1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
6 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
7 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
8 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
9 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
10 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
11 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
12 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
13 the installation instructions for more information.
15 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
16 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
17 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
18 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
20 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
21 now complete on file names.
23 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
24 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
25 For instance, consider:
27 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
28 # struct example variable;
31 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
32 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
34 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
35 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
38 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
39 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
40 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
45 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
48 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
49 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
50 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
53 Obtains additional operating system information
57 Read or write additional signal information.
59 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
61 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
62 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
63 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
65 * The "disassemble" command now supports an optional /m modifier to print mixed
68 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
69 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
71 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
72 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
73 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
75 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
76 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
78 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
80 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
82 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
83 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
85 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
86 list of section offsets.
88 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
89 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
92 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
93 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
94 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
96 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
99 template<typename T> class C { };
102 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
104 ptype C<char const *>
106 ptype C<const char *>
109 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
111 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
112 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
114 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
115 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
116 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
118 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
119 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
121 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
126 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
127 available is determined at configure time.
129 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
131 * Ada tasking support
133 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
137 Print the list of Ada tasks.
139 Print detailed information about task number N.
141 Print the task number of the current task.
143 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
145 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
146 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
150 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
152 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
154 maint set python print-stack
155 maint show python print-stack
156 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
159 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
161 set print symbol-loading
162 show print symbol-loading
163 Control printing of symbol loading messages.
167 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
172 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
174 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
175 show multiple-symbols
176 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
177 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
178 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
180 set breakpoint always-inserted
181 show breakpoint always-inserted
182 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
183 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
184 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
186 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
187 show arm fallback-mode
188 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
190 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
191 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
192 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
193 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
195 set disable-randomization
196 show disable-randomization
197 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
198 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
199 multiple debugging sessions.
202 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
203 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
204 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
205 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
207 set target-wide-charset
208 show target-wide-charset
209 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
210 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
212 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
214 set tcp connect-timeout
215 show tcp connect-timeout
216 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
217 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
218 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
223 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
227 Show operating system information about processes.
229 * New native configurations
231 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
233 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
237 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
238 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
244 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
246 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
248 * New native configurations
250 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
251 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
255 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
256 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
258 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
260 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
261 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
262 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
263 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
265 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
266 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
268 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
271 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
272 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
273 and in inlined functions.
275 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
276 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
277 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
279 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
281 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
282 registers on PowerPC targets.
284 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
285 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
287 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
288 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
290 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
291 extended-remote mode.
293 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
294 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
295 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
296 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
298 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
299 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
300 target architectures.
302 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
303 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
304 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
305 stored in two consecutive float registers.
307 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
310 * Improved support for debugging Ada
311 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
313 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
314 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
315 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
316 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
318 - Improved command completion in Ada
321 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
326 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
327 show print frame-arguments
328 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
329 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
334 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
341 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
350 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
353 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
357 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
359 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
361 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
362 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
363 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
365 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
366 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
367 -Bsymbolic linker option.
369 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
370 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
373 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
374 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
376 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
377 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
379 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
381 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
382 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
383 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
385 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
386 automatically displayed as character or string data.
388 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
389 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
392 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
393 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
394 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
396 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
399 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
400 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
401 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
403 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
405 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
407 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
408 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
409 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
411 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
412 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
414 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
415 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
416 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
417 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
418 Windows and SymbianOS).
420 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
421 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
423 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
424 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
430 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
431 when debugging using remote targets.
433 set mem inaccessible-by-default
434 show mem inaccessible-by-default
435 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
436 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
437 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
438 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
439 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
441 set breakpoint auto-hw
442 show breakpoint auto-hw
443 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
444 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
445 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
446 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
447 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
448 including "next" and "finish".
451 catch exception unhandled
452 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
455 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
459 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
460 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
461 an alias to "set sysroot".
464 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
465 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
468 * New native configurations
470 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
475 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
476 not query the target for its built-in description.
480 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
481 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
482 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
487 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
488 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
491 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
496 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
497 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
499 qXfer:libraries:read:
500 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
501 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
502 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
503 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
507 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
516 i[34567]86-*-netware*
517 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
518 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
520 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
523 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
524 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
533 * Other removed features
540 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
547 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
552 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
553 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
558 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
559 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
561 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
563 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
564 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
565 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
566 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
570 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
571 in debugging information.
575 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
576 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
578 set mips stack-arg-size
579 set mips saved-gpreg-size
581 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
583 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
588 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
590 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
591 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
592 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
594 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
595 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
598 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
599 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
601 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
602 stub provides the required support.
604 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
605 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
610 unset substitute-path
612 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
613 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
614 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
615 between compilation and debugging.
619 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
620 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
621 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
625 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
627 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
628 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
630 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
635 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
636 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
637 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
638 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
642 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
643 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
645 qXfer:memory-map:read:
646 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
647 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
652 Erase and program a flash memory device.
654 * Removed remote packets
657 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
658 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
660 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
664 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
666 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
670 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
671 only if it doesn't already have a value.
673 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
675 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
677 restart <n> Return the program state to a
678 previously saved state.
680 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
682 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
684 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
685 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
687 info forks List forks of the user program that
688 are available to be debugged.
690 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
691 forks of the user program that are
692 available to be debugged.
694 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
695 that are available to be debugged (and
696 kill the forked process).
698 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
699 that are available to be debugged (and
700 allow the process to continue).
704 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
706 * Improved Windows host support
708 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
709 native console support, and remote communications using either
710 network sockets or serial ports.
712 * Improved Modula-2 language support
714 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
715 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
716 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
717 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
718 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
719 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
723 The ARM rdi-share module.
725 The Netware NLM debug server.
727 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
729 * New native configurations
731 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
732 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
736 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
738 * New command line options
740 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
741 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
742 the child (debugged) program exited with.
743 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
744 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
745 specified multiple times and in conjunction
746 with the --command (-x) option.
748 * Deprecated commands removed
750 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
754 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
755 othernames set arm disassembler
756 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
757 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
758 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
761 * New BSD user-level threads support
763 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
764 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
767 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
768 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
769 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
771 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
772 are not yet supported.
774 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
775 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
777 * REMOVED configurations and files
779 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
780 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
781 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
783 * New "set print array-indexes" command
785 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
786 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
789 * VAX floating point support
791 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
793 * User-defined command support
795 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
796 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
797 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
799 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
801 * New command line option
803 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
806 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
808 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
809 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
810 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
811 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
812 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
814 * Internationalization
816 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
817 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
818 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
822 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
823 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
824 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
826 * New native configurations
828 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
832 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
833 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
835 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
837 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
838 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
839 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
842 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
843 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
844 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
856 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
857 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
859 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
861 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
862 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
863 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
873 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
875 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
877 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
878 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
881 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
883 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
884 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
885 IRIX long double values).
889 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
890 command. This problem has been fixed.
892 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
894 * Fix for ``many threads''
896 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
897 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
900 ptrace: No such process.
901 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
903 This problem has been fixed.
905 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
907 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
910 * New ``start'' command.
912 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
914 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
916 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
917 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
918 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
920 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
921 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
922 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
923 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
924 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
925 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
926 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
927 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
928 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
930 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
932 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
933 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
934 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
935 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
936 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
938 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
939 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
940 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
942 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
944 * New native configurations
946 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
947 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
948 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
949 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
950 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
951 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
952 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
954 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
956 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
957 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
958 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
959 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
960 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
961 work, was also included.
963 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
964 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
974 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
975 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
977 * REMOVED configurations and files
979 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
980 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
981 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
982 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
983 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
984 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
985 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
986 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
987 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
989 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
991 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
993 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
995 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
996 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
997 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
998 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1001 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1003 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1004 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1005 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1006 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1007 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1008 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1011 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1013 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1015 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1016 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1017 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1019 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1021 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1022 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1024 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1026 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1027 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1028 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1030 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1032 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1033 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1035 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1037 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1038 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1039 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1041 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1043 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1044 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1045 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1047 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1049 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1051 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1052 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1054 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1056 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1057 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1058 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1059 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1061 * Revised SPARC target
1063 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1064 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1065 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1066 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1067 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1071 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1072 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1073 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1076 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1078 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1079 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1082 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1084 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1085 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1086 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1087 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1088 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1089 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1090 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1091 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1092 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1094 * New native configurations
1096 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1097 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1098 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1099 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1100 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1102 * New debugging protocols
1104 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1106 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1108 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1109 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1110 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
1112 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1114 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1115 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1116 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1117 permanently REMOVED.
1119 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1120 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1121 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1122 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1123 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1124 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1125 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1126 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1127 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1128 sonymips mips-sony-*
1129 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1131 * REMOVED configurations and files
1133 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1134 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1135 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1136 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1137 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1138 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1139 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1140 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1141 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1142 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
1143 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1144 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1145 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1146 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
1147 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
1148 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1149 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1151 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
1155 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
1156 integrated into GDB.
1158 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
1160 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
1161 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
1162 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
1165 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
1166 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
1167 DWARF 2 CFI support.
1171 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
1172 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
1173 remote protocol documentation for details.
1175 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
1177 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
1178 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
1179 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
1182 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
1184 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
1185 per-thread variables.
1187 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
1189 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
1190 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
1192 * Separate debug info.
1194 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
1195 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
1196 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
1197 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
1198 and optional debug files.
1200 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1202 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
1203 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
1206 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
1207 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
1211 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
1212 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
1213 considered "useable".
1215 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
1217 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
1218 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
1221 * GDB supports logging output to a file
1223 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
1224 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
1226 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
1228 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
1229 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
1232 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1234 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1235 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1239 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1240 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1241 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1242 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1243 data, for more informative profiling results.
1245 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1247 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1248 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1249 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1251 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1254 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1255 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1256 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1257 in a subsequent -var-update.
1259 * New native configurations.
1261 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1263 * Multi-arched targets.
1265 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1266 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1268 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1270 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1271 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1272 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1273 permanently REMOVED.
1275 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1276 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1277 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1278 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1279 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1280 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1281 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1282 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1283 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1284 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1285 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1286 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1288 * REMOVED configurations and files
1291 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1292 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1293 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1294 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1295 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1296 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1298 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1299 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1300 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1301 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1302 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1303 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1305 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1307 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1308 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1309 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1310 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1311 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1313 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1315 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1317 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1318 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1319 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1320 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1321 shared libs like mad''.
1323 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1325 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1326 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1327 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1328 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1330 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1332 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1333 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1336 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1337 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1339 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1340 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1342 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1343 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1344 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1345 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1347 * Multi-arched targets.
1349 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1350 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1352 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1353 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1354 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1358 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1361 * New native configurations
1363 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1364 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1365 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1366 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1368 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1370 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1371 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1372 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1373 permanently REMOVED.
1375 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1376 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1377 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1378 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1379 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1380 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1381 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1382 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1383 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1384 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1386 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1387 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1389 * OBSOLETE languages
1391 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1393 * REMOVED configurations and files
1395 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1396 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1397 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1398 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1399 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1401 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1403 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1405 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1406 commands. The default is 1024.
1408 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1410 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1412 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1414 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1415 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1416 from a file into memory (restore).
1418 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1420 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1421 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1422 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1424 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1432 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1433 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1434 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1436 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1437 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1438 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1440 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1441 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1442 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1444 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1445 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1446 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1448 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1450 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1452 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1453 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1454 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1455 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1456 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1457 (notably embedded) targets.
1459 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1461 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1462 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1463 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1464 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1466 * New command line option
1468 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1470 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1472 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1473 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1474 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1475 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1476 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1477 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1478 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1479 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1480 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1481 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1483 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1485 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1486 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1488 * New native configurations
1490 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1491 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1492 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1493 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1497 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1499 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1501 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1502 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1503 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1504 permanently REMOVED.
