1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 6.1:
6 * New ``start'' command.
8 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
10 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
12 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
13 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
14 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
15 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
16 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
18 These fixes were tested on i386 GNU/Linux systems that include a 2.4
21 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
23 * New native configurations
25 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
26 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
27 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
28 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
29 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
31 * REMOVED configurations and files
33 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
34 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
35 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
36 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
37 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
38 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
39 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
40 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
41 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
43 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
45 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
47 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
49 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
50 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
51 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
52 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
55 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
57 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
58 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
59 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
60 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
61 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
62 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
65 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
67 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
69 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
70 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
71 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
73 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
75 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
76 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
78 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
80 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
81 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
82 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
84 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
86 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
87 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
89 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
91 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
92 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
93 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
95 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
97 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
98 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
99 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
101 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
103 * Removed --with-mmalloc
105 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
106 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
108 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
110 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
111 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
112 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
113 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
115 * Revised SPARC target
117 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
118 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
119 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
120 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
121 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
125 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
126 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
127 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
130 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
132 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
133 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
136 * C++ nested types and namespaces
138 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
139 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
140 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
141 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
142 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
143 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
144 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
145 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
146 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
148 * New native configurations
150 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
151 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
152 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
153 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
154 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
156 * New debugging protocols
158 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
160 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
162 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
163 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
164 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
166 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
168 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
169 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
170 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
173 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
174 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
175 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
176 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
177 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
178 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
179 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
180 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
181 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
183 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
185 * REMOVED configurations and files
187 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
188 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
189 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
190 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
191 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
192 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
193 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
194 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
195 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
196 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
197 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
198 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
199 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
200 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
201 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
202 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
203 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
205 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
209 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
212 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
214 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
215 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
216 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
219 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
220 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
225 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
226 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
227 remote protocol documentation for details.
229 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
231 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
232 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
233 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
236 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
238 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
239 per-thread variables.
241 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
243 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
244 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
246 * Separate debug info.
248 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
249 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
250 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
251 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
252 and optional debug files.
254 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
256 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
257 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
260 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
261 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
265 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
266 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
267 considered "useable".
269 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
271 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
272 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
275 * GDB supports logging output to a file
277 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
278 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
280 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
282 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
283 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
286 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
288 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
289 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
293 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
294 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
295 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
296 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
297 data, for more informative profiling results.
299 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
301 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
302 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
303 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
305 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
308 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
309 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
310 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
311 in a subsequent -var-update.
313 * New native configurations.
315 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
317 * Multi-arched targets.
319 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
320 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
322 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
324 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
325 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
326 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
329 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
330 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
331 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
332 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
333 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
334 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
335 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
336 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
337 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
338 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
339 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
340 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
342 * REMOVED configurations and files
345 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
346 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
347 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
348 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
349 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
350 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
352 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
353 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
354 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
355 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
356 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
357 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
359 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
361 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
362 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
363 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
364 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
365 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
367 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
369 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
371 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
372 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
373 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
374 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
375 shared libs like mad''.
377 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
379 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
380 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
381 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
382 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
384 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
386 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
387 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
390 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
391 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
393 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
394 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
396 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
397 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
398 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
399 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
401 * Multi-arched targets.
403 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
404 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
406 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
407 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
408 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
412 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
415 * New native configurations
417 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
418 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
419 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
420 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
422 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
424 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
425 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
426 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
429 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
430 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
431 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
432 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
433 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
434 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
435 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
436 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
437 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
438 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
440 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
441 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
445 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
447 * REMOVED configurations and files
449 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
450 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
451 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
452 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
453 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
455 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
457 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
459 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
460 commands. The default is 1024.
462 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
464 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
466 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
468 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
469 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
470 from a file into memory (restore).
472 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
474 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
475 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
476 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
478 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
486 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
487 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
488 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
490 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
491 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
492 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
494 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
495 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
496 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
498 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
499 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
500 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
502 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
504 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
506 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
507 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
508 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
509 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
510 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
511 (notably embedded) targets.
513 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
515 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
516 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
517 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
518 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
520 * New command line option
522 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
524 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
526 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
527 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
528 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
529 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
530 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
531 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
532 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
533 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
534 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
535 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
537 * Changes in ARM configurations.
539 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
540 configuration is fully multi-arch.
542 * New native configurations
544 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
545 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
546 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
547 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
551 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
553 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
555 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
556 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
557 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
560 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
561 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
562 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
563 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
564 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
566 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
568 * REMOVED configurations and files
570 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
572 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
573 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
574 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
575 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
576 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
577 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
578 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
579 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
580 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
581 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
582 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
584 * Changes to command line processing
586 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
587 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
589 * Changes to key bindings
591 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
593 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
595 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
597 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
600 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
602 Numerous documentation fixes.
604 Numerous testsuite fixes.
606 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
608 * New native configurations
610 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
611 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
612 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
613 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
615 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
619 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
621 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
623 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
625 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
626 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
627 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
628 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
629 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
631 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
632 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
633 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
634 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
635 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
636 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
637 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
638 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
640 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
641 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
643 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
644 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
645 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
648 * REMOVED configurations and files
650 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
651 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
653 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
657 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
659 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
660 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
665 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
667 * The MI enabled by default.
669 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
670 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
671 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
672 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
673 which is now deprecated.
675 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
677 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
678 main features are supported:
680 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
682 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
685 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
687 - a Pascal expression parser.
689 However, some important features are not yet supported.
691 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
693 - there are some problems with boolean types;
695 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
696 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
698 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
700 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
702 * Changes in completion.
704 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
705 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
706 users expect at the shell prompt.
708 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
709 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
710 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
711 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
712 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
713 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
714 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
716 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
718 * New platform-independent commands:
720 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
721 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
722 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
724 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
726 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
727 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
728 many threads as your system allows you to have.
730 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
732 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
733 multi-threaded programs though.
735 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
737 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
739 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
740 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
743 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
745 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
746 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
747 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
748 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
749 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
752 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
753 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
754 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
756 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
758 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
759 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
761 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
762 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
765 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
766 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
767 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
768 a given linear address.
770 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
771 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
772 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
774 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
776 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
778 * Changes in documentation.
780 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
781 Documentation License.
783 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
786 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
788 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
791 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
792 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
793 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
795 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
797 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
798 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
799 contents of this file.
803 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
805 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
807 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
809 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
810 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
811 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
812 greater level of detail.
814 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
816 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
817 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
818 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
821 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
823 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
824 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
825 machines ``out of the box''.
827 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
828 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
829 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
830 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
831 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
833 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
834 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
835 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
836 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
837 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
839 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
840 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
843 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
846 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
847 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
848 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
849 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
851 * New native configurations
853 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
854 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
858 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
859 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
860 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
861 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
863 * OBSOLETE configurations
865 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
866 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
868 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
871 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
872 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
873 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
874 be permanently REMOVED.
876 * Gould support removed
878 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
880 * New features for SVR4
882 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
883 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
884 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
886 * Many C++ enhancements
888 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
889 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
891 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
893 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
894 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
895 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
896 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
898 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
899 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
901 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
903 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
904 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
905 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
907 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
908 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
910 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
912 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
913 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
914 include ``set remote P-packet''.
916 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
918 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
919 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
920 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
922 * ``apropos'' command added.
924 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
925 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
926 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
930 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
931 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
932 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
933 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
934 enabled by configuring with:
936 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
938 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
940 * New native configurations
942 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
943 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
944 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
948 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
949 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
950 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
952 * OBSOLETE configurations
954 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
956 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
957 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
958 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
959 be permanently REMOVED.
963 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
964 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
965 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
966 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
967 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
968 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
969 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
974 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
976 * set extension-language
978 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
979 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
980 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
981 set extension-language .c c++
982 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
983 and their associated languages.
985 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
987 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
988 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
989 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
993 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
994 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
996 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
997 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
999 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
1000 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
1001 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
1002 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
1003 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
1004 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
1005 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
1006 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
1008 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
1009 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
1010 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
1011 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
1015 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
1016 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
1017 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
1018 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
1019 for xdb and dbx commands.
1023 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
1024 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
1025 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
1027 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
1028 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
1029 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
1031 * Debugging across forks
1033 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
1038 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
1039 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
1040 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
1042 * GDB remote protocol additions
1044 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
1045 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
1046 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
1047 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
1049 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
1050 full 64-bit address. The command
1052 set remoteaddresssize 32
1054 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
1055 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
1058 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
1059 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
1061 maint packet heythere
1063 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
1064 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
1067 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
1068 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
1069 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
1071 * Tracing can collect general expressions
1073 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
1074 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
1075 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
1077 * mask-address variable for Mips
1079 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
1080 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
1081 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
1083 * Higher serial baud rates
1085 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
1086 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
1087 to achieve all of these rates.)
