1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.2:
6 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
8 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
10 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
12 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
13 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
14 from a file into memory (restore).
16 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
18 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
20 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
21 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
22 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
23 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
24 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
25 (notably embedded) targets.
27 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
29 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
30 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
31 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
32 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
34 * New command line option
36 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
38 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
40 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
41 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
42 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
43 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
44 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
45 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
46 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
47 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
48 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
49 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
51 * Changes in ARM configurations.
53 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
54 configuration is fully multi-arch.
56 * New native configurations
58 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
59 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
60 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
61 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
65 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
67 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
69 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
70 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
71 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
74 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
75 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
76 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
77 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
78 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
80 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
82 * REMOVED configurations and files
84 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
86 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
87 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
88 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
89 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
90 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
91 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
92 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
93 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
94 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
95 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
96 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
98 * Changes to command line processing
100 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
101 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
103 * Changes to key bindings
105 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
107 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
109 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
111 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
114 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
116 Numerous documentation fixes.
118 Numerous testsuite fixes.
120 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
122 * New native configurations
124 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
125 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
126 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
127 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
129 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
133 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
135 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
137 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
139 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
140 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
141 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
142 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
143 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
145 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
146 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
147 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
148 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
149 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
150 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
151 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
152 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
154 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
155 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
157 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
158 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
159 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
162 * REMOVED configurations and files
164 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
165 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
167 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
171 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
173 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
174 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
179 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
181 * The MI enabled by default.
183 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
184 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
185 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
186 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
187 which is now deprecated.
189 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
191 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
192 main features are supported:
194 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
196 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
199 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
201 - a Pascal expression parser.
203 However, some important features are not yet supported.
205 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
207 - there are some problems with boolean types;
209 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
210 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
212 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
214 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
216 * Changes in completion.
218 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
219 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
220 users expect at the shell prompt.
222 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
223 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
224 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
225 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
226 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
227 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
228 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
230 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
232 * New platform-independent commands:
234 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
235 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
236 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
238 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
240 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
241 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
242 many threads as your system allows you to have.
244 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
246 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
247 multi-threaded programs though.
249 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
251 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
253 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
254 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
257 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
259 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
260 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
261 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
262 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
263 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
266 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
267 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
268 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
270 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
272 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
273 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
275 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
276 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
279 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
280 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
281 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
282 a given linear address.
284 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
285 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
286 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
288 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
290 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
292 * Changes in documentation.
294 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
295 Documentation License.
297 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
300 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
302 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
305 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
306 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
307 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
309 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
311 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
312 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
313 contents of this file.
317 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
319 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
321 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
323 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
324 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
325 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
326 greater level of detail.
328 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
330 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
331 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
332 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
335 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
337 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
338 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
339 machines ``out of the box''.
341 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
342 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
343 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
344 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
345 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
347 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
348 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
349 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
350 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
351 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
353 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
354 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
357 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
360 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
361 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
362 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
363 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
365 * New native configurations
367 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
368 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
372 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
373 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
374 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
375 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
377 * OBSOLETE configurations
379 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
380 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
382 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
385 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
386 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
387 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
388 be permanently REMOVED.
390 * Gould support removed
392 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
394 * New features for SVR4
396 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
397 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
398 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
400 * Many C++ enhancements
402 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
403 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
405 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
407 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
408 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
409 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
410 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
412 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
413 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
415 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
417 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
418 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
419 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
421 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
422 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
424 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
426 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
427 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
428 include ``set remote P-packet''.
430 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
432 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
433 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
434 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
436 * ``apropos'' command added.
438 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
439 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
440 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
444 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
445 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
446 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
447 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
448 enabled by configuring with:
450 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
452 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
454 * New native configurations
456 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
457 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
458 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
462 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
463 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
464 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
466 * OBSOLETE configurations
468 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
470 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
471 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
472 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
473 be permanently REMOVED.
477 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
478 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
479 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
480 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
481 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
482 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
483 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
488 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
490 * set extension-language
492 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
493 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
494 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
495 set extension-language .c c++
496 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
497 and their associated languages.
499 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
501 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
502 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
503 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
507 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
508 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
510 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
511 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
513 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
514 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
515 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
516 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
517 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
518 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
519 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
520 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
522 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
523 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
524 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
525 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
529 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
530 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
531 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
532 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
533 for xdb and dbx commands.
537 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
538 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
539 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
541 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
542 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
543 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
545 * Debugging across forks
547 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
552 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
553 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
554 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
556 * GDB remote protocol additions
558 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
559 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
560 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
561 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
563 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
564 full 64-bit address. The command
566 set remoteaddresssize 32
568 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
569 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
572 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
573 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
575 maint packet heythere
577 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
578 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
581 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
582 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
583 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
585 * Tracing can collect general expressions
587 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
588 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
589 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
591 * mask-address variable for Mips
593 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
594 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
595 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
597 * Higher serial baud rates
599 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
600 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
601 to achieve all of these rates.)
605 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
606 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
609 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
611 * New native configurations
613 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
614 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
615 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
616 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
617 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
618 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
619 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
623 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
624 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
625 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
626 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
627 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
628 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
629 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
630 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
631 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
632 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
633 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
635 * New debugging protocols
637 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
638 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
639 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
640 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
641 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
642 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
646 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
647 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
652 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
653 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
655 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
657 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
658 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
659 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
661 * Live range splitting
663 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
664 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
665 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
669 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
670 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
674 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
675 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
676 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
681 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
686 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
687 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
688 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
689 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
690 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
691 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
695 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
696 the symbol at the specified address.
700 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
701 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
702 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
703 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
704 file tracepoint.c for more details.
708 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
709 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
710 of most MIPS variants.
714 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
715 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
716 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
720 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
721 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
722 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
723 the possible architectures.
725 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
727 * New native configurations
729 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
730 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
731 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
732 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
733 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
734 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
738 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
739 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
740 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
741 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
742 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
744 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
748 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
749 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
750 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
751 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
752 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
756 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
758 * Windows 95/NT native
760 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
761 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
762 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
763 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
764 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
766 * dont-repeat command
768 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
769 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
770 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
771 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
773 * Send break instead of ^C
775 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
776 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
777 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
779 * Remote protocol timeout
781 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
782 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
783 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
785 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
787 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
788 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
789 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
790 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
791 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
793 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
794 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
795 automatically on hpux10.
797 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
799 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
801 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
803 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
804 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
805 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
806 every character. The default value is 1050.
808 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
810 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
811 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
812 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
813 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
814 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
815 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
817 * Speedups for remote debugging
819 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
820 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
821 and more efficient S-record downloading.
823 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
825 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
826 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
828 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
832 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
833 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
835 * Remote targets use caching
837 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
838 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
839 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
840 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
841 off' turns the the data cache off.
843 * Remote targets may have threads
845 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
846 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
847 gdb/remote.c for details.
851 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
852 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
853 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
854 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
855 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
856 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
857 sequence is something like
859 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
861 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
865 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
866 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
867 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
868 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
869 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
870 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
871 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
872 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
876 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
877 but does simplify configuration and building.
881 GDB now supports hpux10.
883 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
885 * New native configurations
887 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
888 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
889 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
890 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
894 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
895 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
896 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
897 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
900 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
902 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
903 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
904 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
905 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
906 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
908 * Arguments to user-defined commands
910 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
911 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
914 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
916 To execute the command use:
919 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
920 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
921 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
923 * New `if' and `while' commands
925 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
926 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
927 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
928 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
929 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
930 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
931 if the expression is zero.
933 * Fortran source language mode
935 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
936 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
937 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
938 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
941 * Better HPUX support
943 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
944 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
945 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
946 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
947 that behavior do the following before running the program:
953 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
954 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
960 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
961 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
964 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
965 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
967 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
969 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
970 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
971 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
972 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
973 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
974 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
976 * New DOS host serial code
978 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
979 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
982 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
984 * New "complete" command
986 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
987 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
989 * Trailing space optional in prompt
991 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
992 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
994 * Breakpoint hit counts
996 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
997 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
998 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
999 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1000 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1003 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1005 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1006 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1007 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1009 * Shared library breakpoints
1011 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1012 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1014 * Hardware watchpoints
1016 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1017 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1019 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1023 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1024 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1026 * Improved Irix 5 support
1028 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1030 * Improved HPPA support
1032 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1034 * New native configurations
1036 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1037 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1038 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1039 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1043 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1044 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1047 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1049 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1050 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1054 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1055 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1057 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1059 * Irix 5 is now supported
1063 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1064 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1065 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1066 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1067 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1070 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1072 * User visible changes:
1076 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1077 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1078 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1079 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1080 debugging info for the mips target).
1082 * DEC Alpha native support
1084 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1085 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1086 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1087 Alpha-specific notes.
1089 * Preliminary thread implementation
1091 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1093 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1095 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1096 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1099 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1101 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1102 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1103 call methods, ...etc.
1105 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1107 * User visible changes:
1109 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1110 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1111 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1112 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1114 Filename completion now works.
1116 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1117 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1118 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1120 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1121 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1122 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1123 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1124 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1128 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1129 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1132 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1136 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1137 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1138 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1142 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1143 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1144 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1145 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1146 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1150 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1151 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1152 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1154 * New targets supported
1156 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1157 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1158 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1159 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1160 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1162 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1163 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1164 GO32 memory extender.
1166 * New remote protocols
1168 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1170 * New source languages supported
1172 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1173 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1174 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1177 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1179 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1181 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1182 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1183 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1184 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1185 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1186 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1188 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1190 * Faster and better demangling
1192 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1193 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1194 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1195 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1196 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1197 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1200 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1201 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1202 compiler does not actually implement.
1204 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1206 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1207 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1208 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1209 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1210 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1211 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1214 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1215 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1217 * Improved configure script
1219 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1220 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1221 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1222 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1224 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1225 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1226 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1227 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1228 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1229 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1231 * Documentation improvements
1233 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1234 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1235 before submitting changes.
1237 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1238 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1239 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1240 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1241 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1243 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1244 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1245 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1246 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1247 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1248 around this problem.
1252 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1253 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1254 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1257 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1258 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1260 * New native hosts supported
1262 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1263 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1265 * New targets supported
1267 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1269 * New file formats supported
1271 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1272 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1276 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1278 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1279 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1281 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1282 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1283 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1285 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1286 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1288 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1289 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1290 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1293 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1294 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1295 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1296 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1297 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1299 * Internal improvements
1301 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1302 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1304 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1305 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1306 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1307 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1308 shared code that handles any of them.
1310 * New command line options
1312 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1316 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1317 General Public License.
1319 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1321 * Host/native/target split
1323 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1324 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1325 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1326 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1327 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1329 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1330 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1331 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1332 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1333 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1334 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1335 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1337 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1338 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1339 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1341 * New hosts supported
1343 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1344 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1345 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1347 * New targets supported
1349 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1350 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1352 * New native hosts supported
1354 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1355 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1356 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1358 * New file formats supported
1360 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1361 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1362 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1366 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1367 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1368 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1370 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1372 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1373 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1374 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1375 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1379 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1380 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1381 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1383 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1387 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1388 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1391 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1392 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1394 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1395 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1396 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1397 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1398 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1399 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1401 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1402 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1403 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1404 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1408 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1409 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1410 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1411 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1412 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1414 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1415 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1416 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1417 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1421 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1422 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1423 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1424 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1425 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1426 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1427 each instruction being stepped through.
1429 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1430 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1432 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1433 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1434 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1435 processor with a serial port.
1439 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1440 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1441 supported, and what files each one uses.
1445 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1446 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1447 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1448 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1450 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1451 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1452 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1453 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1457 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1458 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1459 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1460 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1461 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1462 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1464 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1467 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1469 * Better support for C++ function names
1471 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1472 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1473 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1474 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1475 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1477 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1478 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1479 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1480 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1481 for the list of formats.
1483 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1485 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1486 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1487 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1488 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1489 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1490 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1493 * New 'maintenance' command
1495 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1496 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1497 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1499 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1500 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1501 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1502 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1503 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1504 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1506 The following commands are new:
1508 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1509 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1510 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1512 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1514 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1515 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1516 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1517 read after argv processing.
1519 * New hosts supported
1521 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1523 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1525 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1526 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1527 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1528 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1529 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1532 * New targets supported
1534 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1536 * More smarts about finding #include files
1538 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1539 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1540 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1541 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1542 the one that contains your sources.
1544 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1545 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1546 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1548 * Interesting infernals change
1550 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1551 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1552 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1553 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1555 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1557 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1558 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1559 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1561 See the ChangeLog for details.
1563 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1565 * New machines supported (host and target)
1567 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1569 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1571 * New malloc package
1573 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1574 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1575 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1576 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1577 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1578 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1582 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1583 'help info proc' for details.
1585 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1587 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1588 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1591 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1593 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1594 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1595 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1596 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1597 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1598 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1600 * Cross byte order fixes
1602 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1603 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1605 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1607 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1608 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1609 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1610 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1611 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1612 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1613 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1614 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1615 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1616 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1618 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1619 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1620 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1621 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1623 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1624 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1625 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1628 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1630 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1631 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1632 shared across multiple host platforms.
1634 * longjmp() handling
1636 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1637 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1638 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1639 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1643 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1644 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1649 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1650 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1651 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1653 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1655 * New machines supported (host and target)
1657 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1659 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1660 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1662 * New machines supported (target)
1664 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1668 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1669 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1670 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1672 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1673 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1674 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1675 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1676 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1679 * New features for SVR4
1681 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1682 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1683 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1685 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1686 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1687 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1689 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1690 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1692 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1694 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1695 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1696 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1697 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1698 same code linked statically.
1702 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1703 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1704 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1705 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1706 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1707 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1711 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1712 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1713 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1716 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1718 * New machines supported (host and target)
1720 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1721 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1722 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1724 * Almost SCO Unix support
1726 We had hoped to support:
1727 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1728 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1729 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1730 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1732 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1734 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1735 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1736 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1737 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1742 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1743 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1744 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1748 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1749 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1750 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1752 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1754 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1755 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1756 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1758 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1759 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1760 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1761 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1764 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1765 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1766 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1767 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1770 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1771 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1774 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1775 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1776 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1779 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1781 * Improved configuration
1783 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1784 Porting BFD is simpler.
1788 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1789 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1790 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1791 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1795 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1797 * New host supported (not target)
1799 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1802 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1804 * Multiple source language support
1806 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1807 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1808 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1809 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1810 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1811 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1815 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1816 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1817 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1818 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1820 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1821 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1822 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1824 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1825 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1829 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1830 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1831 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1832 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1835 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1837 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1838 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1839 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1840 examining core files.
1844 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1847 * New machines supported (host and target)
1849 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1850 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1851 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1853 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1855 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1857 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1859 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1860 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1861 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1863 * New remote interfaces
1869 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1873 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1875 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1876 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1877 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1878 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1879 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1880 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1881 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1882 stub on the target system.
1884 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1886 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1887 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1888 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1890 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1891 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1894 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1896 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1897 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1899 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1900 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1901 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1903 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1904 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1905 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1906 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1908 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1909 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1910 it is already running. Default is ON.
1912 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1913 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1914 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1915 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1918 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1919 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1920 or the value of the environment variable
1923 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1924 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1927 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1928 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1929 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1931 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1932 history expansion will be performed on
1933 command line input. The default is OFF.
1935 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1936 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1937 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1939 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1940 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1941 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1944 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1945 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1946 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1949 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1950 ``set width'' instead.
1952 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1953 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1954 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1955 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1957 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1960 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1963 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1966 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1969 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1971 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1972 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1973 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1977 * Support for Shared Libraries
1979 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1980 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1981 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1982 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1983 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1984 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1985 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1986 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1988 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1989 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1990 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1992 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1997 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1998 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1999 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2000 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2001 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2002 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2004 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2006 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2008 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2009 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2010 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2013 * C++ multiple inheritance
2015 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2018 * C++ exception handling
2020 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2021 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2022 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2025 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2026 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2027 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2029 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2030 current stack frame.
2033 * Minor command changes
2035 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2036 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2037 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2039 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2040 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2041 frames without printing.
2043 * New directory command
2045 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2046 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2047 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2048 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2049 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2051 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2053 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2056 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2057 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2058 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2059 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob