1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.2
6 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
7 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
8 matches the given regular expression.
10 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
12 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
13 dumping the instruction opcodes.
15 * New command line options
17 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
18 This is mostly for testing purposes.
20 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
21 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
23 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
24 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
25 source path list instead of augmenting it.
27 * GDB now understands thread names.
29 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
30 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
32 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
33 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
36 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
37 has been integrated into GDB.
41 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
42 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
43 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
44 that function like so:
46 result = some_value (10,20)
48 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
49 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
50 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
52 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
53 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
54 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
55 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
56 New function: register_pretty_printer.
58 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
59 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
61 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
63 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
66 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
67 holds the thread's name.
69 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
70 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
71 occurring the in process being debugged.
72 The following events are currently supported:
73 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
74 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
75 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
77 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
78 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
79 occurring the in process being debugged.
80 The following events are currently supported:
81 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
82 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
83 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
87 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
88 instantiation. For example, if you have:
90 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
92 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
93 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
96 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
97 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
98 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
99 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
100 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
101 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
103 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
104 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
105 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
106 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
107 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
109 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
110 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
111 execution to a label.
113 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
114 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
115 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
116 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
118 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
119 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
120 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
123 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
125 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
126 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
127 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
128 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
129 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
130 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
133 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
135 While now you see this:
138 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
140 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
143 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
144 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
145 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
146 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
148 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
150 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
151 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
153 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
155 * New native configurations
157 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
161 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
163 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
164 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
165 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
166 in the GDB user manual.
168 * Guile support was removed.
170 * New features in the GNU simulator
172 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
174 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
176 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
178 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
179 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
180 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
181 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
182 was always disabled for such configurations.
186 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
188 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
189 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
199 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
200 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
201 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
203 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
205 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
206 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
207 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
208 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
210 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
211 mentioned flavors of operators.
213 ** static const class members
215 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
216 class definition has been fixed.
218 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
220 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
221 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
222 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
223 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
224 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
225 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
229 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
230 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
231 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
232 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
233 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
234 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
235 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
236 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
237 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
238 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
239 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
240 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
241 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
242 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
243 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
244 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
245 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
246 the "New remote packets" section below.
248 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
250 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
251 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
252 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
253 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
257 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
258 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
259 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
260 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
261 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
262 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
263 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
265 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
272 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
276 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
277 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
278 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
279 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
280 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
281 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
285 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
289 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
292 qXfer:statictrace:read
294 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
295 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
296 to gdb's qSupported query.
300 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
304 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
305 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
307 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
308 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
311 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
313 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
314 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
315 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
316 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
318 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
319 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
320 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
321 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
322 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
323 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
324 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
326 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
327 for static tracepoints support.
329 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
331 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
332 it understands register description.
334 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
336 * X86 general purpose registers
338 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
339 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
340 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
341 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
342 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
344 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
345 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
346 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
347 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
348 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
349 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
351 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
352 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
353 in the specified file.
355 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
356 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
357 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
358 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
359 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
360 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
361 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
362 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
363 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
364 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
368 eval template, expressions...
369 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
370 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
372 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
373 show target-file-system-kind
374 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
377 save breakpoints <filename>
378 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
379 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
380 definitions, use the `source' command.
382 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
385 info static-tracepoint-markers
386 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
388 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
389 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
390 function, line, address, or marker ID.
394 Enable and disable observer mode.
396 set may-write-registers on|off
397 set may-write-memory on|off
398 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
399 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
400 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
401 set may-interrupt on|off
402 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
403 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
404 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
405 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
406 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
407 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
408 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
410 set record memory-query on|off
411 show record memory-query
412 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
413 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
418 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
422 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
423 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
424 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
425 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
426 GDB using Python' in the manual.
428 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
429 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
430 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
431 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
433 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
434 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
436 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
438 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
440 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
442 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
443 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
444 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
446 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
447 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
448 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
453 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
455 * D language support.
456 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
459 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
460 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
461 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
462 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
463 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
465 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
466 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
467 conditions of the form:
469 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
471 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
472 interface mentioned above.
474 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
480 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
481 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
482 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
483 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
484 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
488 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
489 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
494 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
495 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
499 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
504 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
507 * Multi-program debugging.
509 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
510 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
511 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
512 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
513 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
514 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
515 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
516 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
518 * New tracing features
520 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
522 ** Trace state variables
524 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
525 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
526 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
527 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
528 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
529 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
530 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
531 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
532 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
533 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
537 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
538 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
539 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
540 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
541 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
542 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
543 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
544 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
545 the regular trace command.
547 ** Disconnected tracing
549 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
550 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
551 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
552 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
553 connection is lost unexpectedly.
557 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
558 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
559 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
560 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
561 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
562 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
565 ** Circular trace buffer
567 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
568 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
569 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
570 not be available for all target agents.
575 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
576 the arguments to be comma-separated.
579 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
580 which only declare a variable are not shown.
583 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
584 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
587 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
588 "set script-extension" (see below).
590 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
592 record save [<FILENAME>]
593 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
594 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
596 record restore <FILENAME>
597 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
598 earlier time, for replay debugging.
600 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
603 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
604 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
610 maint info program-spaces
611 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
613 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
614 show remote interrupt-sequence
615 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
616 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
617 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
618 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
619 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
621 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
622 show remote interrupt-on-connect
623 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
624 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
627 set remotebreak [on | off]
629 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
631 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
632 Create or modify a trace state variable.
635 List trace state variables and their values.
637 delete tvariable $NAME ...
638 Delete one or more trace state variables.
641 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
642 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
644 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
645 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
647 * New expression syntax
649 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
650 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
654 set follow-exec-mode new|same
655 show follow-exec-mode
656 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
657 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
658 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
660 set default-collect EXPR, ...
662 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
663 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
664 such as registers or a critical global variable.
666 set disconnected-tracing
667 show disconnected-tracing
668 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
669 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
672 set circular-trace-buffer
673 show circular-trace-buffer
674 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
675 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
676 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
677 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
679 set script-extension off|soft|strict
680 show script-extension
681 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
682 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
683 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
684 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
686 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
688 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
689 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
690 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
691 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
692 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
693 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
694 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
697 * Python API Improvements
699 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
700 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
701 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
703 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
704 `is_base_class' attribute.
706 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
708 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
709 evaluate an expression.
714 Define a trace state variable.
717 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
720 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
723 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
726 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
730 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
732 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
733 much more reliable. In particular:
734 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
735 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
736 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
737 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
738 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
739 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
740 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
741 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
742 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
743 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
744 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
745 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
746 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
747 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
748 non-threaded programs.
750 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
751 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
752 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
755 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
757 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
758 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
759 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
760 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
761 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
763 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
764 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
765 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
766 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
767 for tracepoint actions.
769 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
770 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
771 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
773 * Process record and replay
775 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
776 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
777 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
780 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
781 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
782 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
785 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
786 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
789 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
790 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
791 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
792 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
793 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
794 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
795 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
796 the installation instructions for more information.
798 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
799 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
800 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
801 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
803 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
804 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
806 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
807 now complete on file names.
809 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
810 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
811 For instance, consider:
813 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
814 # struct example variable;
817 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
818 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
820 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
821 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
823 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
824 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
827 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
828 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
829 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
831 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
832 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
833 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
834 and simulator targets may also provide them.
839 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
842 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
843 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
844 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
847 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
848 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
851 Obtains additional operating system information
855 Read or write additional signal information.
857 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
859 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
860 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
861 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
863 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
864 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
866 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
867 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
868 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
870 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
871 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
873 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
875 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
877 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
878 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
880 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
881 list of section offsets.
883 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
884 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
885 have also been fixed.
887 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
888 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
889 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
891 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
894 template<typename T> class C { };
897 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
899 ptype C<char const *>
901 ptype C<const char *>
904 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
906 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
907 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
909 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
910 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
911 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
913 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
914 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
916 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
919 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
920 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
922 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
923 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
928 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
929 available is determined at configure time.
931 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
933 * Ada tasking support
935 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
939 Print the list of Ada tasks.
941 Print detailed information about task number N.
943 Print the task number of the current task.
945 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
947 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
948 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
950 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
952 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
953 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
954 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
955 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
956 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
957 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
960 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
961 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
964 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
965 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
966 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
967 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
970 * Multi-architecture debugging.
972 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
973 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
974 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
975 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
976 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
978 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
979 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
980 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
981 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
982 --enable-targets configure option.
984 * Non-stop mode debugging.
986 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
987 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
988 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
989 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
990 section in the user manual for more information.
992 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
993 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
994 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
995 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
996 extensions on linux targets.
998 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1000 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
1001 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
1002 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
1003 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
1004 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
1005 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
1006 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
1007 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
1008 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
1010 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
1012 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
1014 maint set python print-stack
1015 maint show python print-stack
1016 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
1019 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
1024 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
1028 Show operating system information about processes.
1031 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
1034 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
1037 Detach from inferior number NUM.
1040 Kill inferior number NUM.
1044 set spu stop-on-load
1045 show spu stop-on-load
1046 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1048 set spu auto-flush-cache
1049 show spu auto-flush-cache
1050 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
1051 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
1053 set sh calling-convention
1054 show sh calling-convention
1055 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
1058 show debug timestamp
1059 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
1061 set disassemble-next-line
1062 show disassemble-next-line
1063 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
1066 set remote noack-packet
1067 show remote noack-packet
1068 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
1069 under "New remote packets."
1071 set remote query-attached-packet
1072 show remote query-attached-packet
1073 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
1075 set remote read-siginfo-object
1076 show remote read-siginfo-object
1077 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
1080 set remote write-siginfo-object
1081 show remote write-siginfo-object
1082 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
1085 set remote reverse-continue
1086 show remote reverse-continue
1087 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
1089 set remote reverse-step
1090 show remote reverse-step
1091 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
1093 set displaced-stepping
1094 show displaced-stepping
1095 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
1096 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
1097 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
1100 show debug displaced
1101 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
1103 maint set internal-error
1104 maint show internal-error
1105 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
1107 maint set internal-warning
1108 maint show internal-warning
1109 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1114 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1116 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1117 show multiple-symbols
1118 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1119 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1120 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1122 set breakpoint always-inserted
1123 show breakpoint always-inserted
1124 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1125 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1126 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1128 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1129 show arm fallback-mode
1130 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1132 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1133 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1134 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1135 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1137 set disable-randomization
1138 show disable-randomization
1139 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1140 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1141 multiple debugging sessions.
1145 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1150 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1151 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1152 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1153 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1155 set target-wide-charset
1156 show target-wide-charset
1157 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1158 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1160 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1162 set tcp connect-timeout
1163 show tcp connect-timeout
1164 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1165 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1166 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1168 set libthread-db-search-path
1169 show libthread-db-search-path
1170 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1173 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1174 show schedule-multiple
1175 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1176 the current process.
1180 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1181 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1182 affecting correctness.
1184 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1185 show interactive-mode
1186 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1187 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1188 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1189 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1190 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1195 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1196 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1197 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1201 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1202 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1203 alias for the `fork' command.
1206 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1207 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1208 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1211 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1212 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1213 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1217 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1218 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1219 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1222 * New native configurations
1224 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1226 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1230 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1231 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1232 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1235 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1236 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1242 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1244 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1246 * New native configurations
1248 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1249 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1253 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1254 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1256 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1258 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1259 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1260 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1261 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1263 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1264 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1266 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1269 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1270 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1271 and in inlined functions.
1273 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1274 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1275 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1277 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1279 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1280 registers on PowerPC targets.
1282 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1283 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1285 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1286 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1288 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1289 extended-remote mode.
1291 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1292 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1293 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1294 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1296 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1297 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1298 target architectures.
1300 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1301 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1302 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1303 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1305 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1308 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1309 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1311 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1312 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1313 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1314 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1316 - Improved command completion in Ada
1319 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1324 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1325 show print frame-arguments
1326 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1327 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1332 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1339 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1341 * New remote packets
1348 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1351 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1355 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1357 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1359 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1360 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1361 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1363 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1364 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1365 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1367 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1368 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1371 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1372 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1374 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1375 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1377 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1379 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1380 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1381 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1383 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1384 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1386 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1387 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1390 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1391 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1392 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1394 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1397 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1398 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1399 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1401 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1403 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1405 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1406 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1407 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1409 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1410 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1412 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1413 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1414 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1415 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1416 Windows and SymbianOS).
1418 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1419 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1421 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1422 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1428 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1429 when debugging using remote targets.
1431 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1432 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1433 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1434 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1435 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1436 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1437 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1439 set breakpoint auto-hw
1440 show breakpoint auto-hw
1441 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1442 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1443 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1444 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1445 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1446 including "next" and "finish".
1449 catch exception unhandled
1450 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1453 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1457 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1458 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1459 an alias to "set sysroot".
1462 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1463 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1466 * New native configurations
1468 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1471 unset tdesc filename
1473 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1474 not query the target for its built-in description.
1478 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1479 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1480 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1482 * New remote packets
1485 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1486 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1488 qXfer:features:read:
1489 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1494 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1495 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1497 qXfer:libraries:read:
1498 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1499 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1500 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1501 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1505 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1513 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1514 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1515 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1516 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1518 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1521 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1522 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1531 * Other removed features
1538 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1545 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1550 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1551 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1556 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1557 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1559 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1561 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1562 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1563 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1564 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1566 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1568 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1569 in debugging information.
1573 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1574 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1576 set mips stack-arg-size
1577 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1579 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1581 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1586 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1588 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1589 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1590 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1592 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1593 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1596 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1597 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1599 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1600 stub provides the required support.
1602 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1603 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1608 unset substitute-path
1609 show substitute-path
1610 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1611 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1612 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1613 between compilation and debugging.