1506 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1507 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1508 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1509 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1510 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1512 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1514 * REMOVED configurations and files
1516 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1518 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1519 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1520 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1521 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1522 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1523 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1524 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1525 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1526 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1527 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1528 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1530 * Changes to command line processing
1532 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1533 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1535 * Changes to key bindings
1537 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1539 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1541 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1543 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1546 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1548 Numerous documentation fixes.
1550 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1552 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1554 * New native configurations
1556 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1557 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1558 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1559 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1560 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1561 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1565 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1567 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1569 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1571 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1572 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1573 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1574 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1575 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1577 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1578 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1579 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1580 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1581 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1582 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1583 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1584 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1586 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1587 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1589 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1590 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1591 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1592 permanently REMOVED.
1594 * REMOVED configurations and files
1596 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1597 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1599 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1603 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1605 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1606 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1611 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1613 * The MI enabled by default.
1615 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1616 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1617 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1618 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1619 which is now deprecated.
1621 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1623 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1624 main features are supported:
1626 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1628 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1631 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1633 - a Pascal expression parser.
1635 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1637 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1639 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1641 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1642 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1644 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1646 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1648 * Changes in completion.
1650 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1651 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1652 users expect at the shell prompt.
1654 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1655 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1656 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1657 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1658 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1659 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1660 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1662 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1664 * New platform-independent commands:
1666 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1667 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1668 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1670 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1672 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1673 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1674 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1676 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1678 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1679 multi-threaded programs though.
1681 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1683 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1685 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1686 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1689 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1691 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1692 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1693 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1694 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1695 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1698 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1699 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1700 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1702 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1704 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1705 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1707 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1708 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1711 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1712 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1713 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1714 a given linear address.
1716 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1717 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1718 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1720 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1722 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1724 * Changes in documentation.
1726 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1727 Documentation License.
1729 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1732 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1734 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1737 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1738 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1739 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1741 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1743 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1744 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1745 contents of this file.
1749 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1751 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1753 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1755 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1756 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1757 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1758 greater level of detail.
1760 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1762 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1763 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1764 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1767 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1769 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1770 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1771 machines ``out of the box''.
1773 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1774 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1775 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1776 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1777 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1779 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1780 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1781 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1782 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1783 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1785 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1786 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1789 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1792 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1793 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1794 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1795 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1797 * New native configurations
1799 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1800 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1804 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1805 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1806 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1807 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1809 * OBSOLETE configurations
1811 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1812 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1814 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1817 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1818 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1819 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1820 be permanently REMOVED.
1822 * Gould support removed
1824 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1826 * New features for SVR4
1828 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1829 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1830 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1832 * Many C++ enhancements
1834 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1835 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1837 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1839 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1840 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1841 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1842 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1844 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1845 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1847 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1849 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1850 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1851 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1853 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1854 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1856 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1858 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1859 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1860 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1862 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1864 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1865 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1866 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1868 * ``apropos'' command added.
1870 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1871 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1872 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1876 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1877 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1878 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1879 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1880 enabled by configuring with:
1882 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1884 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1886 * New native configurations
1888 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1889 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1890 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1894 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1895 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1896 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1898 * OBSOLETE configurations
1900 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1902 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1903 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1904 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1905 be permanently REMOVED.
1909 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1910 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1911 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1912 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1913 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1914 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1915 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1920 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1922 * set extension-language
1924 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1925 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1926 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1927 set extension-language .c c++
1928 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1929 and their associated languages.
1931 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1933 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1934 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1935 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1939 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1940 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1942 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1943 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1945 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1946 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1947 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1948 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1949 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1950 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1951 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1952 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1954 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1955 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1956 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1957 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1961 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1962 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1963 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1964 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1965 for xdb and dbx commands.
1969 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1970 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1971 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1973 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1974 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1975 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1977 * Debugging across forks
1979 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1984 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1985 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1986 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1988 * GDB remote protocol additions
1990 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1991 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1992 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1993 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1995 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1996 full 64-bit address. The command
1998 set remoteaddresssize 32
2000 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2001 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2004 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2005 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2007 maint packet heythere
2009 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2010 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2013 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2014 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2015 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2017 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2019 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2020 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2021 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2023 * mask-address variable for Mips
2025 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2026 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2027 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2029 * Higher serial baud rates
2031 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2032 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2033 to achieve all of these rates.)
2037 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2038 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2041 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2043 * New native configurations
2045 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2046 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2047 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2048 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2049 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2050 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2051 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2055 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2056 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2057 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2058 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2059 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2060 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2061 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2062 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2063 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2064 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2065 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2067 * New debugging protocols
2069 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2070 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2071 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2072 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2073 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2074 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2078 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2079 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2084 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2085 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2087 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2089 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2090 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2091 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2093 * Live range splitting
2095 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2096 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2097 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2101 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2102 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2106 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2107 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2108 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
2113 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
2118 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
2119 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
2120 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
2121 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
2122 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
2123 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
2127 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
2128 the symbol at the specified address.
2132 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
2133 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
2134 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
2135 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
2136 file tracepoint.c for more details.
2140 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
2141 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
2142 of most MIPS variants.
2146 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
2147 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
2148 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
2152 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
2153 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
2154 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
2155 the possible architectures.
2157 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
2159 * New native configurations
2161 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
2162 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
2163 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
2164 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
2165 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2166 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
2170 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
2171 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2172 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
2173 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
2174 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
2176 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2180 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
2181 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
2182 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
2183 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
2184 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
2188 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
2190 * Windows 95/NT native
2192 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
2193 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
2194 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
2195 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
2196 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
2198 * dont-repeat command
2200 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
2201 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
2202 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
2203 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
2205 * Send break instead of ^C
2207 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
2208 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
2209 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
2211 * Remote protocol timeout
2213 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
2214 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
2215 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
2217 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
2219 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
2220 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
2221 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
2222 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
2223 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
2225 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
2226 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
2227 automatically on hpux10.
2229 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
2231 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
2233 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2235 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2236 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2237 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2238 every character. The default value is 1050.
2240 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2242 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2243 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2244 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2245 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2246 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2247 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2249 * Speedups for remote debugging
2251 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2252 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2253 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2255 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2257 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2258 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2260 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2262 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2264 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2265 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2267 * Remote targets use caching
2269 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2270 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2271 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2272 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2273 off' turns the the data cache off.
2275 * Remote targets may have threads
2277 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2278 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2279 gdb/remote.c for details.
2283 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2284 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2285 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2286 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2287 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2288 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2289 sequence is something like
2291 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2293 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2297 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2298 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2299 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2300 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2301 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2302 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2303 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2304 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2308 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2309 but does simplify configuration and building.
2313 GDB now supports hpux10.
2315 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2317 * New native configurations
2319 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2320 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2321 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2322 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2326 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2327 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2328 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2329 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2332 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2334 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2335 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2336 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2337 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2338 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2340 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2342 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2343 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2346 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2348 To execute the command use:
2351 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2352 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2353 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2355 * New `if' and `while' commands
2357 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2358 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2359 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2360 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2361 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2362 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2363 if the expression is zero.
2365 * Fortran source language mode
2367 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2368 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2369 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2370 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2373 * Better HPUX support
2375 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2376 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2377 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2378 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2379 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2385 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2386 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2392 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2393 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2396 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2397 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2399 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2401 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2402 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2403 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2404 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2405 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2406 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2408 * New DOS host serial code
2410 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2411 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2414 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2416 * New "complete" command
2418 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2419 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2421 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2423 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2424 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2426 * Breakpoint hit counts
2428 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2429 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2430 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2431 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2432 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2435 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2437 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2438 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2439 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2441 * Shared library breakpoints
2443 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2444 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2446 * Hardware watchpoints
2448 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2449 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2451 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2455 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2456 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2458 * Improved Irix 5 support
2460 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2462 * Improved HPPA support
2464 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2466 * New native configurations
2468 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2469 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2470 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2471 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2475 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2476 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2479 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2481 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2482 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2486 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2487 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2489 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2491 * Irix 5 is now supported
2495 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2496 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2497 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2498 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2499 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2502 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2504 * User visible changes:
2508 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2509 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2510 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2511 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2512 debugging info for the mips target).
2514 * DEC Alpha native support
2516 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2517 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2518 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2519 Alpha-specific notes.
2521 * Preliminary thread implementation
2523 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2525 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2527 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2528 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2531 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2533 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2534 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2535 call methods, ...etc.
2537 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2539 * User visible changes:
2541 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2542 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2543 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2544 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2546 Filename completion now works.
2548 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2549 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2550 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2552 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2553 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2554 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2555 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2556 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2560 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2561 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2564 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2568 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2569 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2570 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2574 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2575 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2576 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2577 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2578 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2582 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2583 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2584 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2586 * New targets supported
2588 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2589 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2590 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2591 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2592 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2594 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2595 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2596 GO32 memory extender.
2598 * New remote protocols
2600 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2602 * New source languages supported
2604 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2605 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2606 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2609 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2611 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2613 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2614 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2615 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2616 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2617 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2618 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2620 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2622 * Faster and better demangling
2624 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2625 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2626 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2627 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2628 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2629 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2632 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2633 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2634 compiler does not actually implement.
2636 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2638 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2639 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2640 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2641 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2642 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2643 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2646 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2647 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2649 * Improved configure script
2651 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2652 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2653 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2654 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2656 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2657 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2658 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2659 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2660 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2661 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2663 * Documentation improvements
2665 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2666 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2667 before submitting changes.
2669 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2670 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2671 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2672 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2673 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2675 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2676 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2677 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2678 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2679 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2680 around this problem.
2684 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2685 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2686 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2689 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2690 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2692 * New native hosts supported
2694 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2695 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2697 * New targets supported
2699 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2701 * New file formats supported
2703 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2704 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2708 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2710 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2711 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2713 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2714 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2715 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2717 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2718 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2720 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2721 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2722 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2725 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2726 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2727 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2728 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2729 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2731 * Internal improvements
2733 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2734 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2736 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2737 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2738 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2739 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2740 shared code that handles any of them.
2742 * New command line options
2744 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2748 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2749 General Public License.
2751 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2753 * Host/native/target split
2755 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2756 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2757 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2758 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2759 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2761 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2762 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2763 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2764 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2765 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2766 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2767 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2769 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2770 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2771 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2773 * New hosts supported
2775 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2776 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2777 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2779 * New targets supported
2781 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2782 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2784 * New native hosts supported
2786 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2787 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2788 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2790 * New file formats supported
2792 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2793 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2794 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2798 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2799 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2800 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2802 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2804 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2805 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2806 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2807 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2811 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2812 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2813 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2815 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2819 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2820 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2823 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2824 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2826 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2827 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2828 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2829 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2830 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2831 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2833 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2834 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2835 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2836 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2840 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2841 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2842 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2843 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2844 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2846 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2847 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2848 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2849 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2853 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2854 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2855 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2856 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2857 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2858 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2859 each instruction being stepped through.
2861 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2862 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2864 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2865 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2866 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2867 processor with a serial port.
2871 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2872 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2873 supported, and what files each one uses.
2877 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2878 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2879 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2880 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2882 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2883 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2884 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2885 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2889 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2890 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2891 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2892 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2893 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2894 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2896 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2899 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2901 * Better support for C++ function names
2903 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2904 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2905 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2906 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2907 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2909 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2910 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2911 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2912 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2913 for the list of formats.
2915 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2917 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2918 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2919 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2920 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2921 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2922 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2925 * New 'maintenance' command
2927 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2928 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2929 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2931 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2932 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2933 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2934 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2935 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2936 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2938 The following commands are new:
2940 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2941 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2942 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2944 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2946 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2947 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2948 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2949 read after argv processing.
2951 * New hosts supported
2953 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2955 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2957 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2958 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2959 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2960 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2961 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2964 * New targets supported
2966 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2968 * More smarts about finding #include files
2970 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2971 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2972 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2973 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2974 the one that contains your sources.
2976 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2977 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2978 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2980 * Interesting infernals change
2982 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2983 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2984 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2985 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2987 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2989 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2990 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2991 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2993 See the ChangeLog for details.
2995 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2997 * New machines supported (host and target)
2999 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3001 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3003 * New malloc package
3005 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3006 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3007 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3008 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3009 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3010 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3014 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3015 'help info proc' for details.
3017 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3019 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3020 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3023 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3025 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3026 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3027 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3028 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3029 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3030 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3032 * Cross byte order fixes
3034 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3035 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3037 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3039 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3040 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3041 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3042 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3043 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3044 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3045 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3046 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3047 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3048 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3050 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3051 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3052 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3053 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3055 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3056 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3057 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3060 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3062 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3063 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3064 shared across multiple host platforms.
3066 * longjmp() handling
3068 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3069 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3070 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3071 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3075 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3076 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3081 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3082 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3083 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3085 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3087 * New machines supported (host and target)
3089 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3091 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3092 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3094 * New machines supported (target)
3096 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3100 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3101 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3102 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3104 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3105 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3106 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3107 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3108 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
3111 * New features for SVR4
3113 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
3114 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
3115 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
3117 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
3118 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
3119 it prints the address mappings of the process.
3121 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
3122 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
3124 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
3126 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
3127 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
3128 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
3129 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
3130 same code linked statically.
3134 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
3135 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
3136 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
3137 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
3138 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
3139 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
3143 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3144 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3145 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3148 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
3150 * New machines supported (host and target)
3152 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
3153 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
3154 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3156 * Almost SCO Unix support
3158 We had hoped to support:
3159 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3160 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
3161 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
3162 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
3164 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
3166 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
3167 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
3168 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
3169 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
3174 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
3175 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
3176 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
3180 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
3181 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
3182 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
3184 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
3186 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
3187 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
3188 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
3190 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
3191 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
3192 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
3193 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
3196 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
3197 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
3198 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
3199 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
3202 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
3203 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
3206 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
3207 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
3208 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
3211 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
3213 * Improved configuration
3215 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
3216 Porting BFD is simpler.
3220 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
3221 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
3222 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
3223 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
3227 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
3229 * New host supported (not target)
3231 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3234 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3236 * Multiple source language support
3238 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3239 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3240 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3241 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3242 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3243 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3247 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3248 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3249 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3250 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3252 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3253 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3254 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3256 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3257 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3261 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3262 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3263 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3264 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3267 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3269 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3270 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3271 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3272 examining core files.
3276 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3279 * New machines supported (host and target)
3281 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3282 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3283 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3285 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3287 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3289 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3291 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3292 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3293 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3295 * New remote interfaces
3301 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3305 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3307 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3308 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3309 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3310 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3311 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3312 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3313 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3314 stub on the target system.
3316 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3318 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3319 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3320 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3322 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3323 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3326 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3328 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3329 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3331 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3332 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3333 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3335 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3336 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3337 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3338 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3340 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3341 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3342 it is already running. Default is ON.
3344 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3345 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3346 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3347 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3350 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3351 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3352 or the value of the environment variable
3355 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3356 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3359 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3360 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3361 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3363 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3364 history expansion will be performed on
3365 command line input. The default is OFF.
3367 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3368 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3369 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3371 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3372 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3373 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3376 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3377 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3378 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3381 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3382 ``set width'' instead.
3384 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3385 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3386 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3387 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3389 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3392 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3395 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3398 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3401 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3403 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3404 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3405 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3409 * Support for Shared Libraries
3411 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3412 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3413 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3414 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3415 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3416 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3417 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3418 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3420 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3421 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3422 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3424 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3429 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3430 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3431 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3432 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3433 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3434 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3436 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3438 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3440 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3441 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3442 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3445 * C++ multiple inheritance
3447 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3450 * C++ exception handling
3452 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3453 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3454 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3457 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3458 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3459 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3461 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3462 current stack frame.
3465 * Minor command changes
3467 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3468 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3469 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3471 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3472 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3473 frames without printing.
3475 * New directory command
3477 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3478 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3479 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3480 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3481 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3483 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3485 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3488 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3489 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3490 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3491 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob