1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.0:
6 * Removed --with-mmalloc
8 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
9 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
11 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
13 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
14 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
15 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
16 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
18 * Revised SPARC target
20 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
21 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
22 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
23 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
24 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
28 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
29 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
30 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
33 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
35 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
36 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
39 * New native configurations
41 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
42 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
43 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
44 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
46 * New debugging protocols
48 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
50 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
52 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
53 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
54 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
56 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
58 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
59 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
60 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
63 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
64 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
65 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
66 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
67 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
68 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
69 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
70 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
71 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
73 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
75 * REMOVED configurations and files
77 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
78 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
79 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
80 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
81 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
82 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
83 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
84 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
85 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
86 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
87 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
88 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
89 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
90 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
91 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
92 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
93 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
95 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
99 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
102 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
104 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
105 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
106 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
109 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
110 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
115 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
116 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
117 remote protocol documentation for details.
119 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
121 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
122 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
123 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
126 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
128 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
129 per-thread variables.
131 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
133 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
134 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
136 * Separate debug info.
138 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
139 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
140 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
141 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
142 and optional debug files.
144 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
146 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
147 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
150 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
151 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
155 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
156 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
157 considered "useable".
159 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
161 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
162 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
165 * GDB supports logging output to a file
167 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
168 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
170 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
172 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
173 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
176 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
178 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
179 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
183 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
184 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
185 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
186 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
187 data, for more informative profiling results.
189 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
191 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
192 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
193 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
195 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
198 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
199 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
200 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
201 in a subsequent -var-update.
203 * New native configurations.
205 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
207 * Multi-arched targets.
209 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
210 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
212 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
214 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
215 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
216 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
219 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
220 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
221 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
222 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
223 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
224 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
225 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
226 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
227 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
228 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
229 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
230 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
232 * REMOVED configurations and files
235 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
236 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
237 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
238 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
239 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
240 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
242 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
243 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
244 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
245 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
246 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
247 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
249 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
251 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
252 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
253 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
254 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
255 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
257 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
259 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
261 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
262 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
263 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
264 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
265 shared libs like mad''.
267 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
269 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
270 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
271 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
272 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
274 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
276 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
277 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
280 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
281 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
283 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
284 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
286 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
287 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
288 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
289 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
291 * Multi-arched targets.
293 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
294 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
296 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
297 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
298 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
302 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
305 * New native configurations
307 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
308 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
309 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
310 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
312 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
314 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
315 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
316 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
319 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
320 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
321 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
322 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
323 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
324 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
325 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
326 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
327 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
328 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
330 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
331 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
335 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
337 * REMOVED configurations and files
339 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
340 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
341 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
342 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
343 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
345 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
347 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
349 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
350 commands. The default is 1024.
352 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
354 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
356 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
358 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
359 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
360 from a file into memory (restore).
362 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
364 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
365 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
366 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
368 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
376 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
377 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
378 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
380 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
381 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
382 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
384 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
385 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
386 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
388 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
389 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
390 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
392 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
394 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
396 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
397 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
398 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
399 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
400 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
401 (notably embedded) targets.
403 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
405 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
406 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
407 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
408 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
410 * New command line option
412 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
414 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
416 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
417 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
418 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
419 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
420 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
421 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
422 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
423 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
424 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
425 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
427 * Changes in ARM configurations.
429 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
430 configuration is fully multi-arch.
432 * New native configurations
434 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
435 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
436 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
437 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
441 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
443 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
445 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
446 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
447 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
450 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
451 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
452 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
453 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
454 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
456 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
458 * REMOVED configurations and files
460 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
462 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
463 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
464 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
465 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
466 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
467 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
468 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
469 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
470 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
471 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
472 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
474 * Changes to command line processing
476 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
477 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
479 * Changes to key bindings
481 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
483 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
485 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
487 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
490 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
492 Numerous documentation fixes.
494 Numerous testsuite fixes.
496 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
498 * New native configurations
500 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
501 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
502 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
503 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
505 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
509 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
511 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
513 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
515 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
516 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
517 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
518 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
519 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
521 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
522 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
523 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
524 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
525 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
526 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
527 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
528 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
530 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
531 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
533 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
534 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
535 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
538 * REMOVED configurations and files
540 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
541 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
543 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
547 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
549 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
550 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
555 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
557 * The MI enabled by default.
559 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
560 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
561 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
562 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
563 which is now deprecated.
565 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
567 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
568 main features are supported:
570 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
572 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
575 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
577 - a Pascal expression parser.
579 However, some important features are not yet supported.
581 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
583 - there are some problems with boolean types;
585 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
586 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
588 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
590 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
592 * Changes in completion.
594 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
595 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
596 users expect at the shell prompt.
598 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
599 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
600 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
601 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
602 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
603 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
604 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
606 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
608 * New platform-independent commands:
610 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
611 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
612 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
614 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
616 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
617 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
618 many threads as your system allows you to have.
620 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
622 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
623 multi-threaded programs though.
625 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
627 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
629 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
630 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
633 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
635 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
636 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
637 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
638 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
639 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
642 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
643 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
644 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
646 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
648 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
649 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
651 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
652 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
655 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
656 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
657 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
658 a given linear address.
660 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
661 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
662 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
664 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
666 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
668 * Changes in documentation.
670 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
671 Documentation License.
673 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
676 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
678 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
681 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
682 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
683 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
685 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
687 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
688 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
689 contents of this file.
693 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
695 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
697 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
699 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
700 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
701 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
702 greater level of detail.
704 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
706 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
707 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
708 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
711 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
713 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
714 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
715 machines ``out of the box''.
717 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
718 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
719 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
720 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
721 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
723 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
724 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
725 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
726 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
727 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
729 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
730 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
733 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
736 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
737 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
738 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
739 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
741 * New native configurations
743 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
744 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
748 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
749 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
750 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
751 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
753 * OBSOLETE configurations
755 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
756 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
758 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
761 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
762 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
763 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
764 be permanently REMOVED.
766 * Gould support removed
768 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
770 * New features for SVR4
772 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
773 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
774 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
776 * Many C++ enhancements
778 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
779 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
781 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
783 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
784 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
785 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
786 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
788 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
789 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
791 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
793 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
794 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
795 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
797 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
798 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
800 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
802 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
803 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
804 include ``set remote P-packet''.
806 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
808 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
809 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
810 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
812 * ``apropos'' command added.
814 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
815 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
816 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
820 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
821 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
822 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
823 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
824 enabled by configuring with:
826 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
828 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
830 * New native configurations
832 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
833 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
834 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
838 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
839 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
840 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
842 * OBSOLETE configurations
844 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
846 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
847 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
848 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
849 be permanently REMOVED.
853 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
854 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
855 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
856 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
857 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
858 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
859 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
864 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
866 * set extension-language
868 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
869 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
870 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
871 set extension-language .c c++
872 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
873 and their associated languages.
875 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
877 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
878 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
879 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
883 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
884 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
886 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
887 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
889 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
890 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
891 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
892 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
893 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
894 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
895 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
896 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
898 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
899 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
900 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
901 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
905 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
906 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
907 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
908 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
909 for xdb and dbx commands.
913 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
914 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
915 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
917 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
918 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
919 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
921 * Debugging across forks
923 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
928 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
929 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
930 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
932 * GDB remote protocol additions
934 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
935 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
936 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
937 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
939 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
940 full 64-bit address. The command
942 set remoteaddresssize 32
944 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
945 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
948 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
949 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
951 maint packet heythere
953 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
954 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
957 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
958 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
959 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
961 * Tracing can collect general expressions
963 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
964 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
965 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
967 * mask-address variable for Mips
969 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
970 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
971 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
973 * Higher serial baud rates
975 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
976 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
977 to achieve all of these rates.)
981 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
982 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
985 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
987 * New native configurations
989 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
990 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
991 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
992 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
993 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
994 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
995 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
999 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1000 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1001 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1002 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1003 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1004 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1005 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1006 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1007 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1008 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1009 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1011 * New debugging protocols
1013 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1014 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1015 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1016 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1017 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1018 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1022 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1023 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1028 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1029 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1031 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1033 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1034 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1035 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1037 * Live range splitting
1039 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1040 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1041 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1045 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1046 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1050 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1051 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1052 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1057 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1062 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1063 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1064 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1065 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1066 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1067 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1071 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1072 the symbol at the specified address.
1076 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1077 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1078 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1079 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1080 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1084 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1085 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1086 of most MIPS variants.
1090 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1091 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1092 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1096 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1097 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1098 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1099 the possible architectures.
1101 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1103 * New native configurations
1105 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1106 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1107 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1108 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1109 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1110 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1114 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1115 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1116 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1117 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1118 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1120 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1124 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1125 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1126 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1127 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1128 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1132 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1134 * Windows 95/NT native
1136 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1137 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1138 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1139 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1140 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1142 * dont-repeat command
1144 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1145 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1146 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1147 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1149 * Send break instead of ^C
1151 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1152 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1153 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1155 * Remote protocol timeout
1157 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1158 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1159 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1161 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1163 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1164 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1165 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1166 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1167 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1169 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1170 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1171 automatically on hpux10.
1173 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1175 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1177 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1179 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1180 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1181 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1182 every character. The default value is 1050.
1184 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1186 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1187 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1188 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1189 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1190 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1191 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1193 * Speedups for remote debugging
1195 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1196 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1197 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1199 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1201 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1202 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1204 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1206 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1208 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1209 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1211 * Remote targets use caching
1213 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1214 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1215 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1216 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1217 off' turns the the data cache off.
1219 * Remote targets may have threads
1221 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1222 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1223 gdb/remote.c for details.
1227 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1228 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1229 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1230 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1231 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1232 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1233 sequence is something like
1235 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1237 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1241 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1242 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1243 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1244 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1245 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1246 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1247 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1248 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1252 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1253 but does simplify configuration and building.
1257 GDB now supports hpux10.
1259 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1261 * New native configurations
1263 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1264 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1265 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1266 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1270 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1271 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1272 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1273 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1276 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1278 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1279 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1280 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1281 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1282 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1284 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1286 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1287 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1290 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1292 To execute the command use:
1295 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1296 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1297 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1299 * New `if' and `while' commands
1301 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1302 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1303 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1304 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1305 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1306 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1307 if the expression is zero.
1309 * Fortran source language mode
1311 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1312 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1313 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1314 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1317 * Better HPUX support
1319 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1320 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1321 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1322 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1323 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1329 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1330 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1336 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1337 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1340 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1341 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1343 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1345 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1346 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1347 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1348 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1349 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1350 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1352 * New DOS host serial code
1354 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1355 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1358 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1360 * New "complete" command
1362 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1363 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1365 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1367 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1368 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1370 * Breakpoint hit counts
1372 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1373 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1374 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1375 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1376 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1379 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1381 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1382 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1383 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1385 * Shared library breakpoints
1387 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1388 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1390 * Hardware watchpoints
1392 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1393 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1395 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1399 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1400 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1402 * Improved Irix 5 support
1404 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1406 * Improved HPPA support
1408 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1410 * New native configurations
1412 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1413 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1414 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1415 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1419 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1420 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1423 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1425 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1426 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1430 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1431 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1433 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1435 * Irix 5 is now supported
1439 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1440 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1441 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1442 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1443 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1446 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1448 * User visible changes:
1452 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1453 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1454 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1455 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1456 debugging info for the mips target).
1458 * DEC Alpha native support
1460 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1461 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1462 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1463 Alpha-specific notes.
1465 * Preliminary thread implementation
1467 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1469 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1471 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1472 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1475 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1477 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1478 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1479 call methods, ...etc.
1481 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1483 * User visible changes:
1485 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1486 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1487 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1488 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1490 Filename completion now works.
1492 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1493 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1494 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1496 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1497 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1498 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1499 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1500 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1504 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1505 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1508 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1512 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1513 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1514 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1518 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1519 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1520 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1521 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1522 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1526 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1527 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1528 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1530 * New targets supported
1532 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1533 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1534 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1535 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1536 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1538 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1539 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1540 GO32 memory extender.
1542 * New remote protocols
1544 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1546 * New source languages supported
1548 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1549 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1550 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1553 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1555 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1557 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1558 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1559 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1560 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1561 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1562 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1564 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1566 * Faster and better demangling
1568 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1569 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1570 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1571 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1572 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1573 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1576 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1577 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1578 compiler does not actually implement.
1580 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1582 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1583 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1584 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1585 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1586 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1587 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1590 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1591 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1593 * Improved configure script
1595 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1596 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1597 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1598 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1600 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1601 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1602 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1603 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1604 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1605 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1607 * Documentation improvements
1609 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1610 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1611 before submitting changes.
1613 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1614 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1615 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1616 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1617 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1619 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1620 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1621 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1622 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1623 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1624 around this problem.
1628 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1629 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1630 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1633 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1634 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1636 * New native hosts supported
1638 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1639 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1641 * New targets supported
1643 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1645 * New file formats supported
1647 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1648 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1652 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1654 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1655 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1657 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1658 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1659 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1661 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1662 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1664 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1665 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1666 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1669 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1670 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1671 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1672 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1673 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1675 * Internal improvements
1677 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1678 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1680 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1681 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1682 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1683 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1684 shared code that handles any of them.
1686 * New command line options
1688 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1692 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1693 General Public License.
1695 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1697 * Host/native/target split
1699 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1700 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1701 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1702 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1703 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1705 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1706 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1707 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1708 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1709 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1710 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1711 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1713 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1714 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1715 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1717 * New hosts supported
1719 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1720 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1721 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1723 * New targets supported
1725 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1726 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1728 * New native hosts supported
1730 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1731 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1732 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1734 * New file formats supported
1736 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1737 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1738 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1742 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1743 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1744 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1746 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1748 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1749 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1750 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1751 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1755 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1756 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1757 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1759 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1763 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1764 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1767 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1768 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1770 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1771 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1772 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1773 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1774 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1775 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1777 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1778 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1779 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1780 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1784 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1785 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1786 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1787 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1788 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1790 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1791 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1792 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1793 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1797 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1798 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1799 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1800 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1801 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1802 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1803 each instruction being stepped through.
1805 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1806 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1808 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1809 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1810 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1811 processor with a serial port.
1815 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1816 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1817 supported, and what files each one uses.
1821 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1822 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1823 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1824 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1826 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1827 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1828 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1829 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1833 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1834 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1835 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1836 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1837 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1838 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1840 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1843 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1845 * Better support for C++ function names
1847 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1848 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1849 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1850 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1851 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1853 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1854 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1855 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1856 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1857 for the list of formats.
1859 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1861 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1862 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1863 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1864 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1865 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1866 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1869 * New 'maintenance' command
1871 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1872 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1873 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1875 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1876 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1877 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1878 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1879 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1880 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1882 The following commands are new:
1884 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1885 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1886 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1888 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1890 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1891 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1892 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1893 read after argv processing.
1895 * New hosts supported
1897 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1899 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1901 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1902 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1903 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1904 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1905 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1908 * New targets supported
1910 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1912 * More smarts about finding #include files
1914 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1915 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1916 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1917 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1918 the one that contains your sources.
1920 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1921 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1922 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1924 * Interesting infernals change
1926 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1927 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1928 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1929 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1931 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1933 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1934 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1935 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1937 See the ChangeLog for details.
1939 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1941 * New machines supported (host and target)
1943 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1945 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1947 * New malloc package
1949 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1950 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1951 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1952 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1953 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1954 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1958 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1959 'help info proc' for details.
1961 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1963 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1964 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1967 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1969 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1970 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1971 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1972 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1973 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1974 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1976 * Cross byte order fixes
1978 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1979 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1981 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1983 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1984 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1985 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1986 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1987 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1988 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1989 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1990 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1991 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1992 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1994 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1995 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1996 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1997 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1999 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2000 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2001 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2004 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2006 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2007 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2008 shared across multiple host platforms.
2010 * longjmp() handling
2012 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2013 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2014 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2015 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2019 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2020 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2025 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2026 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2027 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2029 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2031 * New machines supported (host and target)
2033 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2035 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2036 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2038 * New machines supported (target)
2040 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2044 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2045 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2046 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2048 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2049 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2050 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2051 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2052 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2055 * New features for SVR4
2057 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2058 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2059 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2061 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2062 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2063 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2065 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2066 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2068 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2070 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2071 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2072 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2073 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2074 same code linked statically.
2078 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2079 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2080 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2081 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2082 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2083 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2087 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2088 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2089 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2092 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2094 * New machines supported (host and target)
2096 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2097 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2098 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2100 * Almost SCO Unix support
2102 We had hoped to support:
2103 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2104 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2105 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2106 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2108 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2110 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2111 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2112 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2113 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2118 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2119 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2120 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2124 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2125 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2126 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2128 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2130 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2131 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2132 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2134 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2135 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2136 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2137 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2140 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2141 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2142 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2143 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2146 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2147 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2150 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2151 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2152 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2155 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2157 * Improved configuration
2159 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2160 Porting BFD is simpler.
2164 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2165 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2166 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2167 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2171 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2173 * New host supported (not target)
2175 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2178 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2180 * Multiple source language support
2182 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2183 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2184 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2185 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2186 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2187 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2191 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2192 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2193 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2194 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2196 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2197 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2198 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2200 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2201 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2205 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2206 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2207 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2208 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2211 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2213 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2214 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2215 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2216 examining core files.
2220 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2223 * New machines supported (host and target)
2225 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2226 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2227 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2229 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2231 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2233 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2235 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2236 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2237 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2239 * New remote interfaces
2245 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2249 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2251 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2252 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2253 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2254 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2255 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2256 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2257 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2258 stub on the target system.
2260 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2262 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2263 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2264 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2266 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2267 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2270 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2272 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2273 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2275 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2276 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2277 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2279 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2280 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2281 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2282 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2284 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2285 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2286 it is already running. Default is ON.
2288 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2289 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2290 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2291 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2294 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2295 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2296 or the value of the environment variable
2299 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2300 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2303 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2304 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2305 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2307 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2308 history expansion will be performed on
2309 command line input. The default is OFF.
2311 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2312 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2313 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2315 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2316 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2317 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2320 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2321 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2322 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2325 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2326 ``set width'' instead.
2328 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2329 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2330 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2331 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2333 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2336 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2339 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2342 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2345 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2347 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2348 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2349 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2353 * Support for Shared Libraries
2355 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2356 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2357 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2358 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2359 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2360 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2361 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2362 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2364 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2365 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2366 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2368 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2373 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2374 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2375 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2376 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2377 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2378 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2380 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2382 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2384 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2385 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2386 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2389 * C++ multiple inheritance
2391 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2394 * C++ exception handling
2396 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2397 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2398 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2401 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2402 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2403 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2405 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2406 current stack frame.
2409 * Minor command changes
2411 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2412 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2413 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2415 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2416 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2417 frames without printing.
2419 * New directory command
2421 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2422 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2423 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2424 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2425 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2427 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2429 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2432 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2433 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2434 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2435 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob