1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.4
8 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
9 only if it doesn't already have a value.
11 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
13 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
15 restart <n> Return the program state to a
16 previously saved state.
18 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
20 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
22 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
23 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
25 info forks List forks of the user program that
26 are available to be debugged.
28 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
29 forks of the user program that are
30 available to be debugged.
32 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
33 that are available to be debugged (and
34 kill the forked process).
36 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
37 that are available to be debugged (and
38 allow the process to continue).
42 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
44 * Improved Windows host support
46 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
47 native console support, and remote communications using either
48 network sockets or serial ports.
52 The ARM rdi-share module.
54 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
56 * New native configurations
58 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
59 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
63 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
65 * New command line options
67 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
68 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
69 the child (debugged) program exited with.
70 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
71 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
72 specified multiple times and in conjunction
73 with the --command (-x) option.
75 * Deprecated commands removed
77 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
81 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
82 othernames set arm disassembler
83 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
84 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
85 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
88 * New BSD user-level threads support
90 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
91 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
94 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
95 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
96 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
98 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
99 are not yet supported.
101 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
102 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
104 * REMOVED configurations and files
106 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
107 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
108 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
110 * New "set print array-indexes" command
112 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
113 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
116 * VAX floating point support
118 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
120 * User-defined command support
122 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
123 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
124 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
126 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
128 * New command line option
130 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
133 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
135 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
136 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
137 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
138 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
139 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
141 * Internationalization
143 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
144 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
145 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
149 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
150 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
151 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
153 * New native configurations
155 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
159 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
160 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
162 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
164 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
165 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
166 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
169 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
170 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
171 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
183 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
184 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
186 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
188 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
189 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
190 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
200 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
202 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
204 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
205 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
208 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
210 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
211 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
212 IRIX long double values).
216 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
217 command. This problem has been fixed.
219 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
221 * Fix for ``many threads''
223 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
224 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
227 ptrace: No such process.
228 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
230 This problem has been fixed.
232 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
234 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
237 * New ``start'' command.
239 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
241 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
243 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
244 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
245 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
247 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
248 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
249 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
250 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
251 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
252 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
253 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
254 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
255 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
257 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
259 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
260 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
261 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
262 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
263 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
265 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
266 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
267 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
269 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
271 * New native configurations
273 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
274 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
275 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
276 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
277 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
278 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
279 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
281 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
283 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
284 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
285 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
286 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
287 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
288 work, was also included.
290 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
291 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
301 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
302 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
304 * REMOVED configurations and files
306 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
307 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
308 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
309 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
310 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
311 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
312 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
313 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
314 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
316 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
318 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
320 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
322 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
323 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
324 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
325 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
328 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
330 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
331 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
332 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
333 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
334 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
335 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
338 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
340 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
342 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
343 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
344 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
346 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
348 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
349 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
351 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
353 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
354 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
355 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
357 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
359 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
360 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
362 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
364 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
365 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
366 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
368 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
370 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
371 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
372 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
374 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
376 * Removed --with-mmalloc
378 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
379 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
381 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
383 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
384 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
385 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
386 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
388 * Revised SPARC target
390 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
391 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
392 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
393 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
394 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
398 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
399 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
400 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
403 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
405 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
406 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
409 * C++ nested types and namespaces
411 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
412 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
413 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
414 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
415 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
416 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
417 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
418 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
419 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
421 * New native configurations
423 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
424 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
425 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
426 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
427 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
429 * New debugging protocols
431 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
433 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
435 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
436 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
437 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
439 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
441 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
442 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
443 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
446 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
447 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
448 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
449 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
450 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
451 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
452 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
453 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
454 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
456 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
458 * REMOVED configurations and files
460 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
461 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
462 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
463 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
464 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
465 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
466 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
467 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
468 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
469 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
470 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
471 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
472 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
473 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
474 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
475 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
476 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
478 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
482 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
485 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
487 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
488 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
489 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
492 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
493 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
498 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
499 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
500 remote protocol documentation for details.
502 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
504 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
505 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
506 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
509 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
511 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
512 per-thread variables.
514 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
516 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
517 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
519 * Separate debug info.
521 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
522 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
523 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
524 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
525 and optional debug files.
527 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
529 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
530 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
533 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
534 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
538 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
539 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
540 considered "useable".
542 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
544 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
545 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
548 * GDB supports logging output to a file
550 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
551 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
553 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
555 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
556 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
559 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
561 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
562 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
566 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
567 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
568 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
569 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
570 data, for more informative profiling results.
572 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
574 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
575 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
576 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
578 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
581 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
582 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
583 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
584 in a subsequent -var-update.
586 * New native configurations.
588 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
590 * Multi-arched targets.
592 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
593 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
595 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
597 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
598 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
599 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
602 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
603 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
604 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
605 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
606 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
607 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
608 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
609 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
610 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
611 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
612 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
613 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
615 * REMOVED configurations and files
618 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
619 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
620 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
621 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
622 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
623 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
625 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
626 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
627 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
628 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
629 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
630 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
632 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
634 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
635 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
636 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
637 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
638 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
640 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
642 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
644 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
645 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
646 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
647 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
648 shared libs like mad''.
650 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
652 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
653 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
654 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
655 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
657 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
659 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
660 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
663 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
664 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
666 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
667 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
669 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
670 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
671 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
672 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
674 * Multi-arched targets.
676 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
677 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
679 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
680 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
681 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
685 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
688 * New native configurations
690 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
691 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
692 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
693 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
695 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
697 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
698 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
699 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
702 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
703 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
704 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
705 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
706 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
707 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
708 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
709 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
710 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
711 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
713 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
714 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
718 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
720 * REMOVED configurations and files
722 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
723 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
724 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
725 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
726 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
728 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
730 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
732 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
733 commands. The default is 1024.
735 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
737 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
739 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
741 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
742 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
743 from a file into memory (restore).
745 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
747 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
748 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
749 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
751 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
759 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
760 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
761 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
763 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
764 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
765 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
767 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
768 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
769 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
771 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
772 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
773 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
775 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
777 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
779 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
780 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
781 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
782 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
783 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
784 (notably embedded) targets.
786 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
788 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
789 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
790 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
791 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
793 * New command line option
795 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
797 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
799 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
800 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
801 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
802 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
803 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
804 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
805 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
806 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
807 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
808 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
810 * Changes in ARM configurations.
812 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
813 configuration is fully multi-arch.
815 * New native configurations
817 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
818 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
819 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
820 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
824 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
826 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
828 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
829 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
830 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
833 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
834 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
835 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
836 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
837 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
839 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
841 * REMOVED configurations and files
843 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
845 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
846 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
847 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
848 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
849 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
850 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
851 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
852 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
853 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
854 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
855 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
857 * Changes to command line processing
859 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
860 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
862 * Changes to key bindings
864 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
866 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
868 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
870 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
873 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
875 Numerous documentation fixes.
877 Numerous testsuite fixes.
879 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
881 * New native configurations
883 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
884 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
885 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
886 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
888 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
892 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
894 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
896 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
898 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
899 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
900 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
901 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
902 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
904 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
905 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
906 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
907 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
908 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
909 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
910 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
911 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
913 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
914 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
916 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
917 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
918 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
921 * REMOVED configurations and files
923 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
924 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
926 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
930 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
932 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
933 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
938 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
940 * The MI enabled by default.
942 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
943 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
944 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
945 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
946 which is now deprecated.
948 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
950 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
951 main features are supported:
953 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
955 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
958 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
960 - a Pascal expression parser.
962 However, some important features are not yet supported.
964 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
966 - there are some problems with boolean types;
968 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
969 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
971 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
973 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
975 * Changes in completion.
977 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
978 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
979 users expect at the shell prompt.
981 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
982 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
983 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
984 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
985 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
986 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
987 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
989 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
991 * New platform-independent commands:
993 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
994 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
995 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
997 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
999 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
1000 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
1001 many threads as your system allows you to have.
1003 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
1005 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
1006 multi-threaded programs though.
1008 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
1010 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
1012 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
1013 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
1016 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
1018 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
1019 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
1020 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
1021 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
1022 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
1025 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
1026 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
1027 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
1029 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
1031 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
1032 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
1034 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
1035 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
1038 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
1039 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
1040 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
1041 a given linear address.
1043 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
1044 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
1045 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
1047 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
1049 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
1051 * Changes in documentation.
1053 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
1054 Documentation License.
1056 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1059 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
1061 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
1064 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
1065 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
1066 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
1068 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
1070 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
1071 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
1072 contents of this file.
1076 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
1078 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
1080 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
1082 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
1083 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
1084 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
1085 greater level of detail.
1087 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
1089 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
1090 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
1091 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
1094 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
1096 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
1097 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
1098 machines ``out of the box''.
1100 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
1101 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
1102 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
1103 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
1104 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
1106 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
1107 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
1108 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
1109 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
1110 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
1112 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
1113 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
1116 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
1119 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
1120 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
1121 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
1122 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
1124 * New native configurations
1126 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
1127 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1131 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
1132 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
1133 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
1134 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
1136 * OBSOLETE configurations
1138 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
1139 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
1141 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
1144 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1145 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1146 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1147 be permanently REMOVED.
1149 * Gould support removed
1151 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
1153 * New features for SVR4
1155 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
1156 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
1157 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
1159 * Many C++ enhancements
1161 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
1162 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
1164 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
1166 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
1167 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
1168 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
1169 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
1171 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
1172 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
1174 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
1176 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
1177 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
1178 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
1180 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
1181 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
1183 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
1185 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
1186 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
1187 include ``set remote P-packet''.
1189 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
1191 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
1192 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
1193 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
1195 * ``apropos'' command added.
1197 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
1198 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
1199 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
1203 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
1204 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
1205 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
1206 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
1207 enabled by configuring with:
1209 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
1211 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
1213 * New native configurations
1215 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
1216 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
1217 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
1221 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
1222 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
1223 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
1225 * OBSOLETE configurations
1227 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
1229 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
1230 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
1231 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
1232 be permanently REMOVED.
1236 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
1237 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
1238 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
1239 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
1240 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
1241 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
1242 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
1247 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
1249 * set extension-language
1251 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
1252 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
1253 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
1254 set extension-language .c c++
1255 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
1256 and their associated languages.
1258 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
1260 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
1261 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
1262 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
1266 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
1267 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
1269 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
1270 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
1272 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1273 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1274 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1275 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1276 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1277 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1278 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1279 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1281 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1282 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1283 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1284 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1288 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1289 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1290 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1291 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1292 for xdb and dbx commands.
1296 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1297 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1298 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1300 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1301 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1302 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1304 * Debugging across forks
1306 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1311 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1312 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1313 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1315 * GDB remote protocol additions
1317 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1318 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1319 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1320 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1322 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1323 full 64-bit address. The command
1325 set remoteaddresssize 32
1327 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1328 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1331 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1332 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1334 maint packet heythere
1336 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1337 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1340 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1341 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1342 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1344 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1346 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1347 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1348 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1350 * mask-address variable for Mips
1352 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1353 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1354 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1356 * Higher serial baud rates
1358 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1359 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1360 to achieve all of these rates.)
1364 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1365 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1368 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1370 * New native configurations
1372 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1373 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1374 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1375 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1376 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1377 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1378 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1382 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1383 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1384 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1385 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1386 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1387 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1388 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1389 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1390 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1391 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1392 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1394 * New debugging protocols
1396 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1397 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1398 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1399 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1400 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1401 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1405 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1406 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1411 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1412 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1414 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1416 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1417 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1418 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1420 * Live range splitting
1422 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1423 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1424 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1428 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1429 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1433 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1434 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1435 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1440 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1445 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1446 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1447 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1448 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1449 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1450 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1454 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1455 the symbol at the specified address.
1459 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1460 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1461 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1462 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1463 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1467 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1468 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1469 of most MIPS variants.
1473 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1474 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1475 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1479 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1480 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1481 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1482 the possible architectures.
1484 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1486 * New native configurations
1488 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1489 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1490 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1491 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1492 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1493 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1497 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1498 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1499 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1500 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1501 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1503 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1507 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1508 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1509 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1510 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1511 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1515 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1517 * Windows 95/NT native
1519 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1520 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1521 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1522 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1523 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1525 * dont-repeat command
1527 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1528 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1529 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1530 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1532 * Send break instead of ^C
1534 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1535 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1536 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1538 * Remote protocol timeout
1540 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1541 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1542 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1544 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1546 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1547 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1548 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1549 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1550 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1552 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1553 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1554 automatically on hpux10.
1556 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1558 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1560 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1562 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1563 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1564 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1565 every character. The default value is 1050.
1567 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1569 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1570 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1571 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1572 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1573 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1574 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1576 * Speedups for remote debugging
1578 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1579 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1580 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1582 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1584 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1585 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1587 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1589 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1591 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1592 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1594 * Remote targets use caching
1596 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1597 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1598 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1599 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1600 off' turns the the data cache off.
1602 * Remote targets may have threads
1604 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1605 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1606 gdb/remote.c for details.
1610 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1611 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1612 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1613 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1614 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1615 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1616 sequence is something like
1618 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1620 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1624 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1625 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1626 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1627 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1628 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1629 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1630 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1631 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1635 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1636 but does simplify configuration and building.
1640 GDB now supports hpux10.
1642 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1644 * New native configurations
1646 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1647 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1648 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1649 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1653 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1654 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1655 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1656 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1659 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1661 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1662 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1663 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1664 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1665 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1667 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1669 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1670 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1673 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1675 To execute the command use:
1678 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1679 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1680 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1682 * New `if' and `while' commands
1684 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1685 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1686 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1687 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1688 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1689 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1690 if the expression is zero.
1692 * Fortran source language mode
1694 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1695 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1696 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1697 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1700 * Better HPUX support
1702 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1703 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1704 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1705 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1706 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1712 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1713 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1719 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1720 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1723 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1724 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1726 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1728 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1729 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1730 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1731 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1732 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1733 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1735 * New DOS host serial code
1737 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1738 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1741 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1743 * New "complete" command
1745 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1746 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1748 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1750 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1751 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1753 * Breakpoint hit counts
1755 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1756 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1757 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1758 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1759 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1762 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1764 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1765 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1766 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1768 * Shared library breakpoints
1770 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1771 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1773 * Hardware watchpoints
1775 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1776 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1778 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1782 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1783 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1785 * Improved Irix 5 support
1787 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1789 * Improved HPPA support
1791 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1793 * New native configurations
1795 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1796 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1797 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1798 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1802 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1803 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1806 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1808 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1809 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1813 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1814 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1816 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1818 * Irix 5 is now supported
1822 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1823 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1824 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1825 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1826 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1829 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1831 * User visible changes:
1835 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1836 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1837 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1838 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1839 debugging info for the mips target).
1841 * DEC Alpha native support
1843 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1844 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1845 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1846 Alpha-specific notes.
1848 * Preliminary thread implementation
1850 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1852 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1854 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1855 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1858 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1860 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1861 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1862 call methods, ...etc.
1864 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1866 * User visible changes:
1868 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1869 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1870 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1871 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1873 Filename completion now works.
1875 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1876 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1877 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1879 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1880 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1881 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1882 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1883 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1887 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1888 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1891 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1895 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1896 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1897 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1901 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1902 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1903 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1904 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1905 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1909 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1910 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1911 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1913 * New targets supported
1915 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1916 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1917 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1918 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1919 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1921 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1922 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1923 GO32 memory extender.
1925 * New remote protocols
1927 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1929 * New source languages supported
1931 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1932 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1933 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1936 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1938 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1940 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1941 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1942 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1943 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1944 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1945 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1947 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1949 * Faster and better demangling
1951 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1952 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1953 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1954 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1955 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1956 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1959 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1960 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1961 compiler does not actually implement.
1963 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1965 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1966 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1967 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1968 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1969 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1970 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1973 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1974 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1976 * Improved configure script
1978 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1979 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1980 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1981 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1983 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1984 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1985 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1986 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1987 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1988 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1990 * Documentation improvements
1992 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1993 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1994 before submitting changes.
1996 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1997 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1998 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1999 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
2000 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
2002 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
2003 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
2004 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
2005 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
2006 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
2007 around this problem.
2011 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
2012 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
2013 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
2016 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
2017 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
2019 * New native hosts supported
2021 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
2022 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
2024 * New targets supported
2026 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
2028 * New file formats supported
2030 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
2031 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
2035 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
2037 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
2038 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
2040 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
2041 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
2042 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
2044 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
2045 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
2047 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
2048 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
2049 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
2052 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
2053 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
2054 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
2055 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
2056 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
2058 * Internal improvements
2060 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
2061 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
2063 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
2064 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
2065 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
2066 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
2067 shared code that handles any of them.
2069 * New command line options
2071 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
2075 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
2076 General Public License.
2078 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
2080 * Host/native/target split
2082 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
2083 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
2084 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
2085 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
2086 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
2088 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
2089 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
2090 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
2091 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
2092 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
2093 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
2094 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
2096 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
2097 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
2098 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
2100 * New hosts supported
2102 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
2103 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2104 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
2106 * New targets supported
2108 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
2109 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
2111 * New native hosts supported
2113 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
2114 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
2115 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
2117 * New file formats supported
2119 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
2120 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
2121 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
2125 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
2126 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
2127 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
2129 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
2131 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
2132 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
2133 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
2134 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
2138 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
2139 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
2140 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
2142 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
2146 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
2147 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
2150 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
2151 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
2153 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
2154 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
2155 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
2156 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
2157 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
2158 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
2160 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
2161 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
2162 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
2163 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
2167 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
2168 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
2169 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
2170 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
2171 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
2173 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
2174 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
2175 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
2176 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
2180 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
2181 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
2182 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
2183 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
2184 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
2185 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
2186 each instruction being stepped through.
2188 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
2189 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
2191 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
2192 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
2193 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
2194 processor with a serial port.
2198 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
2199 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
2200 supported, and what files each one uses.
2204 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
2205 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
2206 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
2207 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
2209 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
2210 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
2211 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
2212 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
2216 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
2217 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
2218 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
2219 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
2220 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
2221 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
2223 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
2226 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
2228 * Better support for C++ function names
2230 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
2231 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
2232 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
2233 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
2234 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
2236 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
2237 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
2238 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
2239 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
2240 for the list of formats.
2242 * G++ symbol mangling problem
2244 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
2245 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
2246 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
2247 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
2248 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
2249 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
2252 * New 'maintenance' command
2254 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
2255 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
2256 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
2258 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
2259 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
2260 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
2261 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
2262 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
2263 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
2265 The following commands are new:
2267 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
2268 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
2269 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
2271 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2273 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2274 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2275 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2276 read after argv processing.
2278 * New hosts supported
2280 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2282 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2284 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2285 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2286 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2287 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2288 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2291 * New targets supported
2293 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2295 * More smarts about finding #include files
2297 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2298 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2299 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2300 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2301 the one that contains your sources.
2303 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2304 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2305 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2307 * Interesting infernals change
2309 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2310 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2311 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2312 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2314 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2316 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2317 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2318 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2320 See the ChangeLog for details.
2322 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2324 * New machines supported (host and target)
2326 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2328 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2330 * New malloc package
2332 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2333 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2334 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2335 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2336 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2337 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2341 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2342 'help info proc' for details.
2344 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2346 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2347 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2350 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2352 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2353 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2354 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2355 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2356 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2357 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2359 * Cross byte order fixes
2361 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2362 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2364 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2366 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2367 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2368 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2369 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2370 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2371 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2372 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2373 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2374 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2375 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2377 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2378 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2379 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2380 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2382 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2383 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2384 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2387 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2389 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2390 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2391 shared across multiple host platforms.
2393 * longjmp() handling
2395 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2396 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2397 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2398 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2402 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2403 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2408 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2409 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2410 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2412 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2414 * New machines supported (host and target)
2416 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2418 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2419 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2421 * New machines supported (target)
2423 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2427 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2428 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2429 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2431 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2432 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2433 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2434 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2435 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2438 * New features for SVR4
2440 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2441 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2442 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2444 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2445 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2446 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2448 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2449 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2451 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2453 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2454 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2455 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2456 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2457 same code linked statically.
2461 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2462 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2463 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2464 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2465 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2466 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2470 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2471 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2472 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2475 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2477 * New machines supported (host and target)
2479 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2480 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2481 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2483 * Almost SCO Unix support
2485 We had hoped to support:
2486 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2487 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2488 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2489 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2491 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2493 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2494 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2495 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2496 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2501 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2502 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2503 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2507 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2508 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2509 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2511 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2513 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2514 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2515 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2517 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2518 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2519 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2520 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2523 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2524 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2525 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2526 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2529 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2530 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2533 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2534 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2535 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2538 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2540 * Improved configuration
2542 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2543 Porting BFD is simpler.
2547 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2548 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2549 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2550 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2554 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2556 * New host supported (not target)
2558 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2561 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2563 * Multiple source language support
2565 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2566 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2567 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2568 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2569 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2570 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2574 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2575 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2576 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2577 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2579 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2580 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2581 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2583 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2584 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2588 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2589 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2590 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2591 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2594 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2596 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2597 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2598 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2599 examining core files.
2603 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2606 * New machines supported (host and target)
2608 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2609 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2610 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2612 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2614 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2616 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2618 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2619 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2620 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2622 * New remote interfaces
2628 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2632 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2634 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2635 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2636 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2637 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2638 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2639 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2640 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2641 stub on the target system.
2643 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2645 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2646 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2647 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2649 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2650 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2653 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2655 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2656 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2658 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2659 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2660 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2662 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2663 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2664 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2665 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2667 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2668 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2669 it is already running. Default is ON.
2671 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2672 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2673 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2674 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2677 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2678 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2679 or the value of the environment variable
2682 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2683 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2686 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2687 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2688 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2690 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2691 history expansion will be performed on
2692 command line input. The default is OFF.
2694 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2695 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2696 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2698 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2699 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2700 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2703 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2704 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2705 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2708 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2709 ``set width'' instead.
2711 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2712 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2713 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2714 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2716 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2719 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2722 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2725 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2728 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2730 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2731 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2732 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2736 * Support for Shared Libraries
2738 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2739 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2740 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2741 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2742 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2743 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2744 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2745 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2747 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2748 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2749 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2751 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2756 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2757 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2758 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2759 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2760 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2761 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2763 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2765 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2767 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2768 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2769 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2772 * C++ multiple inheritance
2774 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2777 * C++ exception handling
2779 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2780 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2781 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2784 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2785 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2786 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2788 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2789 current stack frame.
2792 * Minor command changes
2794 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2795 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2796 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2798 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2799 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2800 frames without printing.
2802 * New directory command
2804 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2805 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2806 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2807 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2808 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2810 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2812 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2815 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2816 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2817 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2818 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob