1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.2
8 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
9 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
10 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
11 that function like so:
13 result = some_value (10,20)
17 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
18 instantiation. For example, if you have:
20 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
22 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
23 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
26 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
27 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
30 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
31 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
32 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
33 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
35 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
36 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
37 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
40 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
42 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
43 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
44 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
45 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
46 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
47 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
50 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
52 While now you see this:
55 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
57 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
60 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
61 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
62 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
63 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
65 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
67 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
69 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
70 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
71 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
72 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
73 was always disabled for such configurations.
77 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
79 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
80 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
90 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
91 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
92 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
94 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
96 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
97 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
98 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
99 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
101 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
102 mentioned flavors of operators.
104 ** static const class members
106 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
107 class definition has been fixed.
109 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
111 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
112 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
113 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
114 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
115 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
116 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
120 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
121 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
122 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
123 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
124 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
125 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
126 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
127 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
128 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
129 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
130 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
131 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
132 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
133 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
134 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
135 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
136 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
137 the "New remote packets" section below.
139 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
141 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
142 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
143 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
144 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
148 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
149 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
150 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
151 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
152 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
153 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
154 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
156 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
163 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
167 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
168 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
169 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
170 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
171 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
172 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
176 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
180 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
183 qXfer:statictrace:read
185 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
186 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
187 to gdb's qSupported query.
191 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
195 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
196 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
198 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
199 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
202 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
204 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
205 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
206 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
207 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
209 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
210 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
211 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
212 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
213 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
214 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
215 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
217 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
218 for static tracepoints support.
220 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
222 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
223 it understands register description.
225 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
227 * X86 general purpose registers
229 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
230 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
231 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
232 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
233 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
235 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
236 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
237 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
238 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
239 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
240 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
242 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
243 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
244 in the specified file.
246 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
247 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
248 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
249 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
250 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
251 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
252 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
253 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
254 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
255 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
259 eval template, expressions...
260 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
261 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
263 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
264 show target-file-system-kind
265 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
268 save breakpoints <filename>
269 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
270 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
271 definitions, use the `source' command.
273 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
276 info static-tracepoint-markers
277 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
279 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
280 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
281 function, line, address, or marker ID.
285 Enable and disable observer mode.
287 set may-write-registers on|off
288 set may-write-memory on|off
289 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
290 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
291 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
292 set may-interrupt on|off
293 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
294 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
295 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
296 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
297 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
298 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
299 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
301 set record memory-query on|off
302 show record memory-query
303 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
304 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
309 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
313 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
314 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
315 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
316 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
317 GDB using Python' in the manual.
319 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
320 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
321 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
322 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
324 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
325 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
327 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
329 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
331 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
333 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
334 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
335 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
337 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
338 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
339 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
344 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
346 * D language support.
347 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
350 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
351 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
352 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
353 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
354 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
356 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
357 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
358 conditions of the form:
360 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
362 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
363 interface mentioned above.
365 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
371 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
372 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
373 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
374 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
375 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
379 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
380 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
385 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
386 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
390 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
395 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
398 * Multi-program debugging.
400 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
401 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
402 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
403 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
404 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
405 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
406 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
407 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
409 * New tracing features
411 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
413 ** Trace state variables
415 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
416 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
417 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
418 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
419 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
420 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
421 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
422 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
423 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
424 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
428 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
429 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
430 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
431 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
432 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
433 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
434 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
435 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
436 the regular trace command.
438 ** Disconnected tracing
440 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
441 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
442 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
443 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
444 connection is lost unexpectedly.
448 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
449 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
450 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
451 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
452 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
453 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
456 ** Circular trace buffer
458 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
459 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
460 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
461 not be available for all target agents.
466 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
467 the arguments to be comma-separated.
470 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
471 which only declare a variable are not shown.
474 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
475 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
478 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
479 "set script-extension" (see below).
481 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
483 record save [<FILENAME>]
484 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
485 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
487 record restore <FILENAME>
488 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
489 earlier time, for replay debugging.
491 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
494 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
495 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
501 maint info program-spaces
502 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
504 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
505 show remote interrupt-sequence
506 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
507 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
508 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
509 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
510 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
512 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
513 show remote interrupt-on-connect
514 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
515 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
518 set remotebreak [on | off]
520 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
522 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
523 Create or modify a trace state variable.
526 List trace state variables and their values.
528 delete tvariable $NAME ...
529 Delete one or more trace state variables.
532 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
533 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
535 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
536 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
538 * New expression syntax
540 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
541 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
545 set follow-exec-mode new|same
546 show follow-exec-mode
547 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
548 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
549 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
551 set default-collect EXPR, ...
553 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
554 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
555 such as registers or a critical global variable.
557 set disconnected-tracing
558 show disconnected-tracing
559 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
560 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
563 set circular-trace-buffer
564 show circular-trace-buffer
565 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
566 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
567 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
568 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
570 set script-extension off|soft|strict
571 show script-extension
572 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
573 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
574 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
575 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
577 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
579 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
580 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
581 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
582 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
583 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
584 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
585 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
588 * Python API Improvements
590 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
591 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
592 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
594 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
595 `is_base_class' attribute.
