1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.7
6 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
7 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
9 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
12 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
13 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
14 and in inlined functions.
16 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
18 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
19 registers on PowerPC targets.
21 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
22 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
24 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
25 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
26 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
27 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
29 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
31 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
32 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
33 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
35 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
36 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
37 -Bsymbolic linker option.
39 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
40 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
43 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
44 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
46 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
47 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
49 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
51 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
52 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
53 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
55 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
56 automatically displayed as character or string data.
58 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
59 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
62 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
63 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
64 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
66 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
69 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
70 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
71 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
73 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
75 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
77 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
78 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
79 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
81 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
82 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
84 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
85 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
86 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
87 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
88 Windows and SymbianOS).
90 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
91 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
93 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
94 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
100 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
101 when debugging using remote targets.
103 set mem inaccessible-by-default
104 show mem inaccessible-by-default
105 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
106 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
107 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
108 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
109 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
111 set breakpoint auto-hw
112 show breakpoint auto-hw
113 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
114 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
115 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
116 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
117 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
118 including "next" and "finish".
121 catch exception unhandled
122 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
125 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
129 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
130 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
131 an alias to "set sysroot".
134 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
135 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
138 * New native configurations
140 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
145 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
146 not query the target for its built-in description.
150 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
151 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
152 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
157 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
158 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
161 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
166 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
167 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
169 qXfer:libraries:read:
170 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
171 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
172 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
173 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
177 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
186 i[34567]86-*-netware*
187 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
188 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
190 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
193 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
194 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
203 * Other removed features
210 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
217 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
222 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
223 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
228 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
229 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
231 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
233 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
234 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
235 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
236 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
240 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
241 in debugging information.
245 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
246 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
248 set mips stack-arg-size
249 set mips saved-gpreg-size
251 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
253 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
258 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
260 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
261 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
262 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
264 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
265 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
268 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
269 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
271 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
272 stub provides the required support.
274 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
275 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
280 unset substitute-path
282 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
283 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
284 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
285 between compilation and debugging.
289 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
290 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
291 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
295 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
297 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
298 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
300 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
305 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
306 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
307 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
308 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
312 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
313 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
315 qXfer:memory-map:read:
316 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
317 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
322 Erase and program a flash memory device.
324 * Removed remote packets
327 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
328 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
330 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
334 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
336 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
340 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
341 only if it doesn't already have a value.
343 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
345 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
347 restart <n> Return the program state to a
348 previously saved state.
350 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
352 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
354 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
355 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
357 info forks List forks of the user program that
358 are available to be debugged.
360 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
361 forks of the user program that are
362 available to be debugged.
364 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
365 that are available to be debugged (and
366 kill the forked process).
368 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
369 that are available to be debugged (and
370 allow the process to continue).
374 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
376 * Improved Windows host support
378 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
379 native console support, and remote communications using either
380 network sockets or serial ports.
382 * Improved Modula-2 language support
384 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
385 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
386 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
387 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
388 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
389 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
393 The ARM rdi-share module.
395 The Netware NLM debug server.
397 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
399 * New native configurations
401 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
402 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
406 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
408 * New command line options
410 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
411 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
412 the child (debugged) program exited with.
413 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
414 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
415 specified multiple times and in conjunction
416 with the --command (-x) option.
418 * Deprecated commands removed
420 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
424 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
425 othernames set arm disassembler
426 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
427 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
428 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
431 * New BSD user-level threads support
433 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
434 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
437 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
438 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
439 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
441 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
442 are not yet supported.
444 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
445 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
447 * REMOVED configurations and files
449 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
450 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
451 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
453 * New "set print array-indexes" command
455 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
456 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
459 * VAX floating point support
461 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
463 * User-defined command support
465 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
466 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
467 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
469 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
471 * New command line option
473 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
476 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
478 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
479 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
480 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
481 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
482 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
484 * Internationalization
486 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
487 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
488 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
492 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
493 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
494 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
496 * New native configurations
498 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
502 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
503 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
505 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
507 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
508 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
509 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
512 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
513 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
514 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
526 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
527 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
529 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
531 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
532 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
533 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
543 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
545 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
547 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
548 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
551 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
553 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
554 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
555 IRIX long double values).
559 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
560 command. This problem has been fixed.
562 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
564 * Fix for ``many threads''
566 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
567 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
570 ptrace: No such process.
571 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
573 This problem has been fixed.
575 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
577 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
580 * New ``start'' command.
582 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
584 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
586 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
587 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
588 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
590 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
591 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
592 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
593 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
594 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
595 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
596 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
597 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
598 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
600 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
602 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
603 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
604 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
605 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
606 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
608 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
609 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
610 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
612 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
614 * New native configurations
616 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
617 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
618 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
619 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
620 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
621 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
622 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
624 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
626 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
627 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
628 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
629 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
630 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
631 work, was also included.
633 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
634 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
644 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
645 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
647 * REMOVED configurations and files
649 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
650 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
651 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
652 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
653 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
654 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
655 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
656 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
657 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
659 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
661 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
663 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
665 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
666 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
667 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
668 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
671 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
673 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
674 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
675 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
676 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
677 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
678 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
681 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
683 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
685 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
686 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
687 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
689 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
691 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
692 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
694 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
696 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
697 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
698 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
700 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
702 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
703 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
705 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
707 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
708 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
709 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
711 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
713 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
714 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
715 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
717 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
719 * Removed --with-mmalloc
721 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
722 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
724 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
726 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
727 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
728 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
729 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
731 * Revised SPARC target
733 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
734 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
735 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
736 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
737 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
741 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
742 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
743 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
746 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
748 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
749 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
752 * C++ nested types and namespaces
754 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
755 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
756 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
757 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
758 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
759 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
760 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
761 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
762 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
764 * New native configurations
766 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
767 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
768 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
769 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
770 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
772 * New debugging protocols
774 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
776 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
778 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
779 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
780 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
782 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
784 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
785 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
786 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
789 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
790 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
791 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
792 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
793 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
794 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
795 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
796 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
797 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
799 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
801 * REMOVED configurations and files
803 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
804 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
805 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
806 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
807 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
808 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
809 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
810 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
811 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
812 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
813 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
814 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
815 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
816 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
817 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
818 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
819 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
821 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
825 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
828 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
830 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
831 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
832 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
835 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
836 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
841 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
842 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
843 remote protocol documentation for details.
845 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
847 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
848 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
849 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
852 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
854 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
855 per-thread variables.
857 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
859 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
860 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
862 * Separate debug info.
864 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
865 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
866 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
867 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
868 and optional debug files.
870 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
872 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
873 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
876 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
877 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
881 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
882 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
883 considered "useable".
885 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
887 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
888 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
891 * GDB supports logging output to a file
893 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
894 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
896 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
898 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
899 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
902 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
904 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
905 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
909 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
910 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
911 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
912 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
913 data, for more informative profiling results.
915 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
917 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
918 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
919 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
921 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
924 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
925 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
926 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
927 in a subsequent -var-update.
929 * New native configurations.
931 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
933 * Multi-arched targets.
935 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
936 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
938 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
940 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
941 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
942 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
945 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
946 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
947 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
948 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
949 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
950 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
951 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
952 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
953 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
954 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
955 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
956 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
958 * REMOVED configurations and files
961 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
962 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
963 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
964 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
965 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
966 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
968 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
969 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
970 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
971 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
972 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
973 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
975 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
977 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
978 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
979 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
980 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
981 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
983 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
985 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
987 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
988 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
989 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
990 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
991 shared libs like mad''.
993 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
995 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
996 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
997 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
998 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
1000 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
1002 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
1003 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
1006 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
1007 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
1009 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
1010 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
1012 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
1013 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
1014 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
1015 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
1017 * Multi-arched targets.
1019 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
1020 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
1022 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
1023 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
1024 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
1028 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
1031 * New native configurations
1033 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
1034 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
1035 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
1036 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
1038 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1040 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1041 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1042 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1043 permanently REMOVED.
1045 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1046 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1047 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
1048 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1049 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
1050 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1051 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
1052 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
1053 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
1054 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
1056 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
1057 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1059 * OBSOLETE languages
1061 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
1063 * REMOVED configurations and files
1065 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1066 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1067 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1068 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1069 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1071 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1073 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
1075 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
1076 commands. The default is 1024.
1078 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
1080 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
1082 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
1084 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
1085 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
1086 from a file into memory (restore).
1088 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
1090 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
1091 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
1092 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
1094 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
1102 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
1103 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
1104 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
1106 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
1107 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
1108 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
1110 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
1111 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
1112 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
1114 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
1115 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
1116 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
1118 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
1120 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
1122 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
1123 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
1124 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
1125 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
1126 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
1127 (notably embedded) targets.
1129 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
1131 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
1132 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
1133 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
1134 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
1136 * New command line option
1138 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
1140 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
1142 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
1143 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
1144 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
1145 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
1146 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
1147 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
1148 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
1149 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
1150 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
1151 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
1153 * Changes in ARM configurations.
1155 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
1156 configuration is fully multi-arch.
1158 * New native configurations
1160 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
1161 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
1162 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
1163 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
1167 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
1169 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1171 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1172 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1173 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1174 permanently REMOVED.
1176 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
1177 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1178 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
1179 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
1180 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
1182 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
1184 * REMOVED configurations and files
1186 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1188 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1189 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1190 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1191 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1192 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1193 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1194 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1195 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1196 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1197 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1198 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
1200 * Changes to command line processing
1202 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
1203 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
1205 * Changes to key bindings
1207 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
1209 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
1211 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
1213 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
1216 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
1218 Numerous documentation fixes.
1220 Numerous testsuite fixes.
1222 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
1224 * New native configurations
1226 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1227 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
1228 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
1229 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1230 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
1231 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
1235 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
1237 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
1239 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
1241 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
1242 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
1243 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
1244 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
1245 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1247 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
1248 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1249 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1250 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
1251 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
1252 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
1253 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
1254 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
1256 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
1257 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
1259 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
1260 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
1261 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
1262 permanently REMOVED.
1264 * REMOVED configurations and files
1266 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1267 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1269 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1273 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
1275 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
1276 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
1281 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
1283 * The MI enabled by default.
1285 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
1286 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
1287 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
1288 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
1289 which is now deprecated.
1291 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
1293 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
1294 main features are supported:
1296 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
1298 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
1301 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
1303 - a Pascal expression parser.
1305 However, some important features are not yet supported.
1307 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
1309 - there are some problems with boolean types;
1311 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
1312 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
1314 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
1316 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
1318 * Changes in completion.
1320 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
1321 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
1322 users expect at the shell prompt.
1324 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
1325 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
1326 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
1327 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
1328 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
1329 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
1330 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
1332 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
1334 * New platform-independent commands:
1336 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
1337 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
1338 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
1340 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
1342 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1343 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1344 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1346 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1348 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1349 multi-threaded programs though.
1351 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1353 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1355 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1356 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1359 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1361 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1362 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1363 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1364 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1365 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1368 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1369 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1370 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1372 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1374 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1375 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1377 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1378 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1381 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1382 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1383 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1384 a given linear address.
1386 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1387 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1388 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1390 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1392 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1394 * Changes in documentation.
1396 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1397 Documentation License.
1399 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1402 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1404 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1407 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1408 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1409 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1411 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1413 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1414 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1415 contents of this file.
1419 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1421 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1423 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1425 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1426 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1427 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1428 greater level of detail.
1430 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1432 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1433 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1434 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1437 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1439 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1440 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1441 machines ``out of the box''.
1443 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1444 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1445 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1446 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1447 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1449 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1450 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1451 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1452 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1453 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1455 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1456 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1459 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1462 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1463 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1464 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1465 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1467 * New native configurations
1469 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1470 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1474 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1475 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1476 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1477 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1479 * OBSOLETE configurations
1481 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1482 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1484 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1487 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1488 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1489 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1490 be permanently REMOVED.
1492 * Gould support removed
1494 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1496 * New features for SVR4
1498 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1499 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1500 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1502 * Many C++ enhancements
1504 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1505 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1507 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1509 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1510 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1511 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1512 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1514 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1515 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1517 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1519 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1520 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1521 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1523 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1524 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1526 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1528 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1529 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1530 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1532 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1534 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1535 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1536 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1538 * ``apropos'' command added.
1540 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1541 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1542 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1546 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1547 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1548 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1549 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1550 enabled by configuring with:
1552 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1554 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1556 * New native configurations
1558 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1559 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1560 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1564 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1565 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1566 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1568 * OBSOLETE configurations
1570 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1572 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1573 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1574 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1575 be permanently REMOVED.
1579 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1580 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1581 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1582 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1583 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1584 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1585 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1590 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1592 * set extension-language
1594 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1595 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1596 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1597 set extension-language .c c++
1598 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1599 and their associated languages.
1601 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1603 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1604 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1605 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1609 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1610 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1612 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1613 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1615 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1616 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1617 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1618 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1619 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1620 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1621 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1622 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1624 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1625 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1626 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1627 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1631 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1632 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1633 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1634 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1635 for xdb and dbx commands.
1639 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1640 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1641 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1643 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1644 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1645 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1647 * Debugging across forks
1649 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1654 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1655 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1656 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1658 * GDB remote protocol additions
1660 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1661 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1662 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1663 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1665 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1666 full 64-bit address. The command
1668 set remoteaddresssize 32
1670 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1671 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1674 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1675 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1677 maint packet heythere
1679 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1680 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1683 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1684 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1685 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1687 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1689 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1690 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1691 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1693 * mask-address variable for Mips
1695 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1696 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1697 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1699 * Higher serial baud rates
1701 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1702 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1703 to achieve all of these rates.)
1707 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1708 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1711 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1713 * New native configurations
1715 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1716 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1717 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1718 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1719 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1720 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1721 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1725 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1726 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1727 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1728 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1729 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1730 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1731 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1732 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1733 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1734 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1735 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1737 * New debugging protocols
1739 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1740 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1741 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1742 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1743 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1744 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1748 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1749 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1754 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1755 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1757 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1759 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1760 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1761 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1763 * Live range splitting
1765 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1766 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1767 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1771 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1772 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1776 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1777 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1778 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1783 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1788 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1789 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1790 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1791 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1792 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1793 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1797 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1798 the symbol at the specified address.
1802 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1803 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1804 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1805 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1806 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1810 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1811 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1812 of most MIPS variants.
1816 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1817 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1818 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1822 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1823 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1824 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1825 the possible architectures.
1827 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1829 * New native configurations
1831 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1832 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1833 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1834 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1835 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1836 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1840 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1841 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1842 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1843 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1844 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1846 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1850 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1851 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1852 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1853 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1854 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1858 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1860 * Windows 95/NT native
1862 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1863 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1864 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1865 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1866 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1868 * dont-repeat command
1870 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1871 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1872 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1873 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1875 * Send break instead of ^C
1877 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1878 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1879 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1881 * Remote protocol timeout
1883 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1884 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1885 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1887 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1889 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1890 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1891 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1892 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1893 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1895 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1896 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1897 automatically on hpux10.
1899 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1901 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1903 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1905 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1906 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1907 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1908 every character. The default value is 1050.
1910 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1912 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1913 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1914 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1915 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1916 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1917 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1919 * Speedups for remote debugging
1921 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1922 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1923 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1925 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1927 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1928 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1930 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1932 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1934 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1935 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1937 * Remote targets use caching
1939 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1940 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1941 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1942 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1943 off' turns the the data cache off.
1945 * Remote targets may have threads
1947 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1948 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1949 gdb/remote.c for details.
1953 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1954 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1955 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1956 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1957 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1958 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1959 sequence is something like
1961 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1963 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1967 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1968 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1969 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1970 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1971 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1972 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1973 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1974 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1978 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1979 but does simplify configuration and building.
1983 GDB now supports hpux10.
1985 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1987 * New native configurations
1989 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1990 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1991 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1992 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1996 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1997 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1998 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1999 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
2002 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
2004 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
2005 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
2006 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
2007 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
2008 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
2010 * Arguments to user-defined commands
2012 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
2013 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
2016 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
2018 To execute the command use:
2021 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
2022 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
2023 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
2025 * New `if' and `while' commands
2027 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
2028 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
2029 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
2030 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
2031 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
2032 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
2033 if the expression is zero.
2035 * Fortran source language mode
2037 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
2038 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
2039 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
2040 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
2043 * Better HPUX support
2045 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
2046 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
2047 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
2048 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
2049 that behavior do the following before running the program:
2055 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
2056 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
2062 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
2063 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
2066 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
2067 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
2069 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
2071 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
2072 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
2073 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
2074 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
2075 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
2076 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
2078 * New DOS host serial code
2080 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
2081 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
2084 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
2086 * New "complete" command
2088 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
2089 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
2091 * Trailing space optional in prompt
2093 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
2094 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
2096 * Breakpoint hit counts
2098 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
2099 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
2100 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
2101 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
2102 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
2105 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
2107 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
2108 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
2109 arrays actually contain only short strings.
2111 * Shared library breakpoints
2113 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
2114 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
2116 * Hardware watchpoints
2118 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
2119 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
2121 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
2125 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
2126 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
2128 * Improved Irix 5 support
2130 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
2132 * Improved HPPA support
2134 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
2136 * New native configurations
2138 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
2139 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
2140 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
2141 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
2145 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
2146 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
2149 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
2151 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
2152 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
2156 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
2157 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
2159 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
2161 * Irix 5 is now supported
2165 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
2166 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
2167 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
2168 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
2169 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
2172 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
2174 * User visible changes:
2178 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
2179 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
2180 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
2181 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
2182 debugging info for the mips target).
2184 * DEC Alpha native support
2186 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
2187 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
2188 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
2189 Alpha-specific notes.
2191 * Preliminary thread implementation
2193 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
2195 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
2197 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
2198 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
2201 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
2203 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
2204 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
2205 call methods, ...etc.
2207 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
2209 * User visible changes:
2211 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
2212 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
2213 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
2214 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
2216 Filename completion now works.
2218 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
2219 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
2220 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
2222 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
2223 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
2224 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
2225 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
2226 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
2230 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
2231 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
2234 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
2238 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
2239 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
2240 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
2244 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
2245 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
2246 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
2247 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
2248 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
2252 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
2253 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
2254 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
2256 * New targets supported
2258 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2259 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
2260 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
2261 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
2262 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
2264 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
2265 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
2266 GO32 memory extender.
2268 * New remote protocols
2270 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
2272 * New source languages supported
2274 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
2275 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
2276 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
2279 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
2281 * HP Precision Architecture supported
2283 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
2284 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
2285 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
2286 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
2287 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
2288 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
2290 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
2292 * Faster and better demangling
2294 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
2295 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
2296 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
2297 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
2298 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
2299 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
2302 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
2303 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
2304 compiler does not actually implement.
2306 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
2308 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
2309 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
2310 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
2311 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
2312 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
2313 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
2316 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
2317 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
2319 * Improved configure script
2321 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
2322 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
2323 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
2324 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
2326 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
2327 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
2328 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
2329 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
2330 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
2331 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
2333 * Documentation improvements
2335 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
2336 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
2337 before submitting changes.
2339 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
2340 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
2341 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
2342 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2343 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2345 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2346 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2347 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2348 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2349 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2350 around this problem.
2354 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2355 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2356 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2359 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2360 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2362 * New native hosts supported
2364 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2365 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2367 * New targets supported
2369 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2371 * New file formats supported
2373 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2374 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2378 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2380 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2381 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2383 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2384 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2385 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2387 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2388 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2390 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2391 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2392 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2395 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2396 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2397 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2398 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2399 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2401 * Internal improvements
2403 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2404 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2406 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2407 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2408 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2409 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2410 shared code that handles any of them.
2412 * New command line options
2414 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2418 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2419 General Public License.
2421 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2423 * Host/native/target split
2425 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2426 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2427 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2428 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2429 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2431 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2432 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2433 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2434 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2435 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2436 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2437 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2439 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2440 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2441 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2443 * New hosts supported
2445 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2446 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2447 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2449 * New targets supported
2451 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2452 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2454 * New native hosts supported
2456 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2457 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2458 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2460 * New file formats supported
2462 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2463 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2464 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2468 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2469 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2470 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2472 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2474 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2475 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2476 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2477 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2481 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2482 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2483 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2485 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2489 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2490 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2493 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2494 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2496 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2497 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2498 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2499 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2500 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2501 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2503 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2504 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2505 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2506 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2510 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2511 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2512 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2513 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2514 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2516 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2517 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2518 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2519 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2523 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2524 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2525 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2526 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2527 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2528 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2529 each instruction being stepped through.
2531 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2532 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2534 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2535 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2536 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2537 processor with a serial port.
2541 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2542 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2543 supported, and what files each one uses.
2547 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2548 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2549 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2550 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2552 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2553 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2554 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2555 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2559 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2560 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2561 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2562 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2563 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2564 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2566 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2569 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2571 * Better support for C++ function names
2573 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2574 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2575 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2576 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2577 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2579 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2580 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2581 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2582 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2583 for the list of formats.
2585 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2587 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2588 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2589 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2590 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2591 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2592 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2595 * New 'maintenance' command
2597 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2598 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2599 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2601 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2602 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2603 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2604 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2605 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2606 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2608 The following commands are new:
2610 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2611 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2612 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2614 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2616 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2617 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2618 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2619 read after argv processing.
2621 * New hosts supported
2623 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2625 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2627 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2628 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2629 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2630 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2631 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2634 * New targets supported
2636 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2638 * More smarts about finding #include files
2640 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2641 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2642 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2643 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2644 the one that contains your sources.
2646 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2647 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2648 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2650 * Interesting infernals change
2652 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2653 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2654 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2655 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2657 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2659 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2660 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2661 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2663 See the ChangeLog for details.
2665 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2667 * New machines supported (host and target)
2669 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2671 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2673 * New malloc package
2675 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2676 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2677 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2678 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2679 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2680 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2684 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2685 'help info proc' for details.
2687 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2689 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2690 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2693 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2695 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2696 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2697 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2698 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2699 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2700 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2702 * Cross byte order fixes
2704 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2705 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2707 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2709 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2710 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2711 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2712 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2713 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2714 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2715 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2716 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2717 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2718 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2720 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2721 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2722 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2723 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2725 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2726 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2727 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2730 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2732 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2733 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2734 shared across multiple host platforms.
2736 * longjmp() handling
2738 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2739 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2740 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2741 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2745 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2746 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2751 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2752 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2753 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2755 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2757 * New machines supported (host and target)
2759 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2761 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2762 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2764 * New machines supported (target)
2766 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2770 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2771 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2772 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2774 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2775 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2776 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2777 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2778 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2781 * New features for SVR4
2783 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2784 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2785 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2787 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2788 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2789 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2791 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2792 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2794 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2796 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2797 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2798 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2799 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2800 same code linked statically.
2804 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2805 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2806 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2807 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2808 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2809 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2813 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2814 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2815 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2818 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2820 * New machines supported (host and target)
2822 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2823 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2824 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2826 * Almost SCO Unix support
2828 We had hoped to support:
2829 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2830 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2831 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2832 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2834 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2836 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2837 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2838 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2839 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2844 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2845 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2846 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2850 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2851 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2852 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2854 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2856 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2857 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2858 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2860 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2861 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2862 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2863 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2866 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2867 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2868 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2869 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2872 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2873 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2876 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2877 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2878 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2881 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2883 * Improved configuration
2885 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2886 Porting BFD is simpler.
2890 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2891 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2892 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2893 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2897 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2899 * New host supported (not target)
2901 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2904 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2906 * Multiple source language support
2908 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2909 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2910 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2911 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2912 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2913 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2917 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2918 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2919 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2920 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2922 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2923 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2924 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2926 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2927 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2931 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2932 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2933 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2934 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2937 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2939 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2940 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2941 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2942 examining core files.
2946 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2949 * New machines supported (host and target)
2951 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2952 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2953 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2955 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2957 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2959 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2961 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2962 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2963 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2965 * New remote interfaces
2971 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2975 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2977 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2978 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2979 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2980 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2981 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2982 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2983 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2984 stub on the target system.
2986 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2988 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2989 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2990 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2992 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2993 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2996 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2998 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2999 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
3001 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
3002 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
3003 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
3005 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
3006 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
3007 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
3008 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
3010 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
3011 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
3012 it is already running. Default is ON.
3014 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
3015 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
3016 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
3017 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
3020 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
3021 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
3022 or the value of the environment variable
3025 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
3026 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
3029 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
3030 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
3031 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
3033 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
3034 history expansion will be performed on
3035 command line input. The default is OFF.
3037 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
3038 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
3039 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
3041 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
3042 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
3043 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3046 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
3047 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
3048 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
3051 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
3052 ``set width'' instead.
3054 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
3055 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
3056 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
3057 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
3059 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
3062 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
3065 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
3068 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
3071 * Support for Epoch Environment.
3073 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
3074 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
3075 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
3079 * Support for Shared Libraries
3081 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
3082 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
3083 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
3084 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
3085 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
3086 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
3087 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
3088 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
3090 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
3091 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
3092 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
3094 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
3099 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
3100 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
3101 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
3102 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
3103 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
3104 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
3106 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
3108 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
3110 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3111 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3112 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
3115 * C++ multiple inheritance
3117 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
3120 * C++ exception handling
3122 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
3123 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
3124 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
3127 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
3128 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
3129 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
3131 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
3132 current stack frame.
3135 * Minor command changes
3137 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
3138 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
3139 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
3141 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
3142 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
3143 frames without printing.
3145 * New directory command
3147 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
3148 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
3149 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
3150 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
3151 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
3153 * Configuring GDB for compilation
3155 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
3158 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
3159 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
3160 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
3161 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob