1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.1:
6 * New native configurations
8 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
12 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
14 * REMOVED configurations and files
16 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
18 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
19 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
20 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
21 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
22 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
23 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
24 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
25 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
26 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
27 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
29 * Changes to command line processing
31 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
32 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
34 * Changes to key bindings
36 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
38 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
40 * New native configurations
42 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
43 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
44 MIPS Linux mips*-*-linux*
45 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
47 s390 and s390x Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
51 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
53 UltraSparc running Linux sparc64-*-linux*
55 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
57 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
58 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
59 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
60 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
61 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
63 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
64 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
65 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
66 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
67 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
68 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
69 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
70 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
72 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
73 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
75 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
76 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
77 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
80 * REMOVED configurations and files
82 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
85 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
89 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
91 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
92 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
97 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
99 * The MI enabled by default.
101 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
102 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
103 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
104 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
105 which is now deprecated.
107 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
109 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
110 main features are supported:
112 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
114 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
117 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
119 - a Pascal expression parser.
121 However, some important features are not yet supported.
123 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
125 - there are some problems with boolean types;
127 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
128 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
130 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
132 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
134 * Changes in completion.
136 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
137 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
138 users expect at the shell prompt.
140 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
141 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
142 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
143 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
144 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
145 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
146 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
148 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
150 * New platform-independent commands:
152 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
153 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
154 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
156 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
158 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
159 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
160 many threads as your system allows you to have.
162 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
164 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
165 multi-threaded programs though.
167 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
169 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
171 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
172 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
175 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
177 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
178 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
179 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
180 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
181 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
184 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
185 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
186 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
188 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
190 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
191 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
193 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
194 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
197 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
198 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
199 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
200 a given linear address.
202 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
203 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
204 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
206 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
208 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
210 * Changes in documentation.
212 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
213 Documentation License.
215 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
218 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
220 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
223 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
224 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
225 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
227 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
229 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
230 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
231 contents of this file.
235 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
237 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
239 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
241 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
242 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
243 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
244 greater level of detail.
246 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
248 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
249 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
250 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
253 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
255 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
256 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
257 machines ``out of the box''.
259 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
260 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
261 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
262 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
263 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
265 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
266 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
267 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
268 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
269 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
271 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
272 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
275 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
278 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
279 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
280 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
281 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
283 * New native configurations
285 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
286 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
290 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
291 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
292 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
293 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
295 * OBSOLETE configurations
297 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
298 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
300 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
303 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
304 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
305 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
306 be permanently REMOVED.
308 * Gould support removed
310 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
312 * New features for SVR4
314 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
315 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
316 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
318 * Many C++ enhancements
320 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
321 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
323 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
325 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
326 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
327 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
328 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
330 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
331 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
333 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
335 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
336 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
337 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
339 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
340 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
342 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
344 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
345 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
346 include ``set remote P-packet''.
348 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
350 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
351 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
352 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
354 * ``apropos'' command added.
356 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
357 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
358 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
362 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
363 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
364 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
365 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
366 enabled by configuring with:
368 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
370 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
372 * New native configurations
374 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
375 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
376 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
380 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
381 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
382 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
384 * OBSOLETE configurations
386 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
388 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
389 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
390 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
391 be permanently REMOVED.
395 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
396 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
397 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
398 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
399 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
400 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
401 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
406 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
408 * set extension-language
410 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
411 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
412 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
413 set extension-language .c c++
414 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
415 and their associated languages.
417 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
419 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
420 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
421 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
425 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
426 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
428 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
429 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
431 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
432 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
433 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
434 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
435 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
436 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
437 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
438 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
440 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
441 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
442 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
443 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
447 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
448 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
449 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
450 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
451 for xdb and dbx commands.
455 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
456 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
457 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
459 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
460 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
461 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
463 * Debugging across forks
465 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
470 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
471 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
472 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
474 * GDB remote protocol additions
476 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
477 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
478 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
479 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
481 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
482 full 64-bit address. The command
484 set remoteaddresssize 32
486 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
487 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
490 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
491 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
493 maint packet heythere
495 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
496 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
499 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
500 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
501 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
503 * Tracing can collect general expressions
505 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
506 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
507 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
509 * mask-address variable for Mips
511 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
512 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
513 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
515 * Higher serial baud rates
517 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
518 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
519 to achieve all of these rates.)
523 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
524 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
527 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
529 * New native configurations
531 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
532 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
533 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
534 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
535 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
536 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
537 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
541 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
542 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
543 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
544 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
545 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
546 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
547 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
548 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
549 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
550 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
551 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
553 * New debugging protocols
555 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
556 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
557 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
558 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
559 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
560 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
564 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
565 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
570 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
571 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
573 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
575 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
576 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
577 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
579 * Live range splitting
581 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
582 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
583 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
587 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
588 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
592 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
593 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
594 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
599 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
604 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
605 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
606 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
607 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
608 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
609 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
613 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
614 the symbol at the specified address.
618 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
619 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
620 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
621 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
622 file tracepoint.c for more details.
626 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
627 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
628 of most MIPS variants.
632 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
633 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
634 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
638 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
639 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
640 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
641 the possible architectures.
643 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
645 * New native configurations
647 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
648 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
649 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
650 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
651 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
652 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
656 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
657 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
658 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
659 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
660 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
662 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
666 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
667 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
668 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
669 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
670 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
674 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
676 * Windows 95/NT native
678 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
679 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
680 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
681 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
682 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
684 * dont-repeat command
686 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
687 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
688 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
689 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
691 * Send break instead of ^C
693 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
694 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
695 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
697 * Remote protocol timeout
699 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
700 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
701 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
703 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
705 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
706 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
707 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
708 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
709 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
711 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
712 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
713 automatically on hpux10.
715 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
717 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
719 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
721 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
722 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
723 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
724 every character. The default value is 1050.
726 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
728 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
729 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
730 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
731 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
732 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
733 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
735 * Speedups for remote debugging
737 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
738 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
739 and more efficient S-record downloading.
741 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
743 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
744 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
746 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
750 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
751 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
753 * Remote targets use caching
755 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
756 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
757 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
758 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
759 off' turns the the data cache off.
761 * Remote targets may have threads
763 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
764 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
765 gdb/remote.c for details.
769 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
770 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
771 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
772 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
773 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
774 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
775 sequence is something like
777 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
779 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
783 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
784 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
785 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
786 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
787 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
788 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
789 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
790 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
794 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
795 but does simplify configuration and building.
799 GDB now supports hpux10.
801 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
803 * New native configurations
805 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
806 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
807 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
808 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
812 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
813 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
814 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
815 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
818 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
820 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
821 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
822 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
823 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
824 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
826 * Arguments to user-defined commands
828 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
829 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
832 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
834 To execute the command use:
837 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
838 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
839 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
841 * New `if' and `while' commands
843 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
844 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
845 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
846 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
847 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
848 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
849 if the expression is zero.
851 * Fortran source language mode
853 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
854 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
855 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
856 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
859 * Better HPUX support
861 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
862 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
863 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
864 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
865 that behavior do the following before running the program:
871 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
872 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
878 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
879 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
882 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
883 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
885 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
887 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
888 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
889 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
890 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
891 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
892 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
894 * New DOS host serial code
896 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
897 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
900 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
902 * New "complete" command
904 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
905 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
907 * Trailing space optional in prompt
909 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
910 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
912 * Breakpoint hit counts
914 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
915 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
916 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
917 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
918 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
921 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
923 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
924 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
925 arrays actually contain only short strings.
927 * Shared library breakpoints
929 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
930 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
932 * Hardware watchpoints
934 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
935 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
937 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
941 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
942 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
944 * Improved Irix 5 support
946 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
948 * Improved HPPA support
950 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
952 * New native configurations
954 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
955 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
956 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
957 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
961 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
962 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
965 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
967 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
968 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
972 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
973 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
975 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
977 * Irix 5 is now supported
981 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
982 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
983 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
984 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
985 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
988 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
990 * User visible changes:
994 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
995 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
996 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
997 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
998 debugging info for the mips target).
1000 * DEC Alpha native support
1002 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1003 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1004 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1005 Alpha-specific notes.
1007 * Preliminary thread implementation
1009 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1011 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1013 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1014 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1017 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1019 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1020 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1021 call methods, ...etc.
1023 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1025 * User visible changes:
1027 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1028 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1029 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1030 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1032 Filename completion now works.
1034 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1035 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1036 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1038 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1039 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1040 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1041 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1042 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1046 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1047 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1050 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1054 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1055 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1056 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1060 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1061 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1062 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1063 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1064 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1068 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1069 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1070 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1072 * New targets supported
1074 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1075 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1076 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1077 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1078 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1080 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1081 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1082 GO32 memory extender.
1084 * New remote protocols
1086 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1088 * New source languages supported
1090 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1091 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1092 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1095 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1097 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1099 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1100 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1101 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1102 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1103 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1104 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1106 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1108 * Faster and better demangling
1110 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1111 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1112 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1113 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1114 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1115 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1118 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1119 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1120 compiler does not actually implement.
1122 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1124 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1125 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1126 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1127 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1128 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1129 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1132 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1133 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1135 * Improved configure script
1137 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1138 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1139 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1140 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1142 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1143 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1144 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1145 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1146 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1147 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1149 * Documentation improvements
1151 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1152 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1153 before submitting changes.
1155 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1156 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1157 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1158 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1159 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1161 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1162 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1163 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1164 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1165 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1166 around this problem.
1170 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1171 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1172 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1175 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1176 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1178 * New native hosts supported
1180 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1181 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1183 * New targets supported
1185 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1187 * New file formats supported
1189 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1190 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1194 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1196 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1197 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1199 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1200 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1201 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1203 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1204 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1206 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1207 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1208 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1211 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1212 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1213 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1214 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1215 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1217 * Internal improvements
1219 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1220 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1222 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1223 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1224 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1225 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1226 shared code that handles any of them.
1228 * New command line options
1230 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1234 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1235 General Public License.
1237 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1239 * Host/native/target split
1241 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1242 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1243 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1244 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1245 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1247 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1248 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1249 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1250 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1251 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1252 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1253 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1255 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1256 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1257 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1259 * New hosts supported
1261 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1262 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1263 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1265 * New targets supported
1267 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1268 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1270 * New native hosts supported
1272 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1273 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1274 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1276 * New file formats supported
1278 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1279 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1280 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1284 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1285 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1286 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1288 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1290 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1291 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1292 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1293 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1297 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1298 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1299 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1301 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1305 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1306 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1309 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1310 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1312 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1313 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1314 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1315 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1316 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1317 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1319 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1320 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1321 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1322 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1326 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1327 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1328 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1329 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1330 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1332 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1333 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1334 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1335 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1339 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1340 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1341 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1342 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1343 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1344 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1345 each instruction being stepped through.
1347 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1348 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1350 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1351 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1352 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1353 processor with a serial port.
1357 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1358 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1359 supported, and what files each one uses.
1363 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1364 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1365 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1366 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1368 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1369 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1370 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1371 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1375 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1376 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1377 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1378 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1379 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1380 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1382 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1385 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1387 * Better support for C++ function names
1389 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1390 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1391 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1392 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1393 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1395 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1396 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1397 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1398 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1399 for the list of formats.
1401 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1403 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1404 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1405 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1406 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1407 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1408 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1411 * New 'maintenance' command
1413 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1414 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1415 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1417 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1418 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1419 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1420 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1421 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1422 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1424 The following commands are new:
1426 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1427 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1428 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1430 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1432 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1433 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1434 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1435 read after argv processing.
1437 * New hosts supported
1439 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1441 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1443 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1444 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1445 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1446 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1447 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1450 * New targets supported
1452 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1454 * More smarts about finding #include files
1456 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1457 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1458 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1459 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1460 the one that contains your sources.
1462 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1463 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1464 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1466 * Interesting infernals change
1468 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1469 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1470 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1471 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1473 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1475 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1476 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1477 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1479 See the ChangeLog for details.
1481 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1483 * New machines supported (host and target)
1485 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1487 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1489 * New malloc package
1491 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1492 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1493 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1494 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1495 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1496 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1500 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1501 'help info proc' for details.
1503 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1505 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1506 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1509 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1511 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1512 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1513 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1514 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1515 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1516 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1518 * Cross byte order fixes
1520 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1521 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1523 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1525 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1526 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1527 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1528 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1529 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1530 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1531 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1532 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1533 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1534 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1536 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1537 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1538 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1539 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1541 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1542 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1543 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1546 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1548 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1549 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1550 shared across multiple host platforms.
1552 * longjmp() handling
1554 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1555 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1556 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1557 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1561 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1562 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1567 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1568 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1569 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1571 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1573 * New machines supported (host and target)
1575 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1577 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1578 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1580 * New machines supported (target)
1582 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1586 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1587 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1588 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1590 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1591 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1592 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1593 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1594 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1597 * New features for SVR4
1599 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1600 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1601 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1603 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1604 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1605 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1607 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1608 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1610 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1612 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1613 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1614 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1615 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1616 same code linked statically.
1620 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1621 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1622 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1623 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1624 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1625 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1629 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1630 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1631 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1634 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1636 * New machines supported (host and target)
1638 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1639 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1640 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1642 * Almost SCO Unix support
1644 We had hoped to support:
1645 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1646 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1647 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1648 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1650 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1652 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1653 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1654 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1655 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1660 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1661 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1662 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1666 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1667 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1668 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1670 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1672 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1673 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1674 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1676 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1677 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1678 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1679 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1682 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1683 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1684 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1685 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1688 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1689 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1692 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1693 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1694 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1697 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1699 * Improved configuration
1701 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1702 Porting BFD is simpler.
1706 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1707 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1708 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1709 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1713 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1715 * New host supported (not target)
1717 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1720 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1722 * Multiple source language support
1724 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1725 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1726 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1727 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1728 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1729 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1733 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1734 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1735 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1736 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1738 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1739 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1740 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1742 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1743 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1747 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1748 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1749 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1750 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1753 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1755 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1756 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1757 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1758 examining core files.
1762 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1765 * New machines supported (host and target)
1767 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1768 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1769 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1771 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1773 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1775 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1777 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1778 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1779 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1781 * New remote interfaces
1787 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1791 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1793 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1794 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1795 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1796 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1797 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1798 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1799 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1800 stub on the target system.
1802 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1804 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1805 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1806 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1808 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1809 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1812 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1814 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1815 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1817 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1818 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1819 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1821 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1822 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1823 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1824 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1826 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1827 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1828 it is already running. Default is ON.
1830 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1831 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1832 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1833 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1836 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1837 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1838 or the value of the environment variable
1841 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1842 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1845 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1846 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1847 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1849 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1850 history expansion will be performed on
1851 command line input. The default is OFF.
1853 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1854 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1855 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1857 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1858 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1859 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1862 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1863 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1864 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1867 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1868 ``set width'' instead.
1870 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1871 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1872 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1873 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1875 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1878 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1881 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1884 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1887 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1889 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1890 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1891 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1895 * Support for Shared Libraries
1897 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1898 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1899 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1900 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1901 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1902 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1903 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1904 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1906 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1907 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1908 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1910 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1915 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1916 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1917 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1918 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1919 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1920 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1922 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1924 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1926 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1927 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1928 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1931 * C++ multiple inheritance
1933 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1936 * C++ exception handling
1938 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1939 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1940 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1943 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1944 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1945 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1947 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1948 current stack frame.
1951 * Minor command changes
1953 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1954 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1955 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1957 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1958 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1959 frames without printing.
1961 * New directory command
1963 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1964 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1965 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1966 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1967 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1969 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1971 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1974 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1975 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1976 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1977 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob