1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
8 * New native configurations
10 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
11 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
15 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
17 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
18 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
19 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
20 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
21 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
23 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
24 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
25 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
26 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
27 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
28 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
29 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
30 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
32 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
33 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
35 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
36 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
37 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
40 * REMOVED configurations
42 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
45 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
50 * All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
52 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
54 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
56 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
57 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
58 contents of this file.
62 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
64 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
66 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
68 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
69 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
70 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
71 greater level of detail.
73 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
75 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
76 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
77 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
80 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
82 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
83 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
84 machines ``out of the box''.
86 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
87 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
88 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
89 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
90 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
92 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
93 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
94 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
95 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
96 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
98 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
99 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
102 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
105 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
106 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
107 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
108 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
110 * New native configurations
112 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
113 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
117 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
118 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
119 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
120 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
122 * OBSOLETE configurations
124 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
125 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
127 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
130 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
131 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
132 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
133 be permanently REMOVED.
135 * Gould support removed
137 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
139 * New features for SVR4
141 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
142 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
143 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
145 * Many C++ enhancements
147 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
148 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
150 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
152 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
153 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
154 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
155 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
157 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
158 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
160 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
162 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
163 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
164 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
166 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
167 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
169 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
171 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
172 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
173 include ``set remote P-packet''.
175 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
177 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
178 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
179 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
181 * ``apropos'' command added.
183 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
184 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
185 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
189 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
190 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
191 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
192 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
193 enabled by configuring with:
195 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
197 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
199 * New native configurations
201 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
202 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
203 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
207 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
208 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
209 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
211 * OBSOLETE configurations
213 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
215 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
216 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
217 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
218 be permanently REMOVED.
222 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
223 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
224 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
225 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
226 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
227 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
228 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
233 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
235 * set extension-language
237 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
238 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
239 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
240 set extension-language .c c++
241 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
242 and their associated languages.
244 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
246 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
247 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
248 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
252 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
253 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
255 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
256 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
258 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
259 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
260 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
261 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
262 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
263 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
264 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
265 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
267 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
268 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
269 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
270 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
274 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
275 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
276 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
277 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
278 for xdb and dbx commands.
282 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
283 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
284 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
286 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
287 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
288 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
290 * Debugging across forks
292 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
297 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
298 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
299 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
301 * GDB remote protocol additions
303 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
304 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
305 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
306 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
308 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
309 full 64-bit address. The command
311 set remoteaddresssize 32
313 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
314 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
317 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
318 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
320 maint packet heythere
322 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
323 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
326 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
327 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
328 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
330 * Tracing can collect general expressions
332 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
333 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
334 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
336 * mask-address variable for Mips
338 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
339 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
340 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
342 * Higher serial baud rates
344 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
345 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
346 to achieve all of these rates.)
350 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
351 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
354 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
356 * New native configurations
358 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
359 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
360 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
361 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
362 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
363 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
364 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
368 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
369 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
370 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
371 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
372 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
373 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
374 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
375 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
376 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
377 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
378 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
380 * New debugging protocols
382 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
383 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
384 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
385 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
386 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
387 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
391 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
392 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
397 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
398 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
400 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
402 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
403 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
404 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
406 * Live range splitting
408 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
409 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
410 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
414 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
415 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
419 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
420 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
421 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
426 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
431 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
432 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
433 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
434 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
435 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
436 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
440 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
441 the symbol at the specified address.
445 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
446 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
447 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
448 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
449 file tracepoint.c for more details.
453 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
454 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
455 of most MIPS variants.
459 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
460 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
461 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
465 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
466 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
467 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
468 the possible architectures.
470 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
472 * New native configurations
474 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
475 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
476 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
477 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
478 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
479 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
483 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
484 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
485 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
486 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
487 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
489 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
493 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
494 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
495 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
496 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
497 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
501 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
503 * Windows 95/NT native
505 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
506 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
507 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
508 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
509 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
511 * dont-repeat command
513 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
514 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
515 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
516 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
518 * Send break instead of ^C
520 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
521 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
522 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
524 * Remote protocol timeout
526 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
527 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
528 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
530 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
532 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
533 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
534 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
535 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
536 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
538 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
539 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
540 automatically on hpux10.
542 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
544 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
546 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
548 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
549 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
550 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
551 every character. The default value is 1050.
553 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
555 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
556 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
557 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
558 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
559 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
560 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
562 * Speedups for remote debugging
564 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
565 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
566 and more efficient S-record downloading.
568 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
570 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
571 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
573 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
577 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
578 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
580 * Remote targets use caching
582 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
583 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
584 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
585 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
586 off' turns the the data cache off.
588 * Remote targets may have threads
590 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
591 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
592 gdb/remote.c for details.
596 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
597 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
598 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
599 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
600 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
601 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
602 sequence is something like
604 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
606 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
610 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
611 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
612 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
613 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
614 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
615 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
616 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
617 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
621 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
622 but does simplify configuration and building.
626 GDB now supports hpux10.
628 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
630 * New native configurations
632 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
633 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
634 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
635 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
639 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
640 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
641 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
642 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
645 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
647 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
648 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
649 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
650 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
651 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
653 * Arguments to user-defined commands
655 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
656 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
659 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
661 To execute the command use:
664 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
665 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
666 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
668 * New `if' and `while' commands
670 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
671 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
672 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
673 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
674 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
675 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
676 if the expression is zero.
678 * Fortran source language mode
680 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
681 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
682 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
683 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
686 * Better HPUX support
688 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
689 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
690 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
691 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
692 that behavior do the following before running the program:
698 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
699 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
705 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
706 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
709 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
710 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
712 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
714 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
715 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
716 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
717 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
718 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
719 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
721 * New DOS host serial code
723 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
724 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
727 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
729 * New "complete" command
731 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
732 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
734 * Trailing space optional in prompt
736 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
737 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
739 * Breakpoint hit counts
741 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
742 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
743 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
744 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
745 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
748 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
750 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
751 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
752 arrays actually contain only short strings.
754 * Shared library breakpoints
756 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
757 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
759 * Hardware watchpoints
761 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
762 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
764 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
768 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
769 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
771 * Improved Irix 5 support
773 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
775 * Improved HPPA support
777 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
779 * New native configurations
781 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
782 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
783 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
784 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
788 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
789 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
792 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
794 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
795 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
799 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
800 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
802 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
804 * Irix 5 is now supported
808 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
809 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
810 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
811 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
812 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
815 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
817 * User visible changes:
821 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
822 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
823 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
824 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
825 debugging info for the mips target).
827 * DEC Alpha native support
829 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
830 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
831 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
832 Alpha-specific notes.
834 * Preliminary thread implementation
836 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
838 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
840 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
841 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
844 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
846 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
847 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
848 call methods, ...etc.
850 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
852 * User visible changes:
854 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
855 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
856 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
857 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
859 Filename completion now works.
861 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
862 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
863 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
865 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
866 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
867 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
868 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
869 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
873 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
874 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
877 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
881 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
882 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
883 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
887 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
888 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
889 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
890 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
891 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
895 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
896 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
897 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
899 * New targets supported
901 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
902 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
903 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
904 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
905 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
907 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
908 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
909 GO32 memory extender.
911 * New remote protocols
913 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
915 * New source languages supported
917 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
918 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
919 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
922 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
924 * HP Precision Architecture supported
926 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
927 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
928 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
929 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
930 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
931 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
933 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
935 * Faster and better demangling
937 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
938 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
939 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
940 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
941 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
942 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
945 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
946 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
947 compiler does not actually implement.
949 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
951 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
952 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
953 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
954 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
955 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
956 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
959 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
960 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
962 * Improved configure script
964 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
965 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
966 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
967 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
969 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
970 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
971 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
972 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
973 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
974 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
976 * Documentation improvements
978 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
979 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
980 before submitting changes.
982 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
983 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
984 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
985 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
986 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
988 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
989 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
990 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
991 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
992 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
997 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
998 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
999 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1002 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1003 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1005 * New native hosts supported
1007 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1008 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1010 * New targets supported
1012 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1014 * New file formats supported
1016 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1017 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1021 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1023 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1024 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1026 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1027 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1028 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1030 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1031 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1033 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1034 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1035 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1038 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1039 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1040 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1041 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1042 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1044 * Internal improvements
1046 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1047 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1049 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1050 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1051 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1052 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1053 shared code that handles any of them.
1055 * New command line options
1057 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1061 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1062 General Public License.
1064 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1066 * Host/native/target split
1068 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1069 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1070 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1071 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1072 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1074 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1075 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1076 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1077 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1078 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1079 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1080 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1082 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1083 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1084 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1086 * New hosts supported
1088 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1089 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1090 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1092 * New targets supported
1094 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1095 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1097 * New native hosts supported
1099 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1100 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1101 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1103 * New file formats supported
1105 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1106 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1107 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1111 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1112 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1113 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1115 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1117 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1118 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1119 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1120 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1124 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1125 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1126 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1128 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1132 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1133 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1136 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1137 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1139 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1140 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1141 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1142 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1143 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1144 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1146 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1147 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1148 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1149 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1153 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1154 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1155 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1156 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1157 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1159 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1160 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1161 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1162 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1166 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1167 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1168 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1169 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1170 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1171 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1172 each instruction being stepped through.
1174 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1175 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1177 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1178 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1179 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1180 processor with a serial port.
1184 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1185 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1186 supported, and what files each one uses.
1190 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1191 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1192 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1193 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1195 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1196 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1197 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1198 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1202 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1203 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1204 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1205 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1206 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1207 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1209 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1212 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1214 * Better support for C++ function names
1216 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1217 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1218 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1219 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1220 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1222 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1223 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1224 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1225 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1226 for the list of formats.
1228 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1230 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1231 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1232 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1233 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1234 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1235 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1238 * New 'maintenance' command
1240 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1241 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1242 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1244 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1245 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1246 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1247 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1248 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1249 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1251 The following commands are new:
1253 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1254 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1255 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1257 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1259 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1260 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1261 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1262 read after argv processing.
1264 * New hosts supported
1266 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1268 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1270 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1271 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1272 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1273 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1274 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1277 * New targets supported
1279 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1281 * More smarts about finding #include files
1283 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1284 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1285 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1286 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1287 the one that contains your sources.
1289 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1290 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1291 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1293 * Interesting infernals change
1295 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1296 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1297 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1298 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1300 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1302 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1303 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1304 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1306 See the ChangeLog for details.
1308 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1310 * New machines supported (host and target)
1312 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1314 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1316 * New malloc package
1318 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1319 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1320 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1321 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1322 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1323 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1327 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1328 'help info proc' for details.
1330 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1332 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1333 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1336 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1338 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1339 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1340 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1341 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1342 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1343 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1345 * Cross byte order fixes
1347 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1348 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1350 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1352 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1353 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1354 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1355 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1356 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1357 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1358 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1359 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1360 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1361 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1363 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1364 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1365 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1366 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1368 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1369 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1370 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1373 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1375 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1376 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1377 shared across multiple host platforms.
1379 * longjmp() handling
1381 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1382 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1383 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1384 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1388 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1389 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1394 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1395 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1396 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1398 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1400 * New machines supported (host and target)
1402 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1404 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1405 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1407 * New machines supported (target)
1409 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1413 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1414 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1415 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1417 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1418 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1419 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1420 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1421 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1424 * New features for SVR4
1426 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1427 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1428 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1430 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1431 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1432 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1434 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1435 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1437 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1439 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1440 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1441 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1442 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1443 same code linked statically.
1447 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1448 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1449 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1450 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1451 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1452 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1456 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1457 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1458 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1461 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1463 * New machines supported (host and target)
1465 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1466 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1467 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1469 * Almost SCO Unix support
1471 We had hoped to support:
1472 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1473 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1474 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1475 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1477 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1479 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1480 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1481 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1482 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1487 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1488 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1489 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1493 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1494 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1495 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1497 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1499 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1500 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1501 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1503 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1504 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1505 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1506 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1509 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1510 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1511 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1512 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1515 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1516 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1519 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1520 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1521 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1524 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1526 * Improved configuration
1528 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1529 Porting BFD is simpler.
1533 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1534 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1535 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1536 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1540 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1542 * New host supported (not target)
1544 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1547 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1549 * Multiple source language support
1551 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1552 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1553 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1554 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1555 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1556 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1560 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1561 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1562 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1563 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1565 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1566 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1567 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1569 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1570 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1574 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1575 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1576 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1577 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1580 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1582 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1583 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1584 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1585 examining core files.
1589 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1592 * New machines supported (host and target)
1594 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1595 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1596 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1598 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1600 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1602 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1604 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1605 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1606 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1608 * New remote interfaces
1614 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1618 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1620 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1621 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1622 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1623 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1624 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1625 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1626 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1627 stub on the target system.
1629 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1631 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1632 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1633 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1635 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1636 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1639 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1641 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1642 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1644 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1645 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1646 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1648 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1649 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1650 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1651 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1653 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1654 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1655 it is already running. Default is ON.
1657 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1658 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1659 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1660 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1663 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1664 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1665 or the value of the environment variable
1668 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1669 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1672 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1673 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1674 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1676 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1677 history expansion will be performed on
1678 command line input. The default is OFF.
1680 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1681 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1682 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1684 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1685 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1686 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1689 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1690 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1691 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1694 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1695 ``set width'' instead.
1697 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1698 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1699 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1700 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1702 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1705 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1708 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1711 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1714 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1716 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1717 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1718 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1722 * Support for Shared Libraries
1724 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1725 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1726 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1727 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1728 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1729 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1730 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1731 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1733 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1734 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1735 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1737 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1742 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1743 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1744 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1745 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1746 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1747 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1749 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1751 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1753 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1754 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1755 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1758 * C++ multiple inheritance
1760 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1763 * C++ exception handling
1765 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1766 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1767 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1770 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1771 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1772 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1774 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1775 current stack frame.
1778 * Minor command changes
1780 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1781 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1782 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1784 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1785 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1786 frames without printing.
1788 * New directory command
1790 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1791 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1792 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1793 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1794 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1796 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1798 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1801 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1802 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1803 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1804 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob