1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 5.0:
6 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
10 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
13 * New native configurations
15 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
16 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
20 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
22 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
23 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
24 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
25 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
26 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
28 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
29 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
30 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
31 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
32 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
33 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
34 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
35 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
37 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
38 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
40 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
41 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
42 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
45 * REMOVED configurations and files
47 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
50 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
56 * All MIPS configurations are multi-arched.
58 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
60 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
62 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
63 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
64 contents of this file.
68 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
70 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
72 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
74 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
75 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
76 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
77 greater level of detail.
79 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
81 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
82 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
83 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
86 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
88 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
89 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
90 machines ``out of the box''.
92 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
93 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
94 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
95 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
96 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
98 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
99 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
100 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
101 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
102 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
104 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
105 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
108 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
111 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
112 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
113 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
114 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
116 * New native configurations
118 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
119 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
123 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
124 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
125 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
126 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
128 * OBSOLETE configurations
130 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
131 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
133 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
136 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
137 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
138 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
139 be permanently REMOVED.
141 * Gould support removed
143 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
145 * New features for SVR4
147 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
148 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
149 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
151 * Many C++ enhancements
153 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
154 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
156 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
158 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
159 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
160 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
161 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
163 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
164 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
166 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
168 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
169 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
170 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
172 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
173 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
175 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
177 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
178 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
179 include ``set remote P-packet''.
181 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
183 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
184 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
185 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
187 * ``apropos'' command added.
189 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
190 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
191 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
195 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
196 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
197 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
198 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
199 enabled by configuring with:
201 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
203 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
205 * New native configurations
207 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
208 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
209 M68K Linux m68*-*-linux*
213 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
214 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
215 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
217 * OBSOLETE configurations
219 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
221 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
222 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
223 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
224 be permanently REMOVED.
228 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
229 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
230 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
231 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
232 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
233 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
234 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
239 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
241 * set extension-language
243 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
244 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
245 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
246 set extension-language .c c++
247 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
248 and their associated languages.
250 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
252 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
253 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
254 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
258 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
259 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
261 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
262 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
264 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
265 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
266 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
267 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
268 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
269 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
270 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
271 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
273 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
274 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
275 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
276 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
280 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
281 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
282 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
283 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
284 for xdb and dbx commands.
288 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
289 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
290 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
292 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
293 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
294 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
296 * Debugging across forks
298 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
303 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
304 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
305 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
307 * GDB remote protocol additions
309 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
310 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
311 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
312 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
314 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
315 full 64-bit address. The command
317 set remoteaddresssize 32
319 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
320 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
323 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
324 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
326 maint packet heythere
328 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
329 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
332 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
333 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
334 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
336 * Tracing can collect general expressions
338 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
339 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
340 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
342 * mask-address variable for Mips
344 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
345 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
346 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
348 * Higher serial baud rates
350 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
351 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
352 to achieve all of these rates.)
356 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
357 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
360 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
362 * New native configurations
364 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
365 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
366 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
367 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
368 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
369 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
370 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
374 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
375 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
376 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
377 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
378 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
379 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
380 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
381 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
382 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
383 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
384 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
386 * New debugging protocols
388 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
389 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
390 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
391 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
392 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
393 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
397 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
398 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
403 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
404 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
406 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
408 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
409 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
410 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
412 * Live range splitting
414 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
415 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
416 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
420 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
421 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
425 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
426 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
427 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
432 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
437 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
438 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
439 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
440 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
441 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
442 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
446 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
447 the symbol at the specified address.
451 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
452 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
453 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
454 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
455 file tracepoint.c for more details.
459 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
460 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
461 of most MIPS variants.
465 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
466 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
467 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
471 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
472 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
473 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
474 the possible architectures.