597 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
599 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
600 evaluate an expression.
605 Define a trace state variable.
608 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
611 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
614 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
617 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
621 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
623 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
624 much more reliable. In particular:
625 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
626 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
627 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
628 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
629 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
630 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
631 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
632 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
633 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
634 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
635 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
636 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
637 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
638 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
639 non-threaded programs.
641 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
642 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
643 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
646 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
648 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
649 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
650 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
651 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
652 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
654 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
655 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
656 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
657 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
658 for tracepoint actions.
660 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
661 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
662 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
664 * Process record and replay
666 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
667 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
668 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
671 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
672 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
673 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
676 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
677 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
680 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
681 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
682 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
683 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
684 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
685 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
686 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
687 the installation instructions for more information.
689 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
690 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
691 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
692 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
694 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
695 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
697 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
698 now complete on file names.
700 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
701 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
702 For instance, consider:
704 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
705 # struct example variable;
708 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
709 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
711 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
712 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
714 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
715 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
718 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
719 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
720 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
722 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
723 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
724 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
725 and simulator targets may also provide them.
730 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
733 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
734 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
735 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
738 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
739 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
742 Obtains additional operating system information
746 Read or write additional signal information.
748 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
750 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
751 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
752 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
754 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
755 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
757 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
758 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
759 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
761 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
762 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
764 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
766 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
768 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
769 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
771 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
772 list of section offsets.
774 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
775 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
776 have also been fixed.
778 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
779 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
780 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
782 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
785 template<typename T> class C { };
788 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
790 ptype C<char const *>
792 ptype C<const char *>
795 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
797 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
798 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
800 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
801 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
802 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
804 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
805 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
807 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
810 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
811 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
813 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
814 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
819 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
820 available is determined at configure time.
822 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
824 * Ada tasking support
826 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
830 Print the list of Ada tasks.
832 Print detailed information about task number N.
834 Print the task number of the current task.
836 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
838 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
839 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
841 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
843 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
844 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
845 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
846 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
847 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
848 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
851 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
852 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
855 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
856 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
857 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
858 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
861 * Multi-architecture debugging.
863 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
864 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
865 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
866 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
867 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
869 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
870 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
871 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
872 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
873 --enable-targets configure option.
875 * Non-stop mode debugging.
877 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
878 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
879 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
880 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
881 section in the user manual for more information.
883 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
884 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
885 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
886 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
887 extensions on linux targets.
889 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
891 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
892 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
893 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
894 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
895 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
896 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
897 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
898 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
899 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
901 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
903 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
905 maint set python print-stack
906 maint show python print-stack
907 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
910 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
915 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
919 Show operating system information about processes.
922 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
925 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
928 Detach from inferior number NUM.
931 Kill inferior number NUM.
936 show spu stop-on-load
937 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
939 set spu auto-flush-cache
940 show spu auto-flush-cache
941 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
942 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
944 set sh calling-convention
945 show sh calling-convention
946 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
950 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
952 set disassemble-next-line
953 show disassemble-next-line
954 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
957 set remote noack-packet
958 show remote noack-packet
959 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
960 under "New remote packets."
962 set remote query-attached-packet
963 show remote query-attached-packet
964 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
966 set remote read-siginfo-object
967 show remote read-siginfo-object
968 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
971 set remote write-siginfo-object
972 show remote write-siginfo-object
973 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
976 set remote reverse-continue
977 show remote reverse-continue
978 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
980 set remote reverse-step
981 show remote reverse-step
982 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
984 set displaced-stepping
985 show displaced-stepping
986 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
987 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
988 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
992 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
994 maint set internal-error
995 maint show internal-error
996 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
998 maint set internal-warning
999 maint show internal-warning
1000 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
1005 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
1007 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
1008 show multiple-symbols
1009 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
1010 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
1011 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
1013 set breakpoint always-inserted
1014 show breakpoint always-inserted
1015 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
1016 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
1017 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
1019 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1020 show arm fallback-mode
1021 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
1023 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
1024 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
1025 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
1026 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
1028 set disable-randomization
1029 show disable-randomization
1030 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
1031 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
1032 multiple debugging sessions.
1036 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
1041 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
1042 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
1043 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
1044 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
1046 set target-wide-charset
1047 show target-wide-charset
1048 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
1049 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
1051 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
1053 set tcp connect-timeout
1054 show tcp connect-timeout
1055 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
1056 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
1057 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
1059 set libthread-db-search-path
1060 show libthread-db-search-path
1061 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
1064 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
1065 show schedule-multiple
1066 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
1067 the current process.
1071 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
1072 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
1073 affecting correctness.
1075 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
1076 show interactive-mode
1077 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
1078 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
1079 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
1080 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
1081 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
1086 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
1087 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
1088 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
1092 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
1093 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
1094 alias for the `fork' command.
1097 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
1098 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
1099 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
1102 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
1103 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
1104 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
1108 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
1109 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
1110 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
1113 * New native configurations
1115 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
1117 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
1121 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
1122 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
1123 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
1126 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
1127 (mingw32ce) debugging.
1133 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
1135 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
1137 * New native configurations
1139 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
1140 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
1144 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
1145 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
1147 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1149 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
1150 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
1151 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
1152 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
1154 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
1155 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
1157 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
1160 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
1161 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
1162 and in inlined functions.
1164 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
1165 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
1166 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
1168 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
1170 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
1171 registers on PowerPC targets.
1173 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
1174 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
1176 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
1177 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
1179 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
1180 extended-remote mode.
1182 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
1183 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
1184 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
1185 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
1187 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
1188 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
1189 target architectures.
1191 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
1192 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
1193 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
1194 stored in two consecutive float registers.
1196 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
1199 * Improved support for debugging Ada
1200 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
1202 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
1203 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
1204 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
1205 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
1207 - Improved command completion in Ada
1210 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
1215 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
1216 show print frame-arguments
1217 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
1218 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
1223 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1230 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
1232 * New remote packets
1239 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
1242 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
1246 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
1248 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
1250 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
1251 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
1252 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
1254 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
1255 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
1256 -Bsymbolic linker option.
1258 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
1259 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
1262 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
1263 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
1265 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
1266 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
1268 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
1270 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
1271 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
1272 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
1274 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
1275 automatically displayed as character or string data.
1277 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
1278 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
1281 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
1282 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
1283 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
1285 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
1288 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
1289 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
1290 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
1292 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
1294 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
1296 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
1297 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
1298 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
1300 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
1301 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
1303 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
1304 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
1305 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
1306 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
1307 Windows and SymbianOS).
1309 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
1310 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
1312 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
1313 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
1319 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
1320 when debugging using remote targets.
1322 set mem inaccessible-by-default
1323 show mem inaccessible-by-default
1324 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1325 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1326 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
1327 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
1328 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
1330 set breakpoint auto-hw
1331 show breakpoint auto-hw
1332 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
1333 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
1334 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
1335 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
1336 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
1337 including "next" and "finish".
1340 catch exception unhandled
1341 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
1344 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
1348 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
1349 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
1350 an alias to "set sysroot".
1353 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
1354 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
1357 * New native configurations
1359 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
1362 unset tdesc filename
1364 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
1365 not query the target for its built-in description.
1369 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
1370 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
1371 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
1373 * New remote packets
1376 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
1377 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
1379 qXfer:features:read:
1380 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
1385 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
1386 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
1388 qXfer:libraries:read:
1389 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
1390 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
1391 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
1392 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
1396 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
1404 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
1405 i[34567]86-*-netware*
1406 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
1407 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
1409 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
1412 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
1413 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
1422 * Other removed features
1429 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
1436 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
1441 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
1442 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
1447 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
1448 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
1450 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
1452 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
1453 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
1454 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
1455 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
1457 MIPS ".pdr" sections
1459 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
1460 in debugging information.
1464 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
1465 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
1467 set mips stack-arg-size
1468 set mips saved-gpreg-size
1470 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
1472 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
1477 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
1479 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
1480 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
1481 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
1483 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
1484 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
1487 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
1488 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
1490 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
1491 stub provides the required support.
1493 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
1494 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
1499 unset substitute-path
1500 show substitute-path
1501 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
1502 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
1503 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
1504 between compilation and debugging.
1508 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
1509 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
1510 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
1514 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
1516 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
1517 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
1519 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
1521 * New remote packets
1524 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
1525 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
1526 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
1527 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
1531 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
1532 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
1534 qXfer:memory-map:read:
1535 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
1536 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
1541 Erase and program a flash memory device.
1543 * Removed remote packets
1546 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
1547 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
1549 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
1553 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
1555 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1559 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
1560 only if it doesn't already have a value.
1562 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
1564 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
1566 restart <n> Return the program state to a
1567 previously saved state.
1569 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
1571 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
1573 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
1574 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
1576 info forks List forks of the user program that
1577 are available to be debugged.
1579 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
1580 forks of the user program that are
1581 available to be debugged.
1583 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1584 that are available to be debugged (and
1585 kill the forked process).
1587 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
1588 that are available to be debugged (and
1589 allow the process to continue).
1593 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
1595 * Improved Windows host support
1597 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
1598 native console support, and remote communications using either
1599 network sockets or serial ports.
1601 * Improved Modula-2 language support
1603 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
1604 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
1605 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
1606 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
1607 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
1608 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
1612 The ARM rdi-share module.
1614 The Netware NLM debug server.
1616 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
1618 * New native configurations
1620 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
1621 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
1625 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
1627 * New command line options
1629 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
1630 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
1631 the child (debugged) program exited with.
1632 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
1633 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
1634 specified multiple times and in conjunction
1635 with the --command (-x) option.
1637 * Deprecated commands removed
1639 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
1643 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
1644 othernames set arm disassembler
1645 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
1646 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
1647 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
1650 * New BSD user-level threads support
1652 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
1653 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
1656 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1657 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
1658 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
1660 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
1661 are not yet supported.
1663 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
1664 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
1666 * REMOVED configurations and files
1668 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
1669 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1670 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
1672 * New "set print array-indexes" command
1674 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
1675 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
1678 * VAX floating point support
1680 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
1682 * User-defined command support
1684 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
1685 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
1686 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
1688 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
1690 * New command line option
1692 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
1695 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
1697 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
1698 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
1699 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
1700 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
1701 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
1703 * Internationalization
1705 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
1706 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
1707 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
1711 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
1712 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
1713 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
1715 * New native configurations
1717 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
1721 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
1722 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
1724 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
1726 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1727 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
1728 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
1731 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
1732 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
1733 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
1743 powerpc bdm protocol
1745 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1746 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
1748 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1750 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1751 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1752 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1753 permanently REMOVED.
1762 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
1764 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
1766 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
1767 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
1770 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
1772 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
1773 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
1774 IRIX long double values).
1778 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
1779 command. This problem has been fixed.
1781 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
1783 * Fix for ``many threads''
1785 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
1786 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
1789 ptrace: No such process.
1790 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
1792 This problem has been fixed.
1794 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
1796 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
1799 * New ``start'' command.
1801 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
1803 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
1805 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
1806 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
1807 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
1809 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
1810 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
1811 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
1812 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
1813 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
1814 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1815 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
1816 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
1817 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1819 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
1821 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
1822 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
1823 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
1824 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
1825 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
1827 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
1828 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
1829 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
1831 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
1833 * New native configurations
1835 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
1836 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
1837 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
1838 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
1839 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
1840 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
1841 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
1843 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
1845 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
1846 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
1847 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
1848 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
1849 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
1850 work, was also included.
1852 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
1853 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
1863 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
1864 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
1866 * REMOVED configurations and files
1868 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
1869 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
1870 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
1871 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
1872 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
1873 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
1874 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
1875 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
1876 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
1877 sonymips mips-sony-*
1878 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
1880 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
1882 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
1884 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
1885 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
1886 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
1887 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
1890 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
1892 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
1893 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
1894 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
1895 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
1896 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
1897 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
1900 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
1902 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
1904 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
1905 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
1906 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
1908 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
1910 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
1911 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
1913 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
1915 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
1916 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
1917 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
1919 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
1921 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
1922 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
1924 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
1926 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
1927 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
1928 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
1930 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
1932 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
1933 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
1934 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
1936 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
1938 * Removed --with-mmalloc
1940 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
1941 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
1943 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
1945 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
1946 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
1947 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
1948 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
1950 * Revised SPARC target
1952 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
1953 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
1954 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
1955 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
1956 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
1960 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
1961 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
1962 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
1965 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
1967 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
1968 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
1971 * C++ nested types and namespaces
1973 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
1974 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
1975 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
1976 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
1977 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
1978 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
1979 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
1980 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
1981 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
1983 * New native configurations
1985 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
1986 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
1987 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
1988 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
1989 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
1991 * New debugging protocols
1993 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
1995 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
1997 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
1998 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
1999 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
2001 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2003 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2004 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2005 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2006 permanently REMOVED.
2008 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
2009 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
2010 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
2011 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
2012 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
2013 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
2014 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
2015 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
2016 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
2017 sonymips mips-sony-*
2018 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
2020 * REMOVED configurations and files
2022 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2023 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2024 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2025 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2026 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2027 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2028 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2029 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2030 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2031 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
2032 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2033 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2034 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2035 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
2036 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
2037 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2038 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2040 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
2044 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
2045 integrated into GDB.
2047 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
2049 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
2050 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
2051 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
2054 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
2055 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
2056 DWARF 2 CFI support.
2060 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
2061 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
2062 remote protocol documentation for details.
2064 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
2066 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
2067 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
2068 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
2071 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
2073 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
2074 per-thread variables.
2076 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
2078 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
2079 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
2081 * Separate debug info.
2083 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
2084 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
2085 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
2086 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
2087 and optional debug files.
2089 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
2091 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
2092 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
2095 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
2096 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
2100 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
2101 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
2102 considered "useable".
2104 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
2106 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
2107 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
2110 * GDB supports logging output to a file
2112 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
2113 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
2115 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
2117 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
2118 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
2121 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
2123 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
2124 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
2128 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
2129 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
2130 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
2131 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
2132 data, for more informative profiling results.
2134 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
2136 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
2137 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
2138 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
2140 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
2143 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
2144 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
2145 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
2146 in a subsequent -var-update.
2148 * New native configurations.
2150 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2152 * Multi-arched targets.
2154 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
2155 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2157 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2159 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2160 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2161 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2162 permanently REMOVED.
2164 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2165 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2166 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2167 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
2168 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2169 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
2170 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
2171 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
2172 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
2173 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
2174 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2175 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2177 * REMOVED configurations and files
2180 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2181 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2182 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2183 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2184 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2185 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2187 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2188 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2189 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2190 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2191 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2192 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2194 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
2196 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
2197 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
2198 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
2199 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
2200 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
2202 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
2204 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
2206 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
2207 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
2208 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
2209 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
2210 shared libs like mad''.
2212 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
2214 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
2215 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
2216 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
2217 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
2219 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
2221 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
2222 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
2225 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
2226 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
2228 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
2229 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
2231 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
2232 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
2233 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
2234 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
2236 * Multi-arched targets.
2238 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
2239 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
2241 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
2242 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
2243 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2247 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
2250 * New native configurations
2252 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
2253 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
2254 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
2255 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
2257 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2259 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2260 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2261 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2262 permanently REMOVED.
2264 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2265 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2266 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
2267 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2268 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2269 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2270 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
2271 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
2272 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
2273 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
2275 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
2276 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
2278 * OBSOLETE languages
2280 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
2282 * REMOVED configurations and files
2284 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2285 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2286 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2287 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2288 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2290 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2292 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
2294 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
2295 commands. The default is 1024.
2297 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
2299 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
2301 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
2303 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
2304 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
2305 from a file into memory (restore).
2307 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
2309 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
2310 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
2311 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
2313 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
2321 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
2322 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
2323 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
2325 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
2326 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
2327 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
2329 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
2330 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
2331 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
2333 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
2334 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
2335 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
2337 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
2339 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
2341 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
2342 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
2343 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
2344 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
2345 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
2346 (notably embedded) targets.
2348 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
2350 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
2351 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
2352 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
2353 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
2355 * New command line option
2357 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
2359 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2361 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
2362 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
2363 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
2364 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
2365 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
2366 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
2367 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
2368 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
2369 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
2370 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
2372 * Changes in ARM configurations.
2374 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
2375 configuration is fully multi-arch.
2377 * New native configurations
2379 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
2380 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
2381 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
2382 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
2386 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
2388 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2390 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2391 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2392 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2393 permanently REMOVED.
2395 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
2396 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
2397 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2398 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2399 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2401 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
2403 * REMOVED configurations and files
2405 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2407 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2408 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2409 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2410 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2411 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2412 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2413 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2414 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2415 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2416 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2417 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
2419 * Changes to command line processing
2421 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
2422 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
2424 * Changes to key bindings
2426 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
2428 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
2430 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
2432 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
2435 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
2437 Numerous documentation fixes.
2439 Numerous testsuite fixes.
2441 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
2443 * New native configurations
2445 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
2446 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
2447 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
2448 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2449 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
2450 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
2454 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
2456 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
2458 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
2460 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
2461 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
2462 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
2463 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
2464 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2466 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
2467 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2468 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
2469 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
2470 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
2471 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
2472 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
2473 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
2475 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
2476 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
2478 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
2479 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
2480 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
2481 permanently REMOVED.
2483 * REMOVED configurations and files
2485 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2486 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2488 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2492 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
2494 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
2495 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
2500 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
2502 * The MI enabled by default.
2504 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
2505 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
2506 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
2507 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
2508 which is now deprecated.
2510 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
2512 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
2513 main features are supported:
2515 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
2517 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
2520 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
2522 - a Pascal expression parser.
2524 However, some important features are not yet supported.
2526 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
2528 - there are some problems with boolean types;
2530 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
2531 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
2533 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
2535 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
2537 * Changes in completion.
2539 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
2540 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
2541 users expect at the shell prompt.
2543 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
2544 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
2545 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
2546 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
2547 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
2548 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
2549 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
2551 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
2553 * New platform-independent commands:
2555 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
2556 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
2557 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
2559 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
2561 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
2562 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
2563 many threads as your system allows you to have.
2565 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
2567 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
2568 multi-threaded programs though.
2570 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
2572 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
2574 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
2575 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
2578 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
2580 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
2581 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
2582 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
2583 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
2584 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
2587 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
2588 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
2589 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
2591 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
2593 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
2594 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
2596 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
2597 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
2600 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
2601 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
2602 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
2603 a given linear address.
2605 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
2606 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
2607 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
2609 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
2611 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
2613 * Changes in documentation.
2615 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
2616 Documentation License.
2618 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2621 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
2623 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
2626 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
2627 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
2628 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
2630 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
2632 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
2633 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
2634 contents of this file.
2638 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
2640 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
2642 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
2644 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
2645 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
2646 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
2647 greater level of detail.
2649 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
2651 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
2652 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
2653 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
2656 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
2658 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
2659 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
2660 machines ``out of the box''.
2662 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
2663 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
2664 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
2665 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
2666 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
2668 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
2669 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
2670 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
2671 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
2672 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
2674 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
2675 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
2678 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
2681 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
2682 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
2683 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
2684 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
2686 * New native configurations
2688 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
2689 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2693 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
2694 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
2695 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
2696 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
2698 * OBSOLETE configurations
2700 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
2701 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
2703 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
2706 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2707 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2708 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2709 be permanently REMOVED.
2711 * Gould support removed
2713 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
2715 * New features for SVR4
2717 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
2718 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
2719 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
2721 * Many C++ enhancements
2723 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
2724 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
2726 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
2728 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
2729 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
2730 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
2731 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
2733 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
2734 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
2736 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
2738 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
2739 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
2740 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
2742 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
2743 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2745 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
2747 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
2748 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
2749 include ``set remote P-packet''.
2751 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
2753 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
2754 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
2755 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
2757 * ``apropos'' command added.
2759 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
2760 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
2761 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
2765 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
2766 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
2767 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
2768 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
2769 enabled by configuring with:
2771 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
2773 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
2775 * New native configurations
2777 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
2778 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
2779 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
2783 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
2784 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
2785 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
2787 * OBSOLETE configurations
2789 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
2791 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
2792 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
2793 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
2794 be permanently REMOVED.
2798 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
2799 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
2800 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
2801 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
2802 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
2803 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
2804 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
2809 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
2811 * set extension-language
2813 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
2814 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
2815 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
2816 set extension-language .c c++
2817 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
2818 and their associated languages.
2820 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
2822 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
2823 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
2824 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
2828 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
2829 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
2831 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
2832 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
2834 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
2835 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
2836 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
2837 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
2838 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
2839 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
2840 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
2841 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
2843 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
2844 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
2845 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
2846 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
2850 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
2851 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
2852 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
2853 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
2854 for xdb and dbx commands.
2858 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
2859 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
2860 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
2862 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
2863 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
2864 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
2866 * Debugging across forks
2868 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
2873 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
2874 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
2875 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
2877 * GDB remote protocol additions
2879 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
2880 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
2881 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
2882 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
2884 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
2885 full 64-bit address. The command
2887 set remoteaddresssize 32
2889 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
2890 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
2893 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
2894 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
2896 maint packet heythere
2898 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
2899 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
2902 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
2903 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
2904 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
2906 * Tracing can collect general expressions
2908 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
2909 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
2910 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
2912 * mask-address variable for Mips
2914 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
2915 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
2916 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
2918 * Higher serial baud rates
2920 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
2921 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
2922 to achieve all of these rates.)
2926 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
2927 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
2930 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
2932 * New native configurations
2934 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
2935 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
2936 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
2937 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
2938 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
2939 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
2940 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
2944 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
2945 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
2946 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
2947 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
2948 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
2949 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
2950 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
2951 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
2952 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
2953 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
2954 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
2956 * New debugging protocols
2958 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
2959 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
2960 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
2961 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2962 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2963 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
2967 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
2968 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
2973 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
2974 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
2976 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
2978 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
2979 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
2980 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
2982 * Live range splitting
2984 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
2985 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
2986 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
2990 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
2991 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
2995 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
2996 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
2997 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
3002 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
3007 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
3008 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
3009 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
3010 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
3011 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
3012 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
3016 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
3017 the symbol at the specified address.
3021 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
3022 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
3023 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
3024 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
3025 file tracepoint.c for more details.
3029 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
3030 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
3031 of most MIPS variants.
3035 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
3036 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
3037 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
3041 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
3042 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
3043 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
3044 the possible architectures.
3046 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
3048 * New native configurations
3050 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
3051 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
3052 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
3053 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
3054 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3055 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
3059 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
3060 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3061 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
3062 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
3063 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
3065 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3069 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
3070 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
3071 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
3072 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
3073 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
3077 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
3079 * Windows 95/NT native
3081 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
3082 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
3083 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
3084 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
3085 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
3087 * dont-repeat command
3089 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
3090 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
3091 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
3092 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
3094 * Send break instead of ^C
3096 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
3097 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
3098 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
3100 * Remote protocol timeout
3102 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
3103 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
3104 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
3106 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
3108 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
3109 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
3110 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
3111 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
3112 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
3114 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
3115 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
3116 automatically on hpux10.
3118 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
3120 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
3122 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
3124 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
3125 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
3126 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
3127 every character. The default value is 1050.
3129 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
3131 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
3132 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
3133 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
3134 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
3135 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
3136 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
3138 * Speedups for remote debugging
3140 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
3141 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
3142 and more efficient S-record downloading.
3144 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
3146 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
3147 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
3149 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
3151 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
3153 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
3154 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
3156 * Remote targets use caching
3158 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
3159 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
3160 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
3161 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
3162 off' turns the the data cache off.
3164 * Remote targets may have threads
3166 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
3167 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
3168 gdb/remote.c for details.
3172 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
3173 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
3174 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
3175 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
3176 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
3177 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
3178 sequence is something like
3180 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
3182 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
3186 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
3187 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
3188 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
3189 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
3190 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
3191 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
3192 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
3193 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
3197 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
3198 but does simplify configuration and building.
3202 GDB now supports hpux10.
3204 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
3206 * New native configurations
3208 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
3209 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
3210 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
3211 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
3215 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3216 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
3217 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
3218 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
3221 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
3223 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
3224 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
3225 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
3226 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
3227 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
3229 * Arguments to user-defined commands
3231 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
3232 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
3235 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
3237 To execute the command use:
3240 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
3241 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
3242 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
3244 * New `if' and `while' commands
3246 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
3247 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
3248 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
3249 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
3250 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
3251 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
3252 if the expression is zero.
3254 * Fortran source language mode
3256 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
3257 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
3258 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
3259 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
3262 * Better HPUX support
3264 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
3265 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
3266 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
3267 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
3268 that behavior do the following before running the program:
3274 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
3275 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
3281 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
3282 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
3285 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
3286 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
3288 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
3290 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
3291 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
3292 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
3293 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
3294 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
3295 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
3297 * New DOS host serial code
3299 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
3300 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
3303 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
3305 * New "complete" command
3307 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
3308 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
3310 * Trailing space optional in prompt
3312 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
3313 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
3315 * Breakpoint hit counts
3317 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
3318 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
3319 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
3320 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
3321 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
3324 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
3326 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
3327 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
3328 arrays actually contain only short strings.
3330 * Shared library breakpoints
3332 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
3333 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
3335 * Hardware watchpoints
3337 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
3338 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
3340 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
3344 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
3345 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
3347 * Improved Irix 5 support
3349 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
3351 * Improved HPPA support
3353 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
3355 * New native configurations
3357 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
3358 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3359 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
3360 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
3364 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3365 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
3368 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
3370 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
3371 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
3375 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
3376 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
3378 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
3380 * Irix 5 is now supported
3384 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
3385 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
3386 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
3387 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
3388 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
3391 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
3393 * User visible changes:
3397 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
3398 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
3399 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
3400 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
3401 debugging info for the mips target).
3403 * DEC Alpha native support
3405 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
3406 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
3407 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
3408 Alpha-specific notes.
3410 * Preliminary thread implementation
3412 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
3414 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
3416 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
3417 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
3420 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
3422 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
3423 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
3424 call methods, ...etc.
3426 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
3428 * User visible changes:
3430 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
3431 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
3432 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
3433 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
3435 Filename completion now works.
3437 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
3438 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
3439 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
3441 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
3442 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
3443 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
3444 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
3445 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
3449 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
3450 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
3453 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
3457 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
3458 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
3459 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
3463 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
3464 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
3465 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
3466 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
3467 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
3471 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
3472 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
3473 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
3475 * New targets supported
3477 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3478 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3479 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
3480 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3481 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
3483 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
3484 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
3485 GO32 memory extender.
3487 * New remote protocols
3489 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
3491 * New source languages supported
3493 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
3494 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
3495 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
3498 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
3500 * HP Precision Architecture supported
3502 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
3503 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
3504 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
3505 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
3506 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
3507 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
3509 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
3511 * Faster and better demangling
3513 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
3514 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
3515 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
3516 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
3517 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
3518 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
3521 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
3522 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
3523 compiler does not actually implement.
3525 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
3527 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
3528 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
3529 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
3530 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
3531 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
3532 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
3535 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
3536 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
3538 * Improved configure script
3540 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
3541 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
3542 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
3543 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
3545 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
3546 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
3547 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
3548 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
3549 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
3550 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
3552 * Documentation improvements
3554 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
3555 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
3556 before submitting changes.
3558 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
3559 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
3560 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
3561 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
3562 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
3564 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
3565 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
3566 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
3567 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
3568 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
3569 around this problem.
3573 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
3574 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
3575 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
3578 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
3579 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
3581 * New native hosts supported
3583 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
3584 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
3586 * New targets supported
3588 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
3590 * New file formats supported
3592 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
3593 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
3597 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
3599 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
3600 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
3602 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
3603 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
3604 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
3606 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
3607 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
3609 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
3610 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
3611 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
3614 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
3615 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
3616 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
3617 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
3618 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
3620 * Internal improvements
3622 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
3623 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
3625 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
3626 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
3627 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
3628 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
3629 shared code that handles any of them.
3631 * New command line options
3633 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
3637 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
3638 General Public License.
3640 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
3642 * Host/native/target split
3644 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
3645 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
3646 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
3647 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
3648 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
3650 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
3651 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
3652 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
3653 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
3654 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
3655 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
3656 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
3658 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
3659 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
3660 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
3662 * New hosts supported
3664 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
3665 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3666 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
3668 * New targets supported
3670 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3671 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
3673 * New native hosts supported
3675 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
3676 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
3677 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
3679 * New file formats supported
3681 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
3682 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
3683 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
3687 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
3688 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
3689 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
3691 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
3693 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
3694 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
3695 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
3696 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
3700 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
3701 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
3702 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
3704 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
3708 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
3709 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
3712 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
3713 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
3715 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
3716 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
3717 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
3718 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
3719 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
3720 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
3722 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
3723 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
3724 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
3725 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
3729 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
3730 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
3731 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
3732 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
3733 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
3735 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
3736 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
3737 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
3738 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
3742 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
3743 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
3744 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
3745 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
3746 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
3747 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
3748 each instruction being stepped through.
3750 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
3751 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
3753 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
3754 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
3755 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
3756 processor with a serial port.
3760 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
3761 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
3762 supported, and what files each one uses.
3766 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
3767 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
3768 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
3769 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
3771 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
3772 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
3773 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
3774 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
3778 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
3779 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
3780 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
3781 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
3782 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
3783 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
3785 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
3788 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
3790 * Better support for C++ function names
3792 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
3793 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
3794 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
3795 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
3796 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
3798 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
3799 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
3800 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
3801 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
3802 for the list of formats.
3804 * G++ symbol mangling problem
3806 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
3807 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
3808 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
3809 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
3810 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
3811 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
3814 * New 'maintenance' command
3816 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
3817 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
3818 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
3820 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
3821 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
3822 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
3823 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
3824 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
3825 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
3827 The following commands are new:
3829 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
3830 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
3831 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
3833 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
3835 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
3836 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
3837 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
3838 read after argv processing.
3840 * New hosts supported
3842 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
3844 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
3846 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
3847 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
3848 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
3849 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
3850 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
3853 * New targets supported
3855 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
3857 * More smarts about finding #include files
3859 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
3860 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
3861 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
3862 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
3863 the one that contains your sources.
3865 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
3866 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
3867 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
3869 * Interesting infernals change
3871 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
3872 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
3873 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
3874 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
3876 * Bug fixes (of course!)
3878 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
3879 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
3880 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
3882 See the ChangeLog for details.
3884 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
3886 * New machines supported (host and target)
3888 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
3890 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3892 * New malloc package
3894 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
3895 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
3896 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
3897 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
3898 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
3899 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
3903 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
3904 'help info proc' for details.
3906 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
3908 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
3909 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
3912 * File name changes for MS-DOS
3914 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
3915 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
3916 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
3917 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
3918 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
3919 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
3921 * Cross byte order fixes
3923 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
3924 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
3926 * New -mapped and -readnow options
3928 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
3929 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
3930 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
3931 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
3932 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
3933 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
3934 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
3935 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
3936 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
3937 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
3939 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
3940 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
3941 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
3942 slower, but makes future operations faster.
3944 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
3945 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
3946 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
3949 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
3951 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
3952 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
3953 shared across multiple host platforms.
3955 * longjmp() handling
3957 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
3958 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
3959 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
3960 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
3964 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
3965 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
3970 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
3971 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
3972 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
3974 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
3976 * New machines supported (host and target)
3978 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
3980 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
3981 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
3983 * New machines supported (target)
3985 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3989 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
3990 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
3991 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
3993 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
3994 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
3995 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
3996 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
3997 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
4000 * New features for SVR4
4002 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
4003 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
4004 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
4006 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
4007 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
4008 it prints the address mappings of the process.
4010 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
4011 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
4013 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
4015 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
4016 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
4017 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
4018 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
4019 same code linked statically.
4023 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
4024 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
4025 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
4026 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
4027 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
4028 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
4032 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4033 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4034 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4037 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
4039 * New machines supported (host and target)
4041 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
4042 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
4043 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
4045 * Almost SCO Unix support
4047 We had hoped to support:
4048 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
4049 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
4050 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
4051 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
4053 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
4055 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
4056 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
4057 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
4058 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
4063 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
4064 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
4065 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
4069 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
4070 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
4071 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
4073 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
4075 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
4076 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
4077 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
4079 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
4080 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
4081 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
4082 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
4085 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
4086 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
4087 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
4088 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
4091 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
4092 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
4095 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
4096 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
4097 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
4100 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
4102 * Improved configuration
4104 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
4105 Porting BFD is simpler.
4109 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
4110 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
4111 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
4112 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
4116 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
4118 * New host supported (not target)
4120 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
4123 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
4125 * Multiple source language support
4127 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
4128 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
4129 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
4130 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
4131 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
4132 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
4136 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
4137 currently under development at the State University of New York at
4138 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
4139 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
4141 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
4142 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
4143 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
4145 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
4146 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
4150 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
4151 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
4152 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
4153 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
4156 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
4158 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
4159 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
4160 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
4161 examining core files.
4165 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
4168 * New machines supported (host and target)
4170 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
4171 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
4172 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
4174 * New hosts supported (not targets)
4176 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
4178 * New targets supported (not hosts)
4180 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
4181 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
4182 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
4184 * New remote interfaces
4190 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
4194 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
4196 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
4197 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
4198 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
4199 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
4200 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
4201 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
4202 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
4203 stub on the target system.
4205 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
4207 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
4208 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
4209 object file types such as a.out and coff.
4211 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
4212 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
4215 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
4217 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
4218 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
4220 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
4221 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
4222 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
4224 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
4225 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
4226 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
4227 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
4229 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
4230 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
4231 it is already running. Default is ON.
4233 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
4234 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
4235 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
4236 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
4239 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
4240 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
4241 or the value of the environment variable
4244 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
4245 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
4248 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
4249 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
4250 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
4252 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
4253 history expansion will be performed on
4254 command line input. The default is OFF.
4256 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
4257 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
4258 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
4260 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
4261 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
4262 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4265 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
4266 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
4267 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
4270 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
4271 ``set width'' instead.
4273 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
4274 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
4275 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
4276 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
4278 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
4281 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
4284 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
4287 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
4290 * Support for Epoch Environment.
4292 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
4293 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
4294 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
4298 * Support for Shared Libraries
4300 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
4301 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
4302 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
4303 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
4304 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
4305 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
4306 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
4307 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
4309 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
4310 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
4311 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
4313 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
4318 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
4319 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
4320 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
4321 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
4322 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
4323 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
4325 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
4327 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
4329 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4330 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4331 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
4334 * C++ multiple inheritance
4336 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
4339 * C++ exception handling
4341 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
4342 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
4343 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
4346 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
4347 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
4348 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
4350 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
4351 current stack frame.
4354 * Minor command changes
4356 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
4357 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
4358 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
4360 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
4361 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
4362 frames without printing.
4364 * New directory command
4366 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
4367 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
4368 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
4369 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
4370 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
4372 * Configuring GDB for compilation
4374 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
4377 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
4378 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
4379 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
4380 where the program that you are debugging will run.