1617 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1618 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1619 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1623 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1625 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1626 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1628 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1630 * New remote packets
1633 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1634 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1635 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1636 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1640 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1641 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1643 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1644 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1645 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1650 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1652 * Removed remote packets
1655 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1656 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1658 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1662 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1664 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1668 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1669 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1671 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1673 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1675 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1676 previously saved state.
1678 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1680 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1682 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1683 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1685 info forks List forks of the user program that
1686 are available to be debugged.
1688 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1689 forks of the user program that are
1690 available to be debugged.
1692 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1693 that are available to be debugged (and
1694 kill the forked process).
1696 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1697 that are available to be debugged (and
1698 allow the process to continue).
1702 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1704 * Improved Windows host support
1706 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1707 native console support, and remote communications using either
1708 network sockets or serial ports.
1710 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1712 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1713 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1714 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1715 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1716 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1717 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1721 The ARM rdi-share module.
1723 The Netware NLM debug server.
1725 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1727 * New native configurations
1729 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1730 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1734 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1736 * New command line options
1738 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1739 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1740 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1741 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1742 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1743 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1744 with the --command (-x) option.
1746 * Deprecated commands removed
1748 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1752 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1753 othernames set arm disassembler
1754 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1755 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1756 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1759 * New BSD user-level threads support
1761 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1762 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1765 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1766 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1767 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1769 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1770 are not yet supported.
1772 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1773 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1775 * REMOVED configurations and files
1777 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1778 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1779 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1781 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1783 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1784 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1787 * VAX floating point support
1789 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1791 * User-defined command support
1793 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1794 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1795 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1797 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1799 * New command line option
1801 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1804 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1806 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1807 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1808 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1809 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1810 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1812 * Internationalization
1814 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1815 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1816 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1820 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1821 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1822 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1824 * New native configurations
1826 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1830 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1831 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1833 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1835 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1836 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1837 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1840 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1841 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1842 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1852 powerpc bdm protocol
1854 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1855 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1857 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1859 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1860 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1861 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1862 permanently REMOVED.
1871 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1873 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1875 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1876 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1879 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1881 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1882 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1883 IRIX long double values).
1887 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1888 command. This problem has been fixed.
1890 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1892 * Fix for ``many threads''
1894 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1895 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1898 ptrace: No such process.
1899 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1901 This problem has been fixed.
1903 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1905 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1908 * New ``start'' command.
1910 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1912 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1914 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1915 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1916 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1918 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1919 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1920 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1921 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1922 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1923 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1924 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1925 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1926 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1928 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1930 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1931 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1932 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1933 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1934 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1936 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1937 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1938 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1940 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1942 * New native configurations
1944 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1945 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1946 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1947 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1948 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1949 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1950 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1952 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1954 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1955 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1956 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1957 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1958 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1959 work, was also included.
1961 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1962 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1972 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1973 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1975 * REMOVED configurations and files
1977 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1978 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1979 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1980 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1981 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1982 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1983 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1984 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1985 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1986 sonymips mips-sony-*
1987 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1989 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1991 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1993 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1994 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1995 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1996 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1999 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
2001 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
2002 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
2003 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
2004 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
2005 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
2006 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
2009 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
2011 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
2013 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
2014 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
2015 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
2017 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
2019 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
2020 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
2022 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
2024 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
2025 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
2026 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
2028 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
2030 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
2031 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
2033 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
2035 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
2036 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
2037 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
2039 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
2041 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
2042 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
2043 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
2045 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
2047 * Removed --with-mmalloc
2049 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
2050 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
2052 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
2054 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
2055 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
2056 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
2057 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
2059 * Revised SPARC target
2061 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
2062 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
2063 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
2064 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
2065 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
2069 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
2070 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
2071 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
2074 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2076 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
2077 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
2080 * C++ nested types and namespaces
2082 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
2083 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
2084 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
2085 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
2086 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
2087 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
2088 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
2089 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
2090 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
2092 * New native configurations
2094 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
2095 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
2096 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
2097 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
2098 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
2100 * New debugging protocols
2102 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
2104 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
2106 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
2107 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
2108 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2110 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2112 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2113 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2114 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2115 permanently REMOVED.
2117 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2118 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2119 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2120 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2121 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2122 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2123 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2124 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2125 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2126 sonymips mips-sony-*
2127 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2129 * REMOVED configurations and files
2131 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2132 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2133 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2134 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2135 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2136 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2137 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2138 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2139 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2140 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2141 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2142 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2143 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2144 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2145 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2146 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2147 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2149 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2153 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2154 integrated into GDB.
2156 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2158 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2159 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2160 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2163 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2164 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2165 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2169 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2170 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2171 remote protocol documentation for details.
2173 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2175 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2176 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2177 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2180 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2182 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2183 per-thread variables.
2185 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2187 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2188 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2190 * Separate debug info.
2192 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2193 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2194 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2195 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2196 and optional debug files.
2198 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2200 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2201 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2204 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2205 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2209 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2210 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2211 considered "useable".
2213 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2215 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2216 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2219 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2221 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2222 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2224 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2226 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2227 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2230 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2232 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2233 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2237 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2238 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2239 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2240 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2241 data, for more informative profiling results.
2243 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2245 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2246 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2247 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2249 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2252 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2253 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2254 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2255 in a subsequent -var-update.
2257 * New native configurations.
2259 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2261 * Multi-arched targets.
2263 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2264 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2266 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2268 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2269 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2270 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2271 permanently REMOVED.
2273 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2274 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2275 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2276 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2277 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2278 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2279 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2280 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2281 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2282 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2283 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2284 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2286 * REMOVED configurations and files
2289 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2290 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2291 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2292 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2293 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2294 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2296 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2297 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2298 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2299 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2300 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2301 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2303 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2305 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2306 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2307 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2308 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2309 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2311 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2313 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2315 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2316 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2317 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2318 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2319 shared libs like mad''.
2321 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2323 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2324 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2325 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2326 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2328 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2330 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2331 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2334 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2335 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2337 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2338 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2340 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2341 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2342 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2343 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2345 * Multi-arched targets.
2347 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2348 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2350 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2351 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2352 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2356 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2359 * New native configurations
2361 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2362 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2363 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2364 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2366 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2368 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2369 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2370 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2371 permanently REMOVED.
2373 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2374 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2375 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2376 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2377 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2378 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2379 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2380 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2381 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2382 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2384 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2385 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2387 * OBSOLETE languages
2389 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2391 * REMOVED configurations and files
2393 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2394 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2395 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2396 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2397 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2399 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2401 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2403 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2404 commands. The default is 1024.
2406 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2408 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2410 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2412 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2413 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2414 from a file into memory (restore).
2416 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2418 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2419 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2420 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2422 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2430 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2431 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2432 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2434 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2435 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2436 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2438 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2439 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2440 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2442 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2443 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2444 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2446 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2448 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2450 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2451 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2452 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2453 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2454 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2455 (notably embedded) targets.
2457 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2459 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2460 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2461 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2462 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2464 * New command line option
2466 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2468 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2470 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2471 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2472 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2473 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2474 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2475 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2476 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2477 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2478 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2479 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2481 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2483 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2484 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2486 * New native configurations
2488 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2489 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2490 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2491 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2495 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2497 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2499 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2500 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2501 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2502 permanently REMOVED.
2504 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2505 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2506 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2507 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2508 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2510 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2512 * REMOVED configurations and files
2514 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2516 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2517 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2518 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2519 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2520 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2521 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2522 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2523 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2524 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2525 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2526 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2528 * Changes to command line processing
2530 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2531 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2533 * Changes to key bindings
2535 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2537 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2539 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2541 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2544 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2546 Numerous documentation fixes.
2548 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2550 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2552 * New native configurations
2554 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2555 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2556 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2557 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2558 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2559 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2563 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2565 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2567 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2569 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2570 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2571 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2572 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2573 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2575 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2576 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2577 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2578 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2579 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2580 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2581 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2582 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2584 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2585 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2587 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2588 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2589 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2590 permanently REMOVED.
2592 * REMOVED configurations and files
2594 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2595 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2597 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2601 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2603 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2604 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2609 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2611 * The MI enabled by default.
2613 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2614 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2615 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2616 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2617 which is now deprecated.
2619 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2621 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2622 main features are supported:
2624 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2626 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2629 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2631 - a Pascal expression parser.
2633 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2635 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2637 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2639 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2640 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2642 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2644 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2646 * Changes in completion.
2648 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2649 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2650 users expect at the shell prompt.
2652 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2653 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2654 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2655 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2656 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2657 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2658 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2660 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2662 * New platform-independent commands:
2664 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2665 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2666 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2668 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2670 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2671 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2672 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2674 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2676 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2677 multi-threaded programs though.
2679 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2681 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2683 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2684 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2687 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2689 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2690 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2691 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2692 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2693 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2696 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2697 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2698 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2700 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2702 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2703 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2705 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2706 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2709 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2710 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2711 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2712 a given linear address.
2714 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2715 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2716 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2718 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2720 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2722 * Changes in documentation.
2724 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2725 Documentation License.
2727 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2730 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2732 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2735 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2736 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2737 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2739 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2741 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2742 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2743 contents of this file.
2747 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2749 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2751 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2753 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2754 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2755 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2756 greater level of detail.
2758 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2760 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2761 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2762 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2765 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2767 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2768 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2769 machines ``out of the box''.
2771 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2772 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2773 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2774 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2775 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2777 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2778 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2779 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2780 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2781 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2783 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2784 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2787 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2790 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2791 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2792 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2793 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2795 * New native configurations
2797 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2798 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2802 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2803 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2804 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2805 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2807 * OBSOLETE configurations
2809 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2810 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2812 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2815 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2816 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2817 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2818 be permanently REMOVED.
2820 * Gould support removed
2822 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2824 * New features for SVR4
2826 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2827 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2828 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2830 * Many C++ enhancements
2832 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2833 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2835 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2837 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2838 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2839 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2840 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2842 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2843 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2845 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2847 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2848 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2849 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2851 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2852 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2854 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2856 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2857 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2858 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2860 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2862 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2863 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2864 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2866 * ``apropos'' command added.
2868 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2869 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2870 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2874 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2875 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2876 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2877 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2878 enabled by configuring with:
2880 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2882 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2884 * New native configurations
2886 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2887 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2888 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2892 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2893 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2894 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2896 * OBSOLETE configurations
2898 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2900 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2901 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2902 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2903 be permanently REMOVED.
2907 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2908 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2909 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2910 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2911 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2912 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2913 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2918 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2920 * set extension-language
2922 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2923 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2924 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2925 set extension-language .c c++
2926 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2927 and their associated languages.
2929 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2931 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2932 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2933 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2937 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2938 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2940 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2941 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2943 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2944 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2945 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2946 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2947 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2948 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2949 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2950 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2952 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2953 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2954 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2955 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2959 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2960 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2961 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2962 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2963 for xdb and dbx commands.
2967 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2968 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2969 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2971 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2972 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2973 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2975 * Debugging across forks
2977 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2982 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2983 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2984 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2986 * GDB remote protocol additions
2988 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2989 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2990 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2991 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2993 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2994 full 64-bit address. The command
2996 set remoteaddresssize 32
2998 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2999 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
3002 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
3003 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
3005 maint packet heythere
3007 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
3008 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
3011 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
3012 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
3013 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
3015 * Tracing can collect general expressions
3017 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
3018 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
3019 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
3021 * mask-address variable for Mips
3023 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
3024 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
3025 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
3027 * Higher serial baud rates
3029 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
3030 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
3031 to achieve all of these rates.)
3035 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
3036 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
3039 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
3041 * New native configurations
3043 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
3044 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
3045 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3046 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3047 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3048 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
3049 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
3053 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3054 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
3055 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3056 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
3057 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
3058 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
3059 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
3060 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
3061 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3062 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3063 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
3065 * New debugging protocols
3067 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
3068 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
3069 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
3070 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3071 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3072 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
3076 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
3077 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
3082 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
3083 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
3085 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
3087 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
3088 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
3089 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
3091 * Live range splitting
3093 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
3094 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
3095 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
3099 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
3100 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
3104 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
3105 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
3106 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3111 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3116 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3117 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3118 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3119 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3120 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3121 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3125 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3126 the symbol at the specified address.
3130 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3131 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3132 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3133 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3134 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3138 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3139 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3140 of most MIPS variants.
3144 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3145 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3146 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3150 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3151 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3152 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3153 the possible architectures.
3155 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3157 * New native configurations
3159 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3160 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3161 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3162 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3163 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3164 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3168 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3169 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3170 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3171 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3172 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3174 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3178 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3179 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3180 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3181 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3182 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3186 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3188 * Windows 95/NT native
3190 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3191 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3192 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3193 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3194 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3196 * dont-repeat command
3198 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3199 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3200 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3201 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3203 * Send break instead of ^C
3205 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3206 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3207 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3209 * Remote protocol timeout
3211 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3212 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3213 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3215 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3217 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3218 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3219 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3220 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3221 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3223 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3224 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3225 automatically on hpux10.
3227 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3229 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3231 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3233 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3234 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3235 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3236 every character. The default value is 1050.
3238 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3240 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3241 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3242 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3243 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3244 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3245 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3247 * Speedups for remote debugging
3249 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3250 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3251 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3253 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3255 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3256 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3258 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3260 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3262 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3263 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3265 * Remote targets use caching
3267 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3268 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3269 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3270 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3271 off' turns the the data cache off.
3273 * Remote targets may have threads
3275 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3276 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3277 gdb/remote.c for details.
3281 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3282 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3283 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3284 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3285 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3286 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3287 sequence is something like
3289 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3291 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3295 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3296 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3297 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3298 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3299 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3300 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3301 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3302 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3306 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3307 but does simplify configuration and building.
3311 GDB now supports hpux10.
3313 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3315 * New native configurations
3317 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3318 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3319 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3320 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3324 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3325 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3326 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3327 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3330 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3332 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3333 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3334 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3335 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3336 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3338 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3340 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3341 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3344 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3346 To execute the command use:
3349 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3350 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3351 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3353 * New `if' and `while' commands
3355 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3356 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3357 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3358 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3359 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3360 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3361 if the expression is zero.
3363 * Fortran source language mode
3365 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3366 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3367 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3368 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3371 * Better HPUX support
3373 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3374 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3375 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3376 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3377 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3383 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3384 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3390 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3391 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3394 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3395 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3397 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3399 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3400 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3401 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3402 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3403 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3404 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3406 * New DOS host serial code
3408 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3409 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3412 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3414 * New "complete" command
3416 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3417 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3419 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3421 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3422 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3424 * Breakpoint hit counts
3426 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3427 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3428 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3429 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3430 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3433 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3435 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3436 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3437 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3439 * Shared library breakpoints
3441 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3442 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3444 * Hardware watchpoints
3446 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3447 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3449 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3453 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3454 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3456 * Improved Irix 5 support
3458 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3460 * Improved HPPA support
3462 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3464 * New native configurations
3466 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3467 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3468 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3469 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3473 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3474 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3477 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3479 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3480 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3484 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3485 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3487 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3489 * Irix 5 is now supported
3493 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3494 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3495 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3496 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3497 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3500 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3502 * User visible changes:
3506 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3507 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3508 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3509 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3510 debugging info for the mips target).
3512 * DEC Alpha native support
3514 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3515 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3516 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3517 Alpha-specific notes.
3519 * Preliminary thread implementation
3521 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3523 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3525 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3526 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3529 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3531 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3532 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3533 call methods, ...etc.
3535 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3537 * User visible changes:
3539 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3540 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3541 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3542 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3544 Filename completion now works.
3546 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3547 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3548 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3550 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3551 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3552 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3553 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3554 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3558 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3559 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3562 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3566 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3567 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3568 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3572 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3573 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3574 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3575 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3576 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3580 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3581 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3582 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3584 * New targets supported
3586 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3587 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3588 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3589 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3590 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3592 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3593 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3594 GO32 memory extender.
3596 * New remote protocols
3598 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3600 * New source languages supported
3602 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3603 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3604 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3607 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3609 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3611 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3612 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3613 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3614 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3615 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3616 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3618 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3620 * Faster and better demangling
3622 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3623 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3624 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3625 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3626 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3627 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3630 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3631 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3632 compiler does not actually implement.
3634 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3636 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3637 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3638 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3639 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3640 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3641 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3644 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3645 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3647 * Improved configure script
3649 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3650 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3651 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3652 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3654 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3655 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3656 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3657 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3658 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3659 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3661 * Documentation improvements
3663 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3664 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3665 before submitting changes.
3667 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3668 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3669 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3670 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3671 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3673 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3674 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3675 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3676 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3677 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3678 around this problem.
3682 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3683 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3684 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3687 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3688 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3690 * New native hosts supported
3692 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3693 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3695 * New targets supported
3697 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3699 * New file formats supported
3701 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3702 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3706 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3708 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3709 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3711 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3712 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3713 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3715 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3716 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3718 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3719 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3720 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3723 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3724 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3725 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3726 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3727 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3729 * Internal improvements
3731 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3732 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3734 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3735 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3736 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3737 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3738 shared code that handles any of them.
3740 * New command line options
3742 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3746 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3747 General Public License.
3749 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3751 * Host/native/target split
3753 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3754 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3755 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3756 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3757 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3759 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3760 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3761 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3762 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3763 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3764 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3765 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3767 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3768 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3769 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3771 * New hosts supported
3773 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3774 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3775 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3777 * New targets supported
3779 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3780 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3782 * New native hosts supported
3784 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3785 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3786 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3788 * New file formats supported
3790 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3791 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3792 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3796 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3797 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3798 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3800 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3802 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3803 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3804 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3805 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3809 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3810 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3811 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3813 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3817 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3818 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3821 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3822 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3824 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3825 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3826 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3827 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3828 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3829 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3831 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3832 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3833 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3834 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3838 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3839 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3840 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3841 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3842 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3844 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3845 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3846 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3847 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3851 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3852 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3853 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3854 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3855 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3856 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3857 each instruction being stepped through.
3859 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3860 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3862 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3863 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3864 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3865 processor with a serial port.
3869 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3870 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3871 supported, and what files each one uses.
3875 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3876 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3877 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3878 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3880 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3881 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3882 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3883 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3887 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3888 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3889 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3890 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3891 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3892 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3894 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3897 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3899 * Better support for C++ function names
3901 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3902 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3903 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3904 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3905 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3907 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3908 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3909 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3910 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3911 for the list of formats.
3913 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3915 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3916 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3917 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3918 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3919 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3920 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3923 * New 'maintenance' command
3925 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3926 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3927 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3929 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3930 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3931 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3932 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3933 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3934 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3936 The following commands are new:
3938 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3939 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3940 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3942 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3944 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3945 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3946 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3947 read after argv processing.
3949 * New hosts supported
3951 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3953 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3955 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3956 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3957 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3958 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3959 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3962 * New targets supported
3964 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3966 * More smarts about finding #include files
3968 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3969 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3970 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3971 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3972 the one that contains your sources.
3974 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3975 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3976 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3978 * Interesting infernals change
3980 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3981 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3982 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3983 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3985 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3987 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3988 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3989 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3991 See the ChangeLog for details.
3993 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3995 * New machines supported (host and target)
3997 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3999 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
4001 * New malloc package
4003 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
4004 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
4005 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
4006 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
4007 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
4008 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
4012 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
4013 'help info proc' for details.
4015 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
4017 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
4018 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
4021 * File name changes for MS-DOS
4023 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
4024 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
4025 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
4026 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
4027 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
4028 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
4030 * Cross byte order fixes
4032 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
4033 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
4035 * New -mapped and -readnow options
4037 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
4038 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
4039 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
4040 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
4041 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
4042 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
4043 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
4044 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
4045 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
4046 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
4048 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
4049 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
4050 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
4051 slower, but makes future operations faster.
4053 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
4054 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
4055 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
4058 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
4060 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
4061 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
4062 shared across multiple host platforms.
4064 * longjmp() handling
4066 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
4067 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
4068 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
4069 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
4073 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
4074 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
4079 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
4080 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
4081 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
4083 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
4085 * New machines supported (host and target)
4087 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4089 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
4090 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
4092 * New machines supported (target)
4094 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
4098 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
4099 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
4100 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
4102 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
4103 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
4104 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
4105 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
4106 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4109 * New features for SVR4
4111 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4112 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4113 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4115 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4116 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4117 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4119 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4120 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4122 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4124 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4125 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4126 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4127 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4128 same code linked statically.
4132 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4133 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4134 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4135 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4136 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4137 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4141 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4142 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4143 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4146 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4148 * New machines supported (host and target)
4150 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4151 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4152 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4154 * Almost SCO Unix support
4156 We had hoped to support:
4157 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4158 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4159 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4160 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4162 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4164 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4165 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4166 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4167 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4172 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4173 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4174 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4178 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4179 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4180 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4182 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4184 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4185 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4186 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4188 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4189 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4190 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4191 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4194 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4195 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4196 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4197 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4200 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4201 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4204 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4205 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4206 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4209 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4211 * Improved configuration
4213 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4214 Porting BFD is simpler.
4218 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4219 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4220 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4221 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4225 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4227 * New host supported (not target)
4229 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4232 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4234 * Multiple source language support
4236 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4237 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4238 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4239 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4240 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4241 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4245 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4246 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4247 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4248 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4250 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4251 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4252 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4254 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4255 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4259 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4260 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4261 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4262 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4265 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4267 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4268 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4269 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4270 examining core files.
4274 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4277 * New machines supported (host and target)
4279 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4280 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4281 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4283 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4285 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4287 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4289 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4290 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4291 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4293 * New remote interfaces
4299 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4303 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4305 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4306 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4307 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4308 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4309 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4310 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4311 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4312 stub on the target system.
4314 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4316 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4317 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4318 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4320 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4321 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4324 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4326 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4327 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4329 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4330 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4331 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4333 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4334 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4335 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4336 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4338 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4339 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4340 it is already running. Default is ON.
4342 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4343 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4344 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4345 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4348 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4349 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4350 or the value of the environment variable
4353 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4354 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4357 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4358 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4359 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4361 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4362 history expansion will be performed on
4363 command line input. The default is OFF.
4365 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4366 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4367 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4369 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4370 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4371 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4374 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4375 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4376 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4379 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4380 ``set width'' instead.
4382 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4383 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4384 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4385 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4387 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4390 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4393 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4396 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4399 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4401 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4402 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4403 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4407 * Support for Shared Libraries
4409 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4410 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4411 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4412 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4413 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4414 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4415 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4416 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4418 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4419 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4420 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4422 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4427 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4428 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4429 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4430 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4431 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4432 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4434 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4436 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4438 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4439 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4440 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4443 * C++ multiple inheritance
4445 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4448 * C++ exception handling
4450 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4451 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4452 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4455 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4456 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4457 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4459 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4460 current stack frame.
4463 * Minor command changes
4465 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4466 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4467 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4469 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4470 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4471 frames without printing.
4473 * New directory command
4475 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4476 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4477 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4478 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4479 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4481 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4483 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4486 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4487 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4488 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4489 where the program that you are debugging will run.