1091 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
1092 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
1095 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
1097 * New native configurations
1099 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
1100 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
1101 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
1102 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
1103 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
1104 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
1105 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
1109 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
1110 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
1111 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
1112 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
1113 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
1114 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
1115 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
1116 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
1117 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
1118 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1119 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
1121 * New debugging protocols
1123 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
1124 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
1125 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
1126 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1127 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1128 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
1132 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
1133 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
1138 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
1139 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
1141 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
1143 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
1144 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
1145 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
1147 * Live range splitting
1149 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
1150 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
1151 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
1155 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
1156 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
1160 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
1161 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
1162 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
1167 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
1172 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
1173 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
1174 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
1175 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
1176 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
1177 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
1181 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
1182 the symbol at the specified address.
1186 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
1187 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
1188 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
1189 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
1190 file tracepoint.c for more details.
1194 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
1195 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
1196 of most MIPS variants.
1200 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
1201 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
1202 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
1206 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
1207 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
1208 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
1209 the possible architectures.
1211 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
1213 * New native configurations
1215 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
1216 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
1217 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
1218 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
1219 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
1220 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
1224 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
1225 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
1226 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
1227 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
1228 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
1230 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
1234 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
1235 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
1236 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
1237 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
1238 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
1242 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
1244 * Windows 95/NT native
1246 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
1247 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
1248 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
1249 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
1250 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
1252 * dont-repeat command
1254 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
1255 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
1256 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
1257 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
1259 * Send break instead of ^C
1261 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
1262 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
1263 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
1265 * Remote protocol timeout
1267 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
1268 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
1269 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
1271 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
1273 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
1274 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
1275 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
1276 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
1277 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
1279 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
1280 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
1281 automatically on hpux10.
1283 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
1285 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
1287 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
1289 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
1290 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
1291 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
1292 every character. The default value is 1050.
1294 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
1296 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
1297 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
1298 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
1299 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
1300 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
1301 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
1303 * Speedups for remote debugging
1305 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
1306 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
1307 and more efficient S-record downloading.
1309 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
1311 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
1312 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
1314 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
1316 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
1318 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
1319 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
1321 * Remote targets use caching
1323 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
1324 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
1325 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
1326 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
1327 off' turns the the data cache off.
1329 * Remote targets may have threads
1331 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
1332 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
1333 gdb/remote.c for details.
1337 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
1338 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
1339 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
1340 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
1341 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
1342 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
1343 sequence is something like
1345 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
1347 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
1351 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
1352 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
1353 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
1354 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
1355 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
1356 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
1357 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
1358 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
1362 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
1363 but does simplify configuration and building.
1367 GDB now supports hpux10.
1369 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
1371 * New native configurations
1373 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
1374 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
1375 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
1376 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
1380 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
1381 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
1382 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
1383 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
1386 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
1388 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
1389 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
1390 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
1391 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
1392 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
1394 * Arguments to user-defined commands
1396 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
1397 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
1400 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
1402 To execute the command use:
1405 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
1406 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
1407 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
1409 * New `if' and `while' commands
1411 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
1412 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
1413 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
1414 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
1415 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
1416 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
1417 if the expression is zero.
1419 * Fortran source language mode
1421 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
1422 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
1423 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
1424 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
1427 * Better HPUX support
1429 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
1430 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
1431 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
1432 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
1433 that behavior do the following before running the program:
1439 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
1440 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
1446 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
1447 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
1450 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
1451 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
1453 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
1455 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
1456 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
1457 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
1458 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
1459 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
1460 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
1462 * New DOS host serial code
1464 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
1465 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
1468 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
1470 * New "complete" command
1472 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
1473 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
1475 * Trailing space optional in prompt
1477 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
1478 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
1480 * Breakpoint hit counts
1482 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
1483 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
1484 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
1485 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
1486 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
1489 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
1491 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
1492 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
1493 arrays actually contain only short strings.
1495 * Shared library breakpoints
1497 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
1498 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
1500 * Hardware watchpoints
1502 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
1503 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
1505 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
1509 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
1510 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
1512 * Improved Irix 5 support
1514 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
1516 * Improved HPPA support
1518 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
1520 * New native configurations
1522 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
1523 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
1524 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
1525 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
1529 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
1530 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
1533 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
1535 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
1536 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
1540 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
1541 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
1543 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
1545 * Irix 5 is now supported
1549 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
1550 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
1551 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
1552 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
1553 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
1556 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
1558 * User visible changes:
1562 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
1563 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
1564 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
1565 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
1566 debugging info for the mips target).
1568 * DEC Alpha native support
1570 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
1571 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
1572 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
1573 Alpha-specific notes.
1575 * Preliminary thread implementation
1577 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
1579 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
1581 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
1582 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
1585 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
1587 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
1588 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
1589 call methods, ...etc.
1591 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
1593 * User visible changes:
1595 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
1596 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
1597 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
1598 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
1600 Filename completion now works.
1602 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
1603 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
1604 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
1606 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
1607 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
1608 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
1609 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
1610 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
1614 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
1615 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
1618 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
1622 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
1623 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
1624 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
1628 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
1629 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
1630 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
1631 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
1632 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
1636 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
1637 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
1638 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
1640 * New targets supported
1642 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
1643 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
1644 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
1645 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
1646 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
1648 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
1649 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
1650 GO32 memory extender.
1652 * New remote protocols
1654 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
1656 * New source languages supported
1658 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
1659 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
1660 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
1663 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
1665 * HP Precision Architecture supported
1667 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
1668 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
1669 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
1670 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
1671 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
1672 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
1674 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
1676 * Faster and better demangling
1678 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
1679 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
1680 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
1681 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
1682 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
1683 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
1686 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
1687 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
1688 compiler does not actually implement.
1690 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
1692 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
1693 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
1694 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
1695 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
1696 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
1697 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
1700 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
1701 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
1703 * Improved configure script
1705 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
1706 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
1707 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
1708 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
1710 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
1711 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
1712 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
1713 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
1714 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
1715 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
1717 * Documentation improvements
1719 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
1720 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
1721 before submitting changes.
1723 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
1724 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
1725 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
1726 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
1727 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
1729 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
1730 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
1731 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
1732 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
1733 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
1734 around this problem.
1738 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
1739 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
1740 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
1743 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
1744 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
1746 * New native hosts supported
1748 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
1749 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
1751 * New targets supported
1753 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
1755 * New file formats supported
1757 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
1758 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
1762 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
1764 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
1765 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
1767 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
1768 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
1769 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
1771 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
1772 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
1774 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
1775 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
1776 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
1779 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
1780 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
1781 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
1782 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
1783 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
1785 * Internal improvements
1787 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
1788 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
1790 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
1791 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
1792 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
1793 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
1794 shared code that handles any of them.
1796 * New command line options
1798 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
1802 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
1803 General Public License.
1805 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
1807 * Host/native/target split
1809 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
1810 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
1811 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
1812 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
1813 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
1815 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
1816 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
1817 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
1818 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
1819 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
1820 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
1821 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
1823 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
1824 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
1825 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
1827 * New hosts supported
1829 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
1830 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1831 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
1833 * New targets supported
1835 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
1836 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
1838 * New native hosts supported
1840 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
1841 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
1842 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
1844 * New file formats supported
1846 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
1847 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
1848 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
1852 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
1853 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
1854 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
1856 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
1858 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
1859 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
1860 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
1861 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
1865 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
1866 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
1867 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
1869 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
1873 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
1874 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
1877 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
1878 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
1880 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
1881 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
1882 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
1883 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
1884 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
1885 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
1887 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
1888 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
1889 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
1890 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
1894 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
1895 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
1896 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
1897 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
1898 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
1900 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
1901 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
1902 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
1903 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
1907 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
1908 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
1909 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
1910 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
1911 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
1912 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
1913 each instruction being stepped through.
1915 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
1916 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
1918 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
1919 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
1920 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
1921 processor with a serial port.
1925 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
1926 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
1927 supported, and what files each one uses.
1931 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
1932 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
1933 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
1934 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
1936 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
1937 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
1938 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
1939 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
1943 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
1944 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
1945 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
1946 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
1947 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
1948 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
1950 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
1953 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
1955 * Better support for C++ function names
1957 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
1958 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
1959 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
1960 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
1961 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
1963 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
1964 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
1965 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
1966 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
1967 for the list of formats.
1969 * G++ symbol mangling problem
1971 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
1972 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
1973 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
1974 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
1975 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
1976 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
1979 * New 'maintenance' command
1981 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
1982 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
1983 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
1985 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
1986 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
1987 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
1988 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
1989 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
1990 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
1992 The following commands are new:
1994 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
1995 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
1996 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
1998 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
2000 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
2001 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
2002 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
2003 read after argv processing.
2005 * New hosts supported
2007 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
2009 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
2011 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
2012 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
2013 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
2014 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
2015 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
2018 * New targets supported
2020 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
2022 * More smarts about finding #include files
2024 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
2025 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
2026 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
2027 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
2028 the one that contains your sources.
2030 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
2031 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
2032 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
2034 * Interesting infernals change
2036 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
2037 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
2038 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
2039 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
2041 * Bug fixes (of course!)
2043 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
2044 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
2045 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
2047 See the ChangeLog for details.
2049 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
2051 * New machines supported (host and target)
2053 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
2055 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
2057 * New malloc package
2059 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
2060 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
2061 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
2062 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
2063 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
2064 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
2068 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
2069 'help info proc' for details.
2071 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
2073 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
2074 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
2077 * File name changes for MS-DOS
2079 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
2080 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
2081 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
2082 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
2083 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
2084 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
2086 * Cross byte order fixes
2088 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
2089 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
2091 * New -mapped and -readnow options
2093 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
2094 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
2095 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
2096 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
2097 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
2098 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
2099 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
2100 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
2101 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
2102 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
2104 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
2105 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
2106 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
2107 slower, but makes future operations faster.
2109 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
2110 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
2111 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
2114 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
2116 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
2117 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
2118 shared across multiple host platforms.
2120 * longjmp() handling
2122 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
2123 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
2124 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
2125 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
2129 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
2130 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
2135 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
2136 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
2137 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
2139 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
2141 * New machines supported (host and target)
2143 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2145 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
2146 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
2148 * New machines supported (target)
2150 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
2154 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
2155 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
2156 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
2158 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
2159 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
2160 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
2161 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
2162 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
2165 * New features for SVR4
2167 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
2168 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
2169 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
2171 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
2172 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
2173 it prints the address mappings of the process.
2175 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
2176 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
2178 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
2180 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
2181 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
2182 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
2183 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
2184 same code linked statically.
2188 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
2189 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
2190 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
2191 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
2192 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
2193 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
2197 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2198 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2199 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2202 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
2204 * New machines supported (host and target)
2206 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
2207 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
2208 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
2210 * Almost SCO Unix support
2212 We had hoped to support:
2213 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
2214 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
2215 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
2216 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
2218 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
2220 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
2221 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
2222 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
2223 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
2228 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
2229 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
2230 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
2234 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
2235 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
2236 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
2238 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
2240 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
2241 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
2242 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
2244 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
2245 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
2246 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
2247 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
2250 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
2251 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
2252 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
2253 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
2256 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
2257 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
2260 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
2261 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
2262 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
2265 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
2267 * Improved configuration
2269 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
2270 Porting BFD is simpler.
2274 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
2275 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
2276 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
2277 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
2281 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
2283 * New host supported (not target)
2285 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
2288 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
2290 * Multiple source language support
2292 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
2293 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
2294 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
2295 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
2296 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
2297 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
2301 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
2302 currently under development at the State University of New York at
2303 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
2304 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
2306 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
2307 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
2308 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
2310 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
2311 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
2315 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
2316 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
2317 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
2318 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
2321 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
2323 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
2324 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
2325 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
2326 examining core files.
2330 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
2333 * New machines supported (host and target)
2335 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
2336 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
2337 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
2339 * New hosts supported (not targets)
2341 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
2343 * New targets supported (not hosts)
2345 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
2346 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
2347 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
2349 * New remote interfaces
2355 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
2359 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
2361 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
2362 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
2363 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
2364 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
2365 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
2366 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
2367 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
2368 stub on the target system.
2370 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
2372 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
2373 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
2374 object file types such as a.out and coff.
2376 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
2377 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
2380 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
2382 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
2383 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
2385 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
2386 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
2387 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
2389 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
2390 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
2391 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
2392 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
2394 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
2395 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
2396 it is already running. Default is ON.
2398 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
2399 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
2400 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
2401 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
2404 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
2405 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
2406 or the value of the environment variable
2409 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
2410 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
2413 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
2414 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
2415 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
2417 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
2418 history expansion will be performed on
2419 command line input. The default is OFF.
2421 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
2422 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
2423 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
2425 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
2426 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
2427 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2430 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
2431 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
2432 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
2435 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
2436 ``set width'' instead.
2438 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
2439 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
2440 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
2441 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
2443 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
2446 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
2449 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
2452 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
2455 * Support for Epoch Environment.
2457 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
2458 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
2459 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
2463 * Support for Shared Libraries
2465 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
2466 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
2467 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
2468 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
2469 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
2470 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
2471 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
2472 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
2474 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
2475 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
2476 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
2478 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
2483 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
2484 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
2485 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
2486 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
2487 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
2488 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
2490 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
2492 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
2494 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2495 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2496 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
2499 * C++ multiple inheritance
2501 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
2504 * C++ exception handling
2506 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
2507 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
2508 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
2511 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
2512 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
2513 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
2515 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
2516 current stack frame.
2519 * Minor command changes
2521 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
2522 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
2523 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
2525 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
2526 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
2527 frames without printing.
2529 * New directory command
2531 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
2532 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
2533 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
2534 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
2535 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
2537 * Configuring GDB for compilation
2539 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
2542 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
2543 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
2544 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
2545 where the program that you are debugging will run.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blob