476 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
478 * New native configurations
480 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
481 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
482 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
483 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
484 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
485 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
489 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
490 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
491 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
492 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
493 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
495 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
499 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
500 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
501 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
502 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
503 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
507 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
509 * Windows 95/NT native
511 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
512 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
513 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
514 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
515 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
517 * dont-repeat command
519 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
520 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
521 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
522 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
524 * Send break instead of ^C
526 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
527 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
528 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
530 * Remote protocol timeout
532 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
533 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
534 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
536 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
538 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
539 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
540 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
541 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
542 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
544 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
545 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
546 automatically on hpux10.
548 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
550 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
552 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
554 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
555 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
556 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
557 every character. The default value is 1050.
559 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
561 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
562 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
563 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
564 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
565 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
566 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
568 * Speedups for remote debugging
570 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
571 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
572 and more efficient S-record downloading.
574 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
576 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
577 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
579 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
583 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
584 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
586 * Remote targets use caching
588 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
589 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
590 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
591 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
592 off' turns the the data cache off.
594 * Remote targets may have threads
596 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
597 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
598 gdb/remote.c for details.
602 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
603 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
604 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
605 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
606 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
607 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
608 sequence is something like
610 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
612 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
616 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
617 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
618 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
619 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
620 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
621 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
622 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
623 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
627 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
628 but does simplify configuration and building.
632 GDB now supports hpux10.
634 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
636 * New native configurations
638 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
639 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
640 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
641 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
645 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
646 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
647 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
648 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
651 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
653 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
654 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
655 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
656 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
657 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
659 * Arguments to user-defined commands
661 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
662 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
665 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
667 To execute the command use:
670 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
671 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
672 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
674 * New `if' and `while' commands
676 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
677 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
678 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
679 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
680 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
681 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
682 if the expression is zero.
684 * Fortran source language mode
686 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
687 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
688 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
689 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
692 * Better HPUX support
694 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
695 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
696 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
697 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
698 that behavior do the following before running the program:
704 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
705 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
711 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
712 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
715 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
716 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
718 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
720 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
721 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
722 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
723 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
724 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
725 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
727 * New DOS host serial code
729 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
730 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
733 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
735 * New "complete" command
737 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
738 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
740 * Trailing space optional in prompt
742 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
743 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
745 * Breakpoint hit counts
747 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
748 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
749 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
750 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
751 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
754 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
756 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
757 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
758 arrays actually contain only short strings.
760 * Shared library breakpoints
762 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
763 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
765 * Hardware watchpoints
767 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
768 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
770 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under Linux.
774 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
775 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
777 * Improved Irix 5 support
779 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
781 * Improved HPPA support
783 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
785 * New native configurations
787 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
788 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
789 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
790 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
794 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
795 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
798 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
800 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
801 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
805 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
806 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
808 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
810 * Irix 5 is now supported
814 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
815 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
816 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
817 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
818 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
821 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
823 * User visible changes:
827 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
828 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
829 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
830 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
831 debugging info for the mips target).
833 * DEC Alpha native support
835 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
836 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
837 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
838 Alpha-specific notes.
840 * Preliminary thread implementation
842 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
844 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
846 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
847 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
850 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
852 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
853 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
854 call methods, ...etc.
856 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
858 * User visible changes:
860 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
861 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
862 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
863 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
865 Filename completion now works.
867 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
868 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
869 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
871 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
872 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
873 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
874 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
875 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
879 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
880 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
883 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
887 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
888 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
889 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
893 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
894 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
895 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
896 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
897 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
901 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
902 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
903 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
905 * New targets supported
907 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
908 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
909 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
910 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
911 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
913 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
914 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
915 GO32 memory extender.
917 * New remote protocols
919 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
921 * New source languages supported
923 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
924 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
925 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
928 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
930 * HP Precision Architecture supported
932 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
933 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
934 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
935 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
936 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
937 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
939 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
941 * Faster and better demangling
943 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
944 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
945 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
946 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
947 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
948 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
951 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
952 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
953 compiler does not actually implement.
955 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
957 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
958 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
959 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
960 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
961 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
962 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
965 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
966 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
968 * Improved configure script
970 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
971 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
972 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
973 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
975 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
976 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
977 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
978 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
979 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
980 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
982 * Documentation improvements
984 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
985 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
986 before submitting changes.
988 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
989 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
990 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
991 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
992 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
994 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
995 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
996 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
997 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
998 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1003 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1004 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1005 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1008 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1009 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1011 * New native hosts supported
1013 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1014 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1016 * New targets supported
1018 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1020 * New file formats supported
1022 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1023 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1027 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1029 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1030 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1032 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1033 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1034 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1036 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1037 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1039 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1040 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1041 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1044 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1045 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1046 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1047 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1048 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1050 * Internal improvements
1052 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1053 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1055 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1056 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1057 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1058 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1059 shared code that handles any of them.
1061 * New command line options
1063 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1067 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1068 General Public License.
1070 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1072 * Host/native/target split
1074 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1075 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1076 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1077 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1078 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1080 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1081 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1082 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1083 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1084 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1085 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1086 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1088 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1089 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1090 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1092 * New hosts supported
1094 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1095 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1096 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1098 * New targets supported
1100 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1101 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1103 * New native hosts supported
1105 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1106 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1107 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1109 * New file formats supported
1111 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1112 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1113 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1117 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1118 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1119 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1121 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1123 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1124 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1125 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1126 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1130 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1131 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1132 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1134 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1138 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1139 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1142 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1143 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1145 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1146 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1147 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1148 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1149 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1150 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1152 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1153 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1154 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1155 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1159 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1160 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1161 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1162 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1163 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1165 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1166 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1167 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1168 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1172 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1173 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1174 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1175 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1176 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1177 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1178 each instruction being stepped through.
1180 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1181 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1183 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1184 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1185 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1186 processor with a serial port.
1190 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1191 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1192 supported, and what files each one uses.
1196 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1197 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1198 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1199 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1201 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1202 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1203 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1204 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1208 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1209 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1210 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1211 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1212 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1213 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1215 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1218 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1220 * Better support for C++ function names
1222 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1223 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1224 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1225 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1226 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1228 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1229 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1230 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1231 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1232 for the list of formats.
1234 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1236 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1237 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1238 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1239 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1240 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1241 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1244 * New 'maintenance' command
1246 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1247 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1248 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1250 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1251 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1252 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1253 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1254 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1255 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1257 The following commands are new:
1259 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1260 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1261 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1263 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
1265 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
1266 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
1267 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
1268 read after argv processing.
1270 * New hosts supported
1272 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
1274 Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
1276 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
1277 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
1278 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
1279 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
1280 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
1283 * New targets supported
1285 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1287 * More smarts about finding #include files
1289 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
1290 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
1291 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
1292 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
1293 the one that contains your sources.
1295 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
1296 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
1297 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
1299 * Interesting infernals change
1301 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
1302 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
1303 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
1304 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
1306 * Bug fixes (of course!)
1308 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
1309 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
1310 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
1312 See the ChangeLog for details.
1314 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
1316 * New machines supported (host and target)
1318 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
1320 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
1322 * New malloc package
1324 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
1325 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
1326 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
1327 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
1328 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
1329 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
1333 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
1334 'help info proc' for details.
1336 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
1338 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
1339 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
1342 * File name changes for MS-DOS
1344 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
1345 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
1346 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
1347 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
1348 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
1349 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
1351 * Cross byte order fixes
1353 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
1354 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
1356 * New -mapped and -readnow options
1358 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
1359 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
1360 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
1361 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
1362 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
1363 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
1364 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
1365 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
1366 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
1367 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
1369 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
1370 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
1371 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
1372 slower, but makes future operations faster.
1374 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
1375 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
1376 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
1379 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
1381 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
1382 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
1383 shared across multiple host platforms.
1385 * longjmp() handling
1387 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
1388 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
1389 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
1390 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
1394 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
1395 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
1400 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
1401 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
1402 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
1404 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
1406 * New machines supported (host and target)
1408 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1410 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
1411 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
1413 * New machines supported (target)
1415 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1419 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
1420 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
1421 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
1423 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
1424 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
1425 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
1426 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
1427 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
1430 * New features for SVR4
1432 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
1433 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
1434 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
1436 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
1437 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
1438 it prints the address mappings of the process.
1440 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
1441 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
1443 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
1445 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
1446 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
1447 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
1448 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
1449 same code linked statically.
1453 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
1454 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
1455 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
1456 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
1457 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
1458 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
1462 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1463 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1464 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1467 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
1469 * New machines supported (host and target)
1471 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
1472 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
1473 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1475 * Almost SCO Unix support
1477 We had hoped to support:
1478 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
1479 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
1480 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
1481 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
1483 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
1485 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
1486 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
1487 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
1488 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
1493 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
1494 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
1495 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
1499 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
1500 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
1501 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
1503 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
1505 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
1506 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
1507 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
1509 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
1510 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
1511 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
1512 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
1515 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
1516 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
1517 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
1518 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
1521 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
1522 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
1525 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
1526 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
1527 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
1530 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
1532 * Improved configuration
1534 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
1535 Porting BFD is simpler.
1539 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
1540 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
1541 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
1542 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
1546 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
1548 * New host supported (not target)
1550 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
1553 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
1555 * Multiple source language support
1557 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
1558 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
1559 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
1560 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
1561 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
1562 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
1566 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
1567 currently under development at the State University of New York at
1568 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
1569 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
1571 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
1572 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
1573 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
1575 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
1576 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
1580 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
1581 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
1582 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
1583 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
1586 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
1588 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
1589 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
1590 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
1591 examining core files.
1595 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
1598 * New machines supported (host and target)
1600 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
1601 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
1602 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
1604 * New hosts supported (not targets)
1606 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
1608 * New targets supported (not hosts)
1610 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1611 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1612 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
1614 * New remote interfaces
1620 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
1624 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
1626 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
1627 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
1628 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
1629 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
1630 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
1631 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
1632 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
1633 stub on the target system.
1635 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
1637 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
1638 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
1639 object file types such as a.out and coff.
1641 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
1642 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
1645 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
1647 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
1648 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
1650 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
1651 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
1652 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
1654 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
1655 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
1656 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
1657 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
1659 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
1660 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
1661 it is already running. Default is ON.
1663 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
1664 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
1665 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
1666 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
1669 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
1670 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
1671 or the value of the environment variable
1674 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
1675 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
1678 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
1679 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
1680 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
1682 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
1683 history expansion will be performed on
1684 command line input. The default is OFF.
1686 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
1687 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
1688 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
1690 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
1691 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
1692 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1695 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
1696 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
1697 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
1700 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
1701 ``set width'' instead.
1703 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
1704 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
1705 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
1706 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
1708 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
1711 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
1714 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
1717 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
1720 * Support for Epoch Environment.
1722 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
1723 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
1724 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
1728 * Support for Shared Libraries
1730 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
1731 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
1732 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
1733 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
1734 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
1735 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
1736 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
1737 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
1739 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
1740 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
1741 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
1743 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
1748 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
1749 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
1750 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
1751 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
1752 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
1753 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
1755 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
1757 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
1759 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1760 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1761 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
1764 * C++ multiple inheritance
1766 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
1769 * C++ exception handling
1771 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
1772 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
1773 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
1776 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
1777 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
1778 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
1780 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
1781 current stack frame.
1784 * Minor command changes
1786 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
1787 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
1788 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
1790 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
1791 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
1792 frames without printing.
1794 * New directory command
1796 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
1797 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
1798 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
1799 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
1800 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
1802 * Configuring GDB for compilation
1804 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
1807 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
1808 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
1809 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
1810 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob