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1261 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1263 * Changes in completion.
1265 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1266 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1267 users expect at the shell prompt.
1269 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1270 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1271 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1272 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1273 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1274 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1275 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1277 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1279 * New platform-independent commands:
1281 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1282 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1283 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1285 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1287 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1288 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1289 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1291 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1293 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1294 multi-threaded programs though.
1296 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1298 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1300 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1301 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1304 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1306 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1307 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1308 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1309 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1310 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1313 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1314 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1315 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1317 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1319 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1320 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1322 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1323 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1326 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1327 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1328 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1329 a given linear address.
1331 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1332 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1333 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1335 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1337 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1339 * Changes in documentation.
1341 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1342 Documentation License.
1344 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1347 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1349 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1352 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1353 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1354 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1356 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1358 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1359 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1360 contents of this file.
1364 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1366 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1368 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1370 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1371 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1372 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1373 greater level of detail.
1375 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1377 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1378 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1379 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1382 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1384 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1385 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1386 machines ``out of the box''.
1388 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1389 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1390 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1391 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1392 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1394 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1395 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1396 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1397 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1398 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1400 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1401 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1404 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1407 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1408 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1409 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1410 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1412 * New native configurations
1414 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1415 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1419 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1420 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1421 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1422 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1424 * OBSOLETE configurations
1426 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1427 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1429 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1432 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1433 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1434 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1435 be permanently REMOVED.
1437 * Gould support removed
1439 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1441 * New features for SVR4
1443 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1444 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1445 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1447 * Many C++ enhancements
1449 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1450 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1452 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1454 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1455 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1456 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1457 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1459 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1460 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1462 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1464 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1465 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1466 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1468 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1469 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1471 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1473 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1474 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1475 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1477 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1479 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1480 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1481 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1483 * ``apropos'' command added.
1485 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1486 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1487 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1491 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1492 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1493 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1494 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1495 enabled by configuring with:
1497 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1499 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1501 * New native configurations
1503 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1504 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1505 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1509 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1510 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1511 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1513 * OBSOLETE configurations
1515 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1517 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1518 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1519 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1520 be permanently REMOVED.
1524 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1525 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1526 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1527 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1528 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1529 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1530 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1535 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1537 * set extension-language
1539 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1540 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1541 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1542 set extension-language .c c++
1543 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1544 and their associated languages.
1546 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1548 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1549 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1550 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1554 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1555 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1557 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1558 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1560 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1561 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1562 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1563 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1564 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1565 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1566 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1567 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1569 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1570 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1571 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1572 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1576 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1577 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1578 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1579 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1580 for xdb and dbx commands.
1584 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1585 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1586 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1588 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1589 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1590 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1592 * Debugging across forks
1594 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1599 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1600 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1601 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1603 * GDB remote protocol additions
1605 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1606 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1607 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1608 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1610 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1611 full 64-bit address. The command
1613 set remoteaddresssize 32
1615 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1616 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1619 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1620 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1622 maint packet heythere
1624 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1625 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1628 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1629 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1630 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1632 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1634 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1635 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1636 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1638 * mask-address variable for Mips
1640 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1641 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1642 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1644 * Higher serial baud rates
1646 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1647 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1648 to achieve all of these rates.)
1652 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1653 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1656 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1658 * New native configurations
1660 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1661 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1662 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1663 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1664 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1665 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1666 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1670 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1671 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1672 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1673 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1674 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1675 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1676 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1677 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1678 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1679 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1680 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1682 * New debugging protocols
1684 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1685 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1686 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1687 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1688 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1689 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1693 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1694 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1699 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1700 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1702 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1704 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1705 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1706 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1708 * Live range splitting
1710 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1711 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1712 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1716 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1717 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1721 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1722 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1723 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1728 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1733 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1734 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1735 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1736 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1737 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1738 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1742 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1743 the symbol at the specified address.
1747 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1748 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1749 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1750 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1751 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1755 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1756 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1757 of most MIPS variants.
1761 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1762 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1763 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1767 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1768 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1769 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1770 the possible architectures.
1772 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1774 * New native configurations
1776 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1777 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1778 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1779 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1780 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1781 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1785 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1786 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1787 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1788 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1789 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1791 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1795 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1796 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1797 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1798 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1799 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1803 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1805 * Windows 95/NT native
1807 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1808 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1809 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1810 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1811 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1813 * dont-repeat command
1815 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1816 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1817 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1818 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1820 * Send break instead of ^C
1822 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1823 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1824 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1826 * Remote protocol timeout
1828 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1829 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1830 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1832 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1834 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1835 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1836 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1837 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1838 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1840 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1841 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1842 automatically on hpux10.
1844 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1846 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1848 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1850 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1851 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1852 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1853 every character. The default value is 1050.
1855 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1857 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1858 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1859 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1860 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1861 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1862 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1864 * Speedups for remote debugging
1866 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1867 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1868 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1870 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1872 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1873 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1875 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1877 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1879 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1880 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1882 * Remote targets use caching
1884 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1885 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1886 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1887 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1888 off' turns the the data cache off.
1890 * Remote targets may have threads
1892 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1893 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1894 gdb/remote.c for details.
1898 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1899 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1900 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1901 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1902 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1903 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1904 sequence is something like
1906 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1908 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1912 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1913 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1914 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1915 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1916 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1917 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1918 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1919 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1923 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1924 but does simplify configuration and building.
1928 GDB now supports hpux10.
1930 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1932 * New native configurations
1934 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1935 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1936 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1937 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1941 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1942 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1943 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1944 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1947 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1949 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1950 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1951 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1952 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1953 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1955 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1957 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1958 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1961 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1963 To execute the command use:
1966 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1967 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1968 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1970 * New `if' and `while' commands
1972 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1973 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1974 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1975 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1976 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1977 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1978 if the expression is zero.
1980 * Fortran source language mode
1982 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1983 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1984 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1985 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1988 * Better HPUX support
1990 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1991 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1992 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1993 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1994 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2000 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2001 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2007 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2008 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2011 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2012 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2014 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2016 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2017 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2018 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2019 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2020 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2021 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2023 * New DOS host serial code
2025 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2026 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2029 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2031 * New "complete" command
2033 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2034 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2036 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2038 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2039 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2041 * Breakpoint hit counts
2043 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2044 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2045 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2046 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2047 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2050 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2052 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2053 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2054 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2056 * Shared library breakpoints
2058 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2059 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2061 * Hardware watchpoints
2063 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2064 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2066 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2070 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2071 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2073 * Improved Irix 5 support
2075 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2077 * Improved HPPA support
2079 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2081 * New native configurations
2083 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2084 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2085 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2086 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2090 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2091 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2094 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2096 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2097 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2101 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2102 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2104 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2106 * Irix 5 is now supported
2110 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2111 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2112 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2113 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2114 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2117 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2119 * User visible changes:
2123 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2124 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2125 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2126 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2127 debugging info for the mips target).
2129 * DEC Alpha native support
2131 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2132 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2133 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2134 Alpha-specific notes.
2136 * Preliminary thread implementation
2138 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2140 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2142 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2143 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2146 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2148 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2149 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2150 call methods, ...etc.
2152 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2154 * User visible changes:
2156 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2157 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2158 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2159 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2161 Filename completion now works.
2163 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2164 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2165 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2167 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2168 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2169 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2170 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2171 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2175 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2176 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2179 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2183 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2184 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2185 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2189 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2190 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2191 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2192 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2193 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2197 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2198 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2199 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2201 * New targets supported
2203 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2204 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2205 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2206 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2207 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2209 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2210 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2211 GO32 memory extender.
2213 * New remote protocols
2215 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2217 * New source languages supported
2219 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2220 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2221 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2224 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2226 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2228 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2229 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2230 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2231 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2232 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2233 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2235 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2237 * Faster and better demangling
2239 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2240 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2241 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2242 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2243 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2244 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2247 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2248 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2249 compiler does not actually implement.
2251 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2253 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2254 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2255 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2256 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2257 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2258 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2261 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2262 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2264 * Improved configure script
2266 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2267 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2268 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2269 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2271 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2272 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2273 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2274 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2275 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2276 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2278 * Documentation improvements
2280 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2281 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2282 before submitting changes.
2284 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2285 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2286 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2287 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2288 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2290 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2291 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2292 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2293 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2294 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2295 around this problem.
2299 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2300 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2301 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2304 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2305 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2307 * New native hosts supported
2309 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2310 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2312 * New targets supported
2314 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2316 * New file formats supported
2318 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2319 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2323 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2325 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2326 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2328 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2329 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2330 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2332 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2333 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2335 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2336 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2337 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2340 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2341 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2342 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2343 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2344 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2346 * Internal improvements
2348 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2349 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2351 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2352 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2353 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2354 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2355 shared code that handles any of them.
2357 * New command line options
2359 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2363 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2364 General Public License.
2366 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2368 * Host/native/target split
2370 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2371 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2372 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2373 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2374 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2376 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2377 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2378 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2379 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2380 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2381 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2382 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2384 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2385 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2386 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2388 * New hosts supported
2390 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2391 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2392 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2394 * New targets supported
2396 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2397 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2399 * New native hosts supported
2401 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2402 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2403 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2405 * New file formats supported
2407 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2408 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2409 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2413 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2414 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2415 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2417 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2419 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2420 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2421 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2422 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2426 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2427 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2428 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2430 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2434 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2435 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2438 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2439 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2441 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2442 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2443 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2444 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2445 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2446 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2448 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2449 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2450 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2451 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2455 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2456 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2457 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2458 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2459 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2461 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2462 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2463 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2464 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2468 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2469 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2470 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2471 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2472 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2473 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2474 each instruction being stepped through.
2476 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2477 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2479 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2480 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2481 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2482 processor with a serial port.
2486 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2487 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2488 supported, and what files each one uses.
2492 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2493 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2494 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2495 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2497 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2498 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2499 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2500 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2504 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2505 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2506 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2507 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2508 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2509 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2511 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2514 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2516 * Better support for C++ function names
2518 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2519 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2520 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2521 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2522 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2524 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2525 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2526 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2527 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2528 for the list of formats.
2530 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2532 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2533 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2534 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2535 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2536 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2537 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2540 * New 'maintenance' command
2542 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2543 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2544 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2546 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2547 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2548 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2549 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2550 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2551 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2553 The following commands are new:
2555 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2556 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2557 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2559 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2561 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2562 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2563 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2564 read after argv processing.
2566 * New hosts supported
2568 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2570 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2572 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2573 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2574 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2575 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2576 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2579 * New targets supported
2581 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2583 * More smarts about finding #include files
2585 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2586 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2587 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2588 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2589 the one that contains your sources.
2591 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2592 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2593 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2595 * Interesting infernals change
2597 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2598 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2599 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2600 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2602 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2604 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2605 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2606 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2608 See the ChangeLog for details.
2610 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2612 * New machines supported (host and target)
2614 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2616 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2618 * New malloc package
2620 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2621 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2622 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2623 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2624 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2625 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2629 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2630 'help info proc' for details.
2632 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2634 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2635 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2638 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2640 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2641 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2642 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2643 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2644 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2645 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2647 * Cross byte order fixes
2649 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2650 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2652 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2654 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2655 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2656 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2657 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2658 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2659 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2660 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2661 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2662 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2663 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2665 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2666 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2667 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2668 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2670 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2671 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2672 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2675 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2677 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2678 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2679 shared across multiple host platforms.
2681 * longjmp() handling
2683 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2684 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2685 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2686 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2690 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2691 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2696 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2697 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2698 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2700 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2702 * New machines supported (host and target)
2704 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2706 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2707 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2709 * New machines supported (target)
2711 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2715 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2716 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2717 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2719 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2720 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2721 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2722 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2723 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2726 * New features for SVR4
2728 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2729 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2730 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2732 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2733 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2734 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2736 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2737 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2739 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2741 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2742 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2743 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2744 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2745 same code linked statically.
2749 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2750 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2751 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2752 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2753 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2754 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2758 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2759 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2760 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2763 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2765 * New machines supported (host and target)
2767 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2768 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2769 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2771 * Almost SCO Unix support
2773 We had hoped to support:
2774 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2775 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2776 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2777 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2779 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2781 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2782 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2783 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2784 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2789 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2790 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2791 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2795 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2796 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2797 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2799 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2801 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2802 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2803 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2805 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2806 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2807 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2808 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2811 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2812 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2813 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2814 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2817 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2818 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2821 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2822 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2823 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2826 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2828 * Improved configuration
2830 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2831 Porting BFD is simpler.
2835 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2836 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2837 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2838 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2842 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2844 * New host supported (not target)
2846 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2849 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2851 * Multiple source language support
2853 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2854 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2855 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2856 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2857 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2858 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2862 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2863 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2864 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2865 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2867 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2868 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2869 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2871 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2872 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2876 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2877 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2878 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2879 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2882 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2884 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2885 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2886 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2887 examining core files.
2891 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2894 * New machines supported (host and target)
2896 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2897 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2898 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2900 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2902 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2904 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2906 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2907 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2908 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2910 * New remote interfaces
2916 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2920 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2922 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2923 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2924 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2925 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2926 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2927 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2928 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2929 stub on the target system.
2931 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2933 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2934 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2935 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2937 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2938 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2941 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2943 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2944 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2946 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2947 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2948 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2950 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2951 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2952 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2953 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2955 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2956 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2957 it is already running. Default is ON.
2959 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2960 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2961 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2962 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2965 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2966 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2967 or the value of the environment variable
2970 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2971 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2974 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2975 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2976 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2978 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2979 history expansion will be performed on
2980 command line input. The default is OFF.
2982 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2983 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2984 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2986 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2987 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2988 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2991 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2992 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2993 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2996 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2997 ``set width'' instead.
2999 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3000 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3001 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3002 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3004 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3007 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3010 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3013 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3016 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3018 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3019 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3020 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3024 * Support for Shared Libraries
3026 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3027 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3028 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3029 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3030 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3031 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3032 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3033 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3035 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3036 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3037 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3039 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3044 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3045 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3046 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3047 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3048 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3049 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3051 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3053 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3055 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3056 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3057 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3060 * C++ multiple inheritance
3062 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3065 * C++ exception handling
3067 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3068 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3069 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3072 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3073 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3074 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3076 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3077 current stack frame.
3080 * Minor command changes
3082 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3083 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3084 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3086 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3087 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3088 frames without printing.
3090 * New directory command
3092 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3093 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3094 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3095 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3096 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3098 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3100 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3103 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3104 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3105 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3106 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob