1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.8
10 Display timestamps with GDB debugging output.
12 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
14 * New native configurations
16 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
17 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
21 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
22 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
24 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
26 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
27 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
28 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
29 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
31 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
32 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
34 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
37 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
38 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
39 and in inlined functions.
41 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
42 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
43 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
45 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
47 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
48 registers on PowerPC targets.
50 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
51 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
53 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
54 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
56 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
59 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
60 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
61 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
62 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
64 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
65 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
68 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
69 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
70 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
71 stored in two consecutive float registers.
73 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
76 * Improved support for debugging Ada
77 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
79 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
80 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
81 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
82 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
84 - Improved command completion in Ada
89 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
90 show print frame-arguments
91 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
92 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
97 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
104 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
113 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
115 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
119 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
123 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
125 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
127 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
128 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
129 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
131 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
132 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
133 -Bsymbolic linker option.
135 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
136 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
139 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
140 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
142 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
143 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
145 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
147 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
148 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
149 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
151 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
152 automatically displayed as character or string data.
154 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
155 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
158 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
159 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
160 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
162 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
165 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
166 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
167 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
169 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
171 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
173 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
174 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
175 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
177 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
178 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
180 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
181 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
182 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
183 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
184 Windows and SymbianOS).
186 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
187 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
189 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
190 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
196 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
197 when debugging using remote targets.
199 set mem inaccessible-by-default
200 show mem inaccessible-by-default
201 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
202 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
203 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
204 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
205 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
207 set breakpoint auto-hw
208 show breakpoint auto-hw
209 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
210 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
211 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
212 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
213 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
214 including "next" and "finish".
217 catch exception unhandled
218 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
221 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
225 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
226 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
227 an alias to "set sysroot".
230 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
231 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
234 * New native configurations
236 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
241 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
242 not query the target for its built-in description.
246 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
247 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
248 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
253 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
254 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
257 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
262 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
263 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
265 qXfer:libraries:read:
266 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
267 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
268 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
269 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
273 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
282 i[34567]86-*-netware*
283 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
284 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
286 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
289 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
290 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
299 * Other removed features
306 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
313 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
318 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
319 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
324 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
325 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
327 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
329 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
330 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
331 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
332 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
336 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
337 in debugging information.
341 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
342 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
344 set mips stack-arg-size
345 set mips saved-gpreg-size
347 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
349 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
354 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
356 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
357 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
358 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
360 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
361 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
364 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
365 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
367 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
368 stub provides the required support.
370 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
371 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
376 unset substitute-path
378 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
379 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
380 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
381 between compilation and debugging.
385 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
386 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
387 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
391 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
393 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
394 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
396 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
401 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
402 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
403 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
404 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
408 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
409 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
411 qXfer:memory-map:read:
412 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
413 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
418 Erase and program a flash memory device.
420 * Removed remote packets
423 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
424 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
426 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
430 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
432 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
436 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
437 only if it doesn't already have a value.
439 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
441 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
443 restart <n> Return the program state to a
444 previously saved state.
446 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
448 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
450 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
451 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
453 info forks List forks of the user program that
454 are available to be debugged.
456 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
457 forks of the user program that are
458 available to be debugged.
460 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
461 that are available to be debugged (and
462 kill the forked process).
464 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
465 that are available to be debugged (and
466 allow the process to continue).
470 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
472 * Improved Windows host support
474 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
475 native console support, and remote communications using either
476 network sockets or serial ports.
478 * Improved Modula-2 language support
480 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
481 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
482 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
483 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
484 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
485 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
489 The ARM rdi-share module.
491 The Netware NLM debug server.
493 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
495 * New native configurations
497 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
498 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
502 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
504 * New command line options
506 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
507 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
508 the child (debugged) program exited with.
509 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
510 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
511 specified multiple times and in conjunction
512 with the --command (-x) option.
514 * Deprecated commands removed
516 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
520 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
521 othernames set arm disassembler
522 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
523 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
524 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
527 * New BSD user-level threads support
529 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
530 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
533 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
534 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
535 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
537 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
538 are not yet supported.
540 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
541 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
543 * REMOVED configurations and files
545 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
546 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
547 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
549 * New "set print array-indexes" command
551 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
552 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
555 * VAX floating point support
557 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
559 * User-defined command support
561 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
562 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
563 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
565 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
567 * New command line option
569 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
572 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
574 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
575 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
576 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
577 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
578 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
580 * Internationalization
582 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
583 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
584 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
588 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
589 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
590 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
592 * New native configurations
594 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
598 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
599 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
601 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
603 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
604 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
605 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
608 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
609 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
610 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
622 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
623 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
625 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
627 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
628 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
629 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
639 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
641 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
643 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
644 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
647 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
649 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
650 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
651 IRIX long double values).
655 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
656 command. This problem has been fixed.
658 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
660 * Fix for ``many threads''
662 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
663 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
666 ptrace: No such process.
667 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
669 This problem has been fixed.
671 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
673 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
676 * New ``start'' command.
678 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
680 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
682 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
683 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
684 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
686 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
687 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
688 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
689 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
690 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
691 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
692 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
693 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
694 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
696 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
698 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
699 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
700 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
701 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
702 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
704 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
705 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
706 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
708 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
710 * New native configurations
712 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
713 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
714 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
715 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
716 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
717 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
718 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
720 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
722 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
723 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
724 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
725 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
726 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
727 work, was also included.
729 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
730 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
740 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
741 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
743 * REMOVED configurations and files
745 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
746 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
747 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
748 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
749 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
750 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
751 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
752 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
753 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
755 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
757 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
759 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
761 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
762 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
763 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
764 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
767 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
769 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
770 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
771 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
772 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
773 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
774 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
777 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
779 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
781 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
782 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
783 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
785 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
787 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
788 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
790 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
792 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
793 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
794 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
796 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
798 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
799 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
801 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
803 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
804 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
805 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
807 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
809 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
810 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
811 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
813 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
815 * Removed --with-mmalloc
817 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
818 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
820 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
822 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
823 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
824 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
825 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
827 * Revised SPARC target
829 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
830 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
831 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
832 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
833 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
837 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
838 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
839 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
842 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
844 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
845 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
848 * C++ nested types and namespaces
850 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
851 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
852 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
853 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
854 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
855 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
856 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
857 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
858 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
860 * New native configurations
862 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
863 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
864 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
865 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
866 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
868 * New debugging protocols
870 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
872 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
874 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
875 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
876 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
878 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
880 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
881 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
882 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
885 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
886 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
887 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
888 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
889 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
890 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
891 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
892 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
893 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
895 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
897 * REMOVED configurations and files
899 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
900 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
901 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
902 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
903 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
904 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
905 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
906 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
907 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
908 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
909 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
910 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
911 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
912 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
913 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
914 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
915 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
917 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
921 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
924 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
926 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
927 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
928 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
931 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
932 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
937 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
938 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
939 remote protocol documentation for details.
941 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
943 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
944 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
945 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
948 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
950 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
951 per-thread variables.
953 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
955 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
956 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
958 * Separate debug info.
960 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
961 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
962 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
963 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
964 and optional debug files.
966 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
968 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
969 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
972 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
973 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
977 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
978 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
979 considered "useable".
981 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
983 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
984 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
987 * GDB supports logging output to a file
989 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
990 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
992 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
994 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
995 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
998 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
1000 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
1001 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
1005 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
1006 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
1007 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
1008 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
1009 data, for more informative profiling results.
1011 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
1013 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
1014 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
1015 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
1017 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
1020 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
1021 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
1022 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
1023 in a subsequent -var-update.
1025 * New native configurations.
1027 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1029 * Multi-arched targets.
1031 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
1032 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1034 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1036 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1037 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1038 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1039 permanently REMOVED.
1041 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1042 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1043 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1044 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
1045 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1046 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
1047 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
1048 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
1049 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
1050 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
1051 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1052 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1054 * REMOVED configurations and files
1057 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1058 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1059 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1060 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1061 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1062 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1064 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1065 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1066 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1067 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1068 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1069 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1071 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
1073 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
1074 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
1075 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
1076 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
1077 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
1079 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
1081 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
1083 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
1084 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
1085 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
1086 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
1087 shared libs like mad''.
1089 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
1091 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
1092 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
1093 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
1094 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1096 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1098 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1099 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1102 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1103 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1105 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1106 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1108 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1109 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1110 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1111 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1113 * Multi-arched targets.
1115 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1116 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1118 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1119 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1120 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1124 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1127 * New native configurations
1129 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1130 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1131 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1132 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1134 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1136 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1137 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1138 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1139 permanently REMOVED.
1141 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1142 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1143 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1144 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1145 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1146 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1147 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1148 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1149 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1150 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1152 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1153 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1155 * OBSOLETE languages
1157 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1159 * REMOVED configurations and files
1161 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1162 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1163 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1164 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1165 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1167 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1169 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1171 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1172 commands. The default is 1024.
1174 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1176 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1178 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1180 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1181 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1182 from a file into memory (restore).
1184 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1186 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1187 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1188 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1190 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1198 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1199 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1200 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1202 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1203 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1204 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1206 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1207 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1208 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1210 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1211 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1212 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1214 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1216 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1218 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1219 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1220 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1221 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1222 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1223 (notably embedded) targets.
1225 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1227 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1228 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1229 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1230 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1232 * New command line option
1234 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1236 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1238 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1239 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1240 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1241 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1242 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1243 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1244 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1245 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1246 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1247 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1249 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1251 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1252 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1254 * New native configurations
1256 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1257 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1258 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1259 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1263 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1265 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1267 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1268 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1269 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1270 permanently REMOVED.
1272 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1273 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1274 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1275 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1276 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1278 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1280 * REMOVED configurations and files
1282 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1284 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1285 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1286 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1287 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1288 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1289 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1290 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1291 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1292 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1293 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1294 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1296 * Changes to command line processing
1298 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1299 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1301 * Changes to key bindings
1303 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1305 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1307 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1309 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1312 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1314 Numerous documentation fixes.
1316 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1318 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1320 * New native configurations
1322 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1323 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1324 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1325 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1326 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1327 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1331 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1333 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1335 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1337 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1338 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1339 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1340 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1341 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1343 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1344 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1345 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1346 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1347 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1348 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1349 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1350 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1352 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1353 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1355 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1356 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1357 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1358 permanently REMOVED.
1360 * REMOVED configurations and files
1362 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1363 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1365 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1369 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1371 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1372 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1377 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1379 * The MI enabled by default.
1381 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1382 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1383 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1384 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1385 which is now deprecated.
1387 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1389 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1390 main features are supported:
1392 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1394 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1397 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1399 - a Pascal expression parser.
1401 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1403 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1405 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1407 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1408 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1410 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1412 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1414 * Changes in completion.
1416 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1417 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1418 users expect at the shell prompt.
1420 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1421 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1422 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1423 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1424 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1425 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1426 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1428 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1430 * New platform-independent commands:
1432 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1433 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1434 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1436 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1438 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1439 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1440 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1442 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1444 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1445 multi-threaded programs though.
1447 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1449 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1451 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1452 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1455 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1457 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1458 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1459 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1460 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1461 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1464 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1465 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1466 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1468 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1470 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1471 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1473 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1474 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1477 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1478 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1479 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1480 a given linear address.
1482 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1483 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1484 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1486 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1488 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1490 * Changes in documentation.
1492 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1493 Documentation License.
1495 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1498 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1500 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1503 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1504 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1505 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1507 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1509 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1510 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1511 contents of this file.
1515 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1517 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1519 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1521 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1522 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1523 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1524 greater level of detail.
1526 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1528 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1529 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1530 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1533 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1535 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1536 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1537 machines ``out of the box''.
1539 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1540 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1541 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1542 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1543 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1545 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1546 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1547 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1548 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1549 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1551 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1552 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1555 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1558 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1559 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1560 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1561 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1563 * New native configurations
1565 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1566 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1570 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1571 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1572 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1573 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1575 * OBSOLETE configurations
1577 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1578 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1580 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1583 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1584 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1585 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1586 be permanently REMOVED.
1588 * Gould support removed
1590 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1592 * New features for SVR4
1594 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1595 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1596 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1598 * Many C++ enhancements
1600 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1601 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1603 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1605 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1606 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1607 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1608 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1610 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1611 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1613 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1615 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1616 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1617 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1619 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1620 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1622 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1624 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1625 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1626 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1628 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1630 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1631 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1632 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1634 * ``apropos'' command added.
1636 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1637 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1638 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1642 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1643 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1644 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1645 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1646 enabled by configuring with:
1648 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1650 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1652 * New native configurations
1654 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1655 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1656 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1660 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1661 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1662 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1664 * OBSOLETE configurations
1666 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1668 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1669 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1670 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1671 be permanently REMOVED.
1675 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1676 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1677 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1678 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1679 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1680 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1681 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1686 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1688 * set extension-language
1690 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1691 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1692 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1693 set extension-language .c c++
1694 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1695 and their associated languages.
1697 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1699 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1700 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1701 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1705 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1706 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1708 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1709 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1711 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1712 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1713 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1714 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1715 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1716 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1717 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1718 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1720 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1721 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1722 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1723 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1727 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1728 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1729 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1730 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1731 for xdb and dbx commands.
1735 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1736 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1737 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1739 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1740 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1741 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1743 * Debugging across forks
1745 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1750 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1751 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1752 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1754 * GDB remote protocol additions
1756 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1757 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1758 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1759 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1761 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1762 full 64-bit address. The command
1764 set remoteaddresssize 32
1766 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1767 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1770 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1771 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1773 maint packet heythere
1775 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1776 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1779 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1780 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1781 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1783 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1785 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1786 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1787 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1789 * mask-address variable for Mips
1791 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1792 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1793 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1795 * Higher serial baud rates
1797 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1798 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1799 to achieve all of these rates.)
1803 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1804 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1807 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1809 * New native configurations
1811 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1812 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1813 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1814 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1815 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1816 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1817 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1821 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1822 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1823 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1824 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1825 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1826 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1827 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1828 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1829 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1830 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1831 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1833 * New debugging protocols
1835 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1836 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1837 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1838 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1839 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1840 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1844 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1845 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1850 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1851 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1853 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1855 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1856 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1857 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1859 * Live range splitting
1861 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1862 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1863 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1867 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1868 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1872 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1873 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1874 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1879 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1884 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1885 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1886 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1887 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1888 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1889 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1893 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1894 the symbol at the specified address.
1898 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1899 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1900 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1901 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1902 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1906 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1907 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1908 of most MIPS variants.
1912 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1913 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1914 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1918 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1919 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1920 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1921 the possible architectures.
1923 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1925 * New native configurations
1927 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1928 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1929 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1930 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1931 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1932 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1936 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1937 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1938 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1939 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1940 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1942 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1946 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1947 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1948 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1949 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1950 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1954 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1956 * Windows 95/NT native
1958 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1959 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1960 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1961 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1962 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1964 * dont-repeat command
1966 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1967 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1968 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1969 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1971 * Send break instead of ^C
1973 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1974 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1975 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1977 * Remote protocol timeout
1979 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1980 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1981 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1983 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1985 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1986 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1987 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1988 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1989 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1991 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1992 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1993 automatically on hpux10.
1995 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1997 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1999 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
2001 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
2002 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
2003 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
2004 every character. The default value is 1050.
2006 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
2008 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
2009 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
2010 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
2011 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
2012 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
2013 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
2015 * Speedups for remote debugging
2017 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
2018 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
2019 and more efficient S-record downloading.
2021 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
2023 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
2024 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
2026 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
2028 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
2030 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
2031 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
2033 * Remote targets use caching
2035 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
2036 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
2037 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
2038 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
2039 off' turns the the data cache off.
2041 * Remote targets may have threads
2043 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
2044 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
2045 gdb/remote.c for details.
2049 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
2050 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
2051 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
2052 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
2053 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
2054 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
2055 sequence is something like
2057 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
2059 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
2063 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
2064 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
2065 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
2066 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
2067 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
2068 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
2069 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
2070 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
2074 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
2075 but does simplify configuration and building.
2079 GDB now supports hpux10.
2081 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
2083 * New native configurations
2085 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
2086 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
2087 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
2088 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
2092 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2093 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
2094 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
2095 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2098 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2100 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2101 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2102 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2103 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2104 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2106 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2108 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2109 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2112 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2114 To execute the command use:
2117 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2118 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2119 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2121 * New `if' and `while' commands
2123 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2124 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2125 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2126 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2127 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2128 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2129 if the expression is zero.
2131 * Fortran source language mode
2133 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2134 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2135 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2136 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2139 * Better HPUX support
2141 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2142 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2143 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2144 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2145 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2151 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2152 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2158 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2159 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2162 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2163 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2165 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2167 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2168 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2169 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2170 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2171 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2172 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2174 * New DOS host serial code
2176 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2177 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2180 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2182 * New "complete" command
2184 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2185 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2187 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2189 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2190 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2192 * Breakpoint hit counts
2194 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2195 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2196 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2197 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2198 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2201 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2203 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2204 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2205 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2207 * Shared library breakpoints
2209 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2210 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2212 * Hardware watchpoints
2214 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2215 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2217 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2221 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2222 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2224 * Improved Irix 5 support
2226 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2228 * Improved HPPA support
2230 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2232 * New native configurations
2234 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2235 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2236 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2237 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2241 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2242 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2245 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2247 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2248 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2252 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2253 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2255 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2257 * Irix 5 is now supported
2261 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2262 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2263 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2264 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2265 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2268 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2270 * User visible changes:
2274 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2275 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2276 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2277 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2278 debugging info for the mips target).
2280 * DEC Alpha native support
2282 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2283 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2284 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2285 Alpha-specific notes.
2287 * Preliminary thread implementation
2289 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2291 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2293 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2294 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2297 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2299 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2300 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2301 call methods, ...etc.
2303 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2305 * User visible changes:
2307 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2308 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2309 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2310 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2312 Filename completion now works.
2314 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2315 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2316 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2318 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2319 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2320 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2321 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2322 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2326 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2327 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2330 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2334 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2335 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2336 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2340 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2341 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2342 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2343 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2344 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2348 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2349 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2350 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2352 * New targets supported
2354 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2355 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2356 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2357 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2358 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2360 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2361 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2362 GO32 memory extender.
2364 * New remote protocols
2366 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2368 * New source languages supported
2370 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2371 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2372 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2375 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2377 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2379 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2380 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2381 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2382 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2383 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2384 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2386 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2388 * Faster and better demangling
2390 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2391 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2392 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2393 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2394 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2395 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2398 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2399 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2400 compiler does not actually implement.
2402 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2404 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2405 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2406 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2407 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2408 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2409 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2412 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2413 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2415 * Improved configure script
2417 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2418 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2419 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2420 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2422 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2423 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2424 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2425 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2426 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2427 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2429 * Documentation improvements
2431 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2432 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2433 before submitting changes.
2435 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2436 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2437 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2438 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2439 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2441 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2442 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2443 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2444 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2445 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2446 around this problem.
2450 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2451 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2452 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2455 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2456 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2458 * New native hosts supported
2460 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2461 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2463 * New targets supported
2465 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2467 * New file formats supported
2469 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2470 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2474 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2476 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2477 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2479 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2480 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2481 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2483 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2484 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2486 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2487 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2488 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2491 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2492 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2493 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2494 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2495 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2497 * Internal improvements
2499 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2500 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2502 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2503 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2504 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2505 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2506 shared code that handles any of them.
2508 * New command line options
2510 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2514 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2515 General Public License.
2517 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2519 * Host/native/target split
2521 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2522 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2523 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2524 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2525 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2527 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2528 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2529 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2530 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2531 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2532 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2533 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2535 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2536 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2537 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2539 * New hosts supported
2541 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2542 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2543 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2545 * New targets supported
2547 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2548 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2550 * New native hosts supported
2552 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2553 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2554 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2556 * New file formats supported
2558 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2559 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2560 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2564 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2565 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2566 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2568 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2570 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2571 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2572 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2573 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2577 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2578 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2579 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2581 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2585 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2586 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2589 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2590 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2592 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2593 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2594 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2595 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2596 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2597 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2599 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2600 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2601 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2602 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2606 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2607 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2608 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2609 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2610 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2612 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2613 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2614 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2615 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2619 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2620 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2621 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2622 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2623 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2624 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2625 each instruction being stepped through.
2627 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2628 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2630 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2631 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2632 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2633 processor with a serial port.
2637 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2638 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2639 supported, and what files each one uses.
2643 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2644 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2645 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2646 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2648 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2649 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2650 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2651 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2655 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2656 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2657 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2658 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2659 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2660 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2662 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2665 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2667 * Better support for C++ function names
2669 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2670 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2671 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2672 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2673 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2675 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2676 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2677 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2678 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2679 for the list of formats.
2681 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2683 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2684 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2685 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2686 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2687 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2688 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2691 * New 'maintenance' command
2693 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2694 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2695 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2697 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2698 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2699 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2700 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2701 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2702 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2704 The following commands are new:
2706 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2707 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2708 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2710 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2712 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2713 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2714 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2715 read after argv processing.
2717 * New hosts supported
2719 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2721 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2723 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2724 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2725 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2726 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2727 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2730 * New targets supported
2732 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2734 * More smarts about finding #include files
2736 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2737 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2738 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2739 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2740 the one that contains your sources.
2742 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2743 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2744 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2746 * Interesting infernals change
2748 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2749 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2750 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2751 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2753 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2755 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2756 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2757 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2759 See the ChangeLog for details.
2761 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2763 * New machines supported (host and target)
2765 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2767 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2769 * New malloc package
2771 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2772 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2773 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2774 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2775 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2776 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2780 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2781 'help info proc' for details.
2783 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2785 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2786 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2789 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2791 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2792 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2793 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2794 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2795 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2796 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2798 * Cross byte order fixes
2800 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2801 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2803 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2805 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2806 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2807 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2808 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2809 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2810 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2811 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2812 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2813 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2814 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2816 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2817 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2818 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2819 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2821 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2822 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2823 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2826 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2828 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2829 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2830 shared across multiple host platforms.
2832 * longjmp() handling
2834 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2835 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2836 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2837 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2841 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2842 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2847 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2848 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2849 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2851 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2853 * New machines supported (host and target)
2855 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2857 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2858 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2860 * New machines supported (target)
2862 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2866 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2867 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2868 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2870 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2871 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2872 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2873 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2874 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2877 * New features for SVR4
2879 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2880 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2881 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2883 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2884 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2885 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2887 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2888 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2890 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2892 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2893 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2894 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2895 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2896 same code linked statically.
2900 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2901 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2902 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2903 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2904 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2905 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2909 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2910 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2911 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2914 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2916 * New machines supported (host and target)
2918 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2919 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2920 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2922 * Almost SCO Unix support
2924 We had hoped to support:
2925 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2926 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2927 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2928 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2930 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2932 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2933 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2934 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2935 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2940 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2941 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2942 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2946 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2947 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2948 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2950 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2952 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2953 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2954 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2956 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2957 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2958 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2959 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2962 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2963 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2964 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2965 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2968 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2969 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2972 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2973 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2974 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2977 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2979 * Improved configuration
2981 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2982 Porting BFD is simpler.
2986 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2987 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2988 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2989 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2993 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2995 * New host supported (not target)
2997 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
3000 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
3002 * Multiple source language support
3004 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
3005 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
3006 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
3007 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
3008 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
3009 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
3013 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
3014 currently under development at the State University of New York at
3015 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
3016 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
3018 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
3019 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
3020 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
3022 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
3023 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
3027 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
3028 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
3029 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
3030 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
3033 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
3035 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
3036 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
3037 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
3038 examining core files.
3042 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
3045 * New machines supported (host and target)
3047 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3048 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
3049 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
3051 * New hosts supported (not targets)
3053 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
3055 * New targets supported (not hosts)
3057 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3058 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3059 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
3061 * New remote interfaces
3067 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
3071 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
3073 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
3074 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
3075 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
3076 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
3077 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
3078 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
3079 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
3080 stub on the target system.
3082 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
3084 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
3085 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
3086 object file types such as a.out and coff.
3088 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
3089 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
3092 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
3094 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
3095 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3097 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3098 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3099 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3101 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3102 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3103 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3104 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3106 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3107 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3108 it is already running. Default is ON.
3110 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3111 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3112 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3113 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3116 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3117 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3118 or the value of the environment variable
3121 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3122 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3125 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3126 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3127 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3129 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3130 history expansion will be performed on
3131 command line input. The default is OFF.
3133 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3134 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3135 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3137 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3138 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3139 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3142 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3143 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3144 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3147 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3148 ``set width'' instead.
3150 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3151 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3152 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3153 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3155 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3158 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3161 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3164 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3167 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3169 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3170 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3171 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3175 * Support for Shared Libraries
3177 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3178 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3179 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3180 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3181 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3182 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3183 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3184 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3186 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3187 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3188 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3190 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3195 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3196 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3197 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3198 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3199 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3200 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3202 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3204 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3206 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3207 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3208 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3211 * C++ multiple inheritance
3213 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3216 * C++ exception handling
3218 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3219 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3220 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3223 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3224 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3225 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3227 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3228 current stack frame.
3231 * Minor command changes
3233 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3234 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3235 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3237 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3238 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3239 frames without printing.
3241 * New directory command
3243 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3244 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3245 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3246 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3247 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3249 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3251 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3254 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3255 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3256 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3257